Here’s Johnny!!!!!!

I’ve been writing about the darker side of femininity, although today the man is going to take the spotlight in all of his nurturing glory. I’ve written about the concept of the “Karen,” and I’ve written about the science behind whether women really do tend to be attracted to men who exhibit characteristics of the so called “Dark Triad.” Here are the posts if you haven’t read them or would like a refresher.

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.wordpress.com/1622

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.wordpress.com/1655

Now that you have some context….I’m going to wine for a bit. Hopefully I at least make it entertaining so that my readers stay with me. In order to do this though, I will have to bring out twenty year old Curtis and ask his opinion of it. Fifty year old Curtis’s rant would be….shall we say…..less entertaining…..

Twenty something me: Do you women just hate yourselves? You throw away your lives and virtues on dogs that are not worthy to lick the paws of a mangy cur from the gutter, when there are so many men who would love you, value you, respect you, give their lives for you? What did you do that was so terrible that you have to return again and again, to men that lie to you, cheat on you, beat you, take your money and spend it on themselves, father children on you only to abandon you to the street once they have had their way? Why couldn’t Roxane love Cyrano? Why couldn’t Fantine love Jean Valjean?

Fifty year old me, the one who has outlived Cyrano de Bergerac by sixteen years, Alexander the Great by seventeen years, and Joan of Arc by thirty one years….all I have to say is, “You want that sumbitch instead of me? Yeah, that scans. I’m with someone who is five times smarter than you, three times sweeter, and has twenty times the experience you do. And she loves me, so I’m good. Have fun. Hey! I got the coolest meme on Facebook! I’m gonna share that with all my geek buds!”

Now that I have that off my chest, let’s get to the real meat of the subject. The first thing to discus is why does this happen? Once again, lets look at the science and see if it can shed any light on this issue. First the article, then the analysis:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-attraction-doctor/201501/nice-guys-or-bad-boys-what-do-women-want

According to Psychology Today:

“Women’s mate preferences, along these lines, were explored by Buss and Shackelford (2008). The pair gave married individuals questionnaires that assessed both their own value as a mate and their preferences for a mate. Results indicated that women in the study desired men with traits in the following four dimensions:

• Good Genes – Men who are more masculine, physically attractive, good looking, fit, and high in sex appeal.
• Good Investment Ability – Men who have high potential income, are educated, and are older than the woman herself.
• Good Parenting – Men who want a home and children, who are fond of children, who want to raise them well, and are emotionally stable and mature.
• Good Partner – Men who want to be a loving partner.”

Looks like a mixed bag to me. The first two could include subsets of “Dark Triad males,” but I cannot imagine those guys as good parents or partners. So what explains women who want the douchebags who are good looking and rich, but are terrible parents and partners? Again I look at the article for guidance.

“Buss and Shackelford also found significant correlations between the women’s own physical attractiveness and the levels that they expected of male partners on each of the traits. In other words, as the title of their article indicated, they found that “attractive women want it all.” Less attractive women, in contrast, tended to reduce their expectations on all traits across the board, settling for a bit less in each area.

However, the authors hypothesized that depending on the circumstances, some women might employ a mixed-mating strategy. Rather than settling for less-than-ideal traits in one single man, these women would mate with more than one man, to mix-and-match the best traits overall. Usually, this would involve short-term sex (single parenting, cheating, cuckolding, etc.) to get good genes from a fit and masculine man while getting investment and parenting from another man with good resources. Such an arrangement would most likely occur when, 1) the woman was lower in mate value and could not secure a single man high in all traits, and 2) her situation allowed her to mix-and-match without penalty or obstacles.

Thus, women appear to want BOTH the nice guy and bad boy. Ideally, they want to get all of the above in one man. If they cannot find a single man to fit the bill, however, then they might settle for less all around, or mix-and-match between the two types.”

The article also mentions that women often exhibit a change in strategy as they age, younger women going for short term flings, older women going for a long term partner. Which frankly matches what we all thought.

Basically, the why is all about breeding. The bad boy tends to be handsome. The bad boy breaks the rules and (often in the short run) tends to (seams to) be richer than the nice guy who buys into all of societies bullshit and attempts to make it the honest way.

So there you have it folks! The reason women want bad boys is because, they don’t really want bad boys. They want a unicorn. They want perfection. And to be fair, men are the same way. We want the curvy wench who is Mom in the kitchen, a maid in cleaning the house, and a porn star in bed. I don’t doubt this tendency drives women as crazy as the whole “bad boy” thing drives men crazy. But yes, they want tall dark and handsome, the bad boy who grows up and becomes a great parent and father because of their love. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt sometimes it happens. And yes, the love of a good woman hopefully does help us grow (having said that, if you don’t think it works the other way too, you are fooling yourself).

At least in my experience, bad people just stay bad. The whole growing up thing…..I know it is a process, but the Dark Triad folks….I’m sorry, but all their growth entails learning how better to manipulate and use you.

Let me know if this was helpful (or too bitter….or not bitter enough), and I’m quite open to ideas, so if you want to read about a certain topic, let me know in the comments and I’ll see what I can do. Hopefully next Monday I’ll have a post about what we can do about this scenario (believe it or not, yes, there is something to do besides wining or joining a monastery). Peace out ya romantic scamps you…..