The good girl / bad boy paradigm somewhat explained?
So it's been on my mind a lot lately why in the world I've spent my life trying to understand men. Just exactly WHY you can love baseball and football, be intelligent and moderately cute, have integrity and values, not mind if a date consists of beer, pizza, and a rugby game, like hunting dogs and loud music, enjoy time with the guys, hate frilly things but still be extremely feminine, almost NEVER call unless you're calling the guy back or you have a reason, and through long years of training hardly EVER bitch and whine and nag like the common girl and STILL BE SINGLE.
This isn't just me. This applies to some of my other friends too. Those of us who spent college with our guy friends because we think girls are silly and two-faced, not realizing the irony of that as we're learning all the things guys say behind girls' backs and taking notes... "Don't call before noon -- that's psycho... don't call more than once every three days or so, that's psycho too. Don't cry - it's blackmail, AND it's annoying. Don't nag or bitch - it pisses them off and they don't listen anyway. Don't ramble (I'm bad about this one when I'm drunk, I admit) because it's annoying - they don't care about what you did at work today or that bitch that stole your last boyfriend. Guys need guy time - you don't always have to be there. Respect their guy time - Nintendo/ Xbox/ Playstation/ VH1/ baseball on tv/ guitar practice is a must for them to maintain sanity... Etc, etc, etc."
That doesn't even go into the sex thing. Suffice it to say that you would think an extremely healthy libido would certainly not hurt the above-type girl.
So here's where we get to the kicker. I have figured out why. It's because the girl described above cannot break out of the "Going for Assholes" pattern.
Because we've been raised with brothers or only ever had guy friends, we see what's human about a stone-cold player. Add this to the innate female need to think, "Maybe he really does care about me, maybe I'm different and I can change him" and you have a recipe for a disastrous life spent all alone.
I actually had a conversation yesterday with a friend of mine -- we were psychoanalizing the behavior of a guy I've been trying to decode for quite some time now, and she said, "Is he just shitty? I mean, could he just be a shitty person?"
I went through this thing about, "Well, he IS an asshole -- but it's just because he says exactly what he thinks and doesn't temper it. You know I like that in a man. He's really smart and funny, so it's bearable. And yeah, he never answers a call or a text message unless he wants something or is in a really charitable mood, but when we hang out he's so sweet -- way different than when there are people around. I think maybe he doesn't understand about having girl FRIENDS... And I haven't bugged him or been psycho, but he doesn't talk abou it when something's bothering him. It's like he's cold, hot, cold, hot..."
Hmmm.... well.... YES. He's probably just a shitty person. But there I am, giving him the benefit of the doubt, which is the story of my life: I make excuses for assholes. I'm a pro. I should go into the "Asshole Apologetics" business. Why?
The crux of the problem is that I see their POTENTIAL. What they COULD be. The man they can become, blah, blah, blah. And while I want desperately to be the one who saves the day and wins their heart and pulls them out of the darkness of drinking and whoring and sucking at life, usually, they don't want that. But a good player can read an idiot like me a mile away. "Look at this," he says. "Look how easy this is. Throw in a couple of lines about making me want to be a better man and believing the world can be saved and 'I don't want you to trust me, I want to prove it,' and she's putty in my hands. Why shouldn't I add her to the rotation? It doesn't come any easier than this!"
That's not to imply that I, or any other girl like me, is easy. Matter of fact, we're harder than most. But a good player knows the secret is the FRIEND key. "I'm an asshole, but I like you. I'm a jerk, but I'm different with you. You're not like those other whores... there's something about you that makes me believe that people are still good at heart... There I was, wondering what life was about, and in walks this little redhead... You saved me... blah, blah, blah...."
Then, as soon as your fences are down, THEN begin the mood swings, the shady business, the evasive answers... and often it's before the girl even wants anything from the relationship. You want to know why we're all guarded and cynical? That's part of it. Sad when there's actually a guy that means that stuff. I laugh at those lines now, and that kinda sucks.
To sum it up, girls, we go for the asshole because he's predictable. You know in your heart that someday he's gonna turn around and just SUCK big honkers. You know in your heart that he's never going to see you for the perfect girlfriend you could be because he's so busy looking for the next challenge. You know in your heart this could never be a real relationship and that in the end, even long years later, you'll be back out in the dating world.
My theory is that we're scared to commit too. That's why we go for jerks. We're terrified of that nice guy from church that wants to actually take us on a date and comments on how pretty we look today. Think about the lame excuses you've used... "I've just been busy... I was going to call you back... I'm so glad you're such a good friend..." Yeah, does that sound familiar? You know as well as I do that the only time you notice that nice guy sitting next to you is when he gives up on you and is in love with your best friend and you realize that she got the better deal because the asshole of the week just told you to get the hell over it when you asked him why he was acting so bizarre these days.
When a jerk rejects you, you can say, "Well, he's just too stupid to konw what he had. He's way below me. He's not even in my league. One day he'll realize how lucky he was to even have a girl like me NOTICE HE'S ALIVE."
Yeah, but a nice guy disses you, and it's because there's something wrong with you. You can't claim he's stupid or jerky or that he just didn't know what he had... the fact is that he didn't want YOU. I've gone for one or two nice guys in my time, but I think I chose them because I knew there was no way they would ever want me. They would go for my beautiful roommate or my slim, size 2 best friend. I chose the unattainable good guy so I could tell myself, "look, see? Good guys don't like me."
Now that I'm older than God, the good guys are mostly taken, or they're doing what I do... nursing their heartache or feeding their demons or whatever... it's that self-destructive cycle where we boost our ego by saying, "I always WAS too good for him... If I weren't so wonderful and misunderstood and unappreciated, I wouldn't be so glorious... It's so hard to be me."
Maybe we all just need to get the hell over it.