Bad boy or Good boy

[Preety_India]

Just now, Emerald said:

Good "boys". No contest.

Bad boys are really just scrubs. I've never met a bad boy who wasn't one. 

Bad boys are tiring and weigh your life down. And they don't make good fathers because their lives are usually falling apart from making terrible decisions... as they have weak moral fiber. 

I feel like someone who prefers bad boys has never actually had a relationship to one.

My 4 year relationship to a bad boy (age 16-20) ended up with him breaking a beer bottle and holding it up to my neck and threatening to kill me. And he was always in and out of jail for stupid shit. And he was high all the time. He couldn't hold onto a job. But I was so attached to him and had weak boundaries, that it took me 4 years to realize how bad it all was.

There is a romantic pop image of the bad boy. And the trope of the bad boy with a good heart.

But the reality of being with a bad boy is that it's absolutely underwhelming and anxiety provoking. And it will absolutely suck your life down to ground. 

It's exciting for like a month, and then it just drags you. 

By the way, here's a great song about leaving a relationship with a "bad boy". It reminds me a bit of when I was 20 when I finally had the clarity to leave...

 

 

Absolutely true. There's a ton of wisdom in this post. I'm sorry you went through that experience. I went through a similar one recently, got myself back up, pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got the hell out of it. It was such a relief when I did it. 

All the initial high dose  sexual attraction is simply not worth investing in. 

And when you finally move on, you're no longer attracted to them the way you once were. The illusion begins to fall off. 

 

[Karmadhi]

You want the bad boy sexually, you want the mix between bad boy and good boy emotionally and you want the good boy logically. Very simple.

[Emerald]

2 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

Absolutely true. There's a ton of wisdom in this post. I'm sorry you went through that experience. I went through a similar one recently, got myself back up, pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got the hell out of it. It was such a relief when I did it. 

All the initial high dose  sexual attraction is simply not worth investing in. 

And when you finally move on, you're no longer attracted to them the way you once were. The illusion begins to fall off. 

Yeah, the illusion becomes a lot easier to see through once we've been around the block and cleared out our own emotional stuff that lead to the bad relationships.

Truly, a lot of what being a "bad boy" is based on is a compensation for traumas and emotional issues. 

So, bad boy behavior can be kind of like the Napoleon complex.

They put on a tough front to hide their weaknesses and vulnerabilities from others... and from themselves.

Like my ex-boyfriend was always putting on a tough front and acting like a bad ass. But then he'd have big emotional breakdowns about once a week and be threatening to commit suicide if I don't do this or because I did that. 

And not to shame anyone who gets into that position where they're having those big emotional breakdowns, but it's just really detrimental and soul sucking to be in a relationship to such a person. It doesn't give you what you're really looking for. A bad boy is not capable of truly holding a woman because he himself is not stable.

But I do feel like that pop culture image of the bad boy is a bit of a female wish fulfillment fantasy. Like being able to have the bad boy and tame them. 

But it's much more empowering to be with a good boy and then seduce his fierce side up out of him... 

And the flavor of the goodness is much better. But the idea of a good boy is boring. But when he's really a good man, the reality is anything but boring. 

It reminds me a bit of this quote by Simone Weil...

 

[Preety_India]

@Emerald oh yeah. 

1 minute ago, Emerald said:

Yeah, the illusion becomes a lot easier to see through once we've been around the block and cleared out our own emotional stuff that lead to the bad relationships.

Truly, a lot of what being a "bad boy" is based on is a compensation for traumas and emotional issues. 

So, bad boy behavior can be kind of like the Napoleon complex.

They put on a tough front to hide their weaknesses and vulnerabilities from others... and from themselves.

Like my ex-boyfriend was always putting on a tough front and acting like a bad ass. But then he'd have big emotional breakdowns about once a week and be threatening to commit suicide if I don't do this or because I did that. 

And not to shame anyone who gets into that position where they're having those big emotional breakdowns, but it's just really detrimental and soul sucking to be in a relationship to such a person. It doesn't give you what you're really looking for. A bad boy is not capable of truly holding a woman because he himself is not stable.

But I do feel like that pop culture image of the bad boy is a bit of a female wish fulfillment fantasy. Like being able to have the bad boy and tame them. 

But it's much more empowering to be with a good boy and then seduce his fierce side up out of him... 

And the flavor of the goodness is much better. But the idea of a good boy is boring. But when he's really a good man, the reality is anything but boring. 

