The Quintessential Bad Boy: Why Girls Can’t Resist Him

The world has never been able to reverse this phenomenon. The female species commit all sorts of travesties including going on dumb-mode just to be “his” girl. Hey break their Mom’s heart and consider criminal behavior just for him. His debonair smile and devil-may-care package is potent enough to dilute reservations and throw caution to the winds. Why do girls always fall for the bad boy?

For some reason, our synapses connect “bad” with “fertile.” I’m pretty sure there’s scientific backing for this claim. Consider the nerd who is paid to do other kids’ homework. Line him up next to the bad boy who has several misdemeanors. Who do you want jumping your bones? Most people wanna see the latter’s misdemeanors…in bed. It’s never been just a fortune cookie sentiment, world! If he’s that intense in everyday life, man, imagine the intensity to woo you…under the sheets! Someone, hand me a fan! Girls may not actually want his kid but his demonstration of how to make one is definitely worth trampling over the geek to get to him.

Bad-ass connotes protection. If he’s already protecting his own interests in ways that shock his parents and has other men shy away, he’s gonna protect you (should you win his heart). Girls like it when their man lets the world know what’s his and what messy consequences will ensue should encroachment take place. At the heart of it all, he’s got a winning confidence that we would like to cultivate for ourselves.

Bad is tame-able (or so we think). Here’s the downfall of it all. We see him, his cocky smile has an absurd gravitational pull we (and every other girl) can’t resist and we think that if we’re with him long enough, we can turn that grin into a soft, paternal smile one day. As much as we want our knight in shining armor, we’d like to do a little rescuing ourselves. There’s a chip on his shoulder. I can patch it up. His jokes are crude and insensitive. Totally fixable. He has feelings – real feelings! – buried deep, deep inside. I can uncover them. He becomes a project we hope will (eventually) come to impress Mom and Dad. We forget that he’s not malleable. Isn’t that why we fell for him in the first place – for his confidence, self-assuredness and abject refusal to fit into a boring mold?

That, my friends, is why girls fall for bad guys in a nutshell. For hot romancin’, protection and the hopes of turning him into the sensitive, considerate geek we overlooked from the get-go. It’s, irrefutably, one of the most commonly played out love-turned-heartbreak scenarios since cavemen days.