It reminds me a bit of this quote by Simone Weil...

 

That quote nails it perfectly, all this charade between imaginary creations of the bad boy image instilled by popular media and reality of it. 

 

[Preety_India]

30 minutes ago, Etherial Cat said:

Yup. But some people feed themselves on pain, which is why they pick a premium provider.

I don't think I agree with this 

 

[hyruga]

Good or bad is just a personal opinion of every single person. They will choose a trait that they think of a person and then they will justify it with reasons for themselves.

For example, I take Bill Gates as an example. Most people will regard him as a good guy. Then when I ask you to justify? You can easily come up with reasons like He donates a lot, he helps to reduce the spread of Malaria...tons of reasons actually.

Then someone will say Bill Gates is a bad guy. Then they can easily come up with reasons too. He's a Harvard school DROPOUT ffs, he built the evil Windows empire blah blah...many reasons actually.

So end of the day, your mind is playing tricks on you.

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by hyruga

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, hyruga said:

Good or bad is just a personal opinion of every single person. They will choose a trait that they think of a person and then they will justify it with reasons for themselves.

For example, I take Bill Gates as an example. Most people will regard him as a good guy. Then when I ask you to justify? You can easily come up with reasons like He donates a lot, he helps to reduce the spread of Malaria...tons of reasons actually.

Then someone will say Bill Gates is a bad guy. Then they can easily come up with reasons too. He's a Harvard school DROPOUT ffs, he built the evil Windows empire blah blah...many reasons actually.

So end of the day, your mind is playing tricks on you.

We're talking about the socially understood dichotomy of "good boy vs bad boy".

It's more of a cultural understanding than any kind of absolute truth.

I would say that there's a strong case that Bill Gates is a "bad guy" because of some of his business practices.

But no one thinks of him as a "bad boy" as he doesn't fit that cultural archetype.

 

[Hardkill]

You guys should read Alan Roger Currie's on the 4 archetypes of men. According to him, the type of men most women truly want is an alpha male with a few beta traits. Read this article in depth, click on each of the categories on there and read each one of those in depth, and let me know what you guys think: http://directapproachdating.com/2016/02/25/alpha-vs-beta-attributes-examining-the-four-archetypes-of-men/

[Emerald]

14 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

How I perceive bad boys and its social glamorization:

 

Gaston is such an underrated Disney villain. 

Sometimes I wonder if that's what the boys here hold as our secret ideal mate.

....You know, the one we don't want to admit we're attracted to as per our inner baboonish female instinct! 

I'm still in disbelief that this is not obvious. Yet, we have all fell for it at least once, so...

Yup. Twilight, 50 shades of Grey and the likes...

That's the choice of the connoisseur. I anyway believe it sparks instinctively whenever necessary if he feels like you need protection... Or whenever you get him crazy .

Yup. But some people feed themselves on pain, which is why they pick a premium provider.

Haha! Yeah, I think most of them would think we'd be into a Gaston-type character with their outlook on female sexuality and human sexuality in general. 

I relate this to Jung's phases of Anima/Animus integration...

Now, the Gaston-type will work for women at the very first state of Animus Integration... which is the man of pure physical strength. These are women who don't yet have a good relationship to their masculine side. And so, they attract and are attracted to a man who mirrors the current state of their Animus.

There are four phases of Animus integration, that reveal themselves in the types of men that women are attracted to...

1. The Strong Man - The man whose allure is in his physical strength
2. The Man with a Plan - The man whose allure is in his ability to take strategic action
3. The Intellectual/Scholar - The man whose allure is in his intellectual prowess
4. Hermes - The man whose allure is in his connection to the Divine Masculine. (At this phase a woman possesses the capacity to see men as full human beings who are distinct from their Animus image, and as beings that are capable of both good and evil.)

These correspond to the four phases of Anima integration in men...

1. Eve - The woman who is both incapable and untrustworthy
2. Helen - The woman who is capable and untrustworthy
3. Mary - The saintly sacralized angel mother who is above human flaw
4. Sophia - The woman who is in touch with Divine Feminine. (At this phase a man possesses the capacity to see women as full human beings who are distinct from their Anima image, and as beings that are capable of both good and evil.)

Ultimately, I think this is why so many men on here have an issue with seeing women outside of the first couple levels of development. You can't really expect a man who is in phase one or two of Anima integration to understand (or trust) women who are in stages three and four of Animus integration. You can tell them until you're blue in the face, but they just don't know the Feminine deeply enough in themselves to really understand.

But of course, at earlier phases of Animus Integration, women often are attracted to men who are like a Gaston type. So, confirmation bias will make it seem like women are all secretly attracted to the Gastons of the world... when that arrogant personality type is actually quite repulsive and annoying. 

[Gesundheit]

Ironically, every woman on here that says bad boys are not attractive turned out to have dated one at some point.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Gesundheit

[ilja]

16 hours ago, Emerald said:

My 4 year relationship to a bad boy (age 16-20) ended up with him breaking a beer bottle and holding it up to my neck and threatening to kill me. And he was always in and out of jail for stupid shit. And he was high all the time. He couldn't hold onto a job. But I was so attached to him and had weak boundaries, that it took me 4 years to realize how bad it all was.

Yeah, that was also about the time a girl needed to break up with me when I was severely dysfunctional.

[Emerald]

5 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

Ironically, every woman on here that says bad boys are not attractive turns out to have dated one at some point.

Hence why they become unattractive. You get to see the weakness and instability behind the bad boy facade. The illusion of strength loses its charm when you can see through it to the weaknesses. 

Bad boys are a lot like Chihuahuas. They put on a front of jerky masculinity... but underneath there are usually things that they're compensating for.

And again, not to shame anyone who is dealing with those issues. But it becomes unattractive when the badass act is not convincing any longer. 

Also, I worked through my issues with weak boundaries and a desire to save the bad boy from himself. So, I no longer attract that... nor am I attracted to it.

A lot of this has to do with the degree to which women have or haven't worked through their own issues.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Emerald

[Gesundheit]

@Emerald Honestly, I don't buy it. Or to put it better, I don't think that's how it works.

You said in earlier posts that attraction is not a choice, and I agree. But it seems that you're saying a contradicting thing here. It sounds like you're trying to use logic to detach yourself from being attracted to bad boys, just like us men try to rationalize our attraction towards tits to detach from them, when in fact it's still attractive to you, at least on some level, just like tits are attractive to us. I have one more reason to believe that is the case, and that's when you said that a lion tamer is the most attractive.

So, the bad boy feature is fundamentally attractive regardless of how you rationalize it. How you respond to this attraction may differ and get better with experience. But that doesn't make it less attractive. In fact, quite the opposite. It proves that it's almost irresistibly sexy that you're left with no choice other than resorting to logic to save you, even though logic is not your favourite route as a female.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Gesundheit

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

@Emerald Honestly, I don't buy it. Or to put it better, I don't think that's how it works.

You said in earlier posts that attraction is not a choice, and I agree. But it seems that you're saying a contradicting thing here. It sounds like you're trying to use logic to detach yourself from being attracted to bad boys, just like us men try to rationalize our attraction towards tits to detach from them, when in fact it's still attractive to you, at least on some level, just like tits are attractive to us. I have one more reason to believe that is the case, and that's when you said that a lion tamer is the most attractive.

So, the violent feature is fundamentally attractive regardless of how you rationalize it. How you respond to this attraction may differ and get better with experience. But that doesn't make it less attractive. In fact, quite the opposite. It proves that it's almost irresistibly sexy that you're left with no choice other than resorting to logic to save you, even though logic is not your favourite route as a female.

It isn't a choice. I don't choose to be unattracted to assholes. I'm just not attracted to assholes. My body responds aversively to them.

[Gesundheit]

1 minute ago, Emerald said:

It isn't a choice. I don't choose to be unattracted to assholes. I'm just not attracted to assholes. My body responds aversively to them.

Okay. But then how do you distinguish between an asshole and a lion tamer? Because they share many similar appearances, such as strong anterior, confidence, autonomy, etc...

[ilja]

@Etherial Cat are you relatively short?

[Gesundheit]

@Etherial Cat That doesn't make sense, honestly. I mean, you'd still want a bad boy in bed, wouldn't you? Doesn't that suggest that maybe you're still fundamentally into bad boys, but the traumatic experience(s) are telling you otherwise?

In other words, it seems more likely that you'd still go for a bad boy, but due to the pain of the trauma that was caused by one in the past, you're now suppressing your true inclination as a female, and therefore you're having a mind-body reaction due to that trauma.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Gesundheit

[ilja]

@Gesundheit They like bad boys, but they cannot carry them, so they have trauma. So maybe when they will be able to carry them they will go back to bad boys.

[ilja]

@Etherial Cat alright my bad

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

Okay. But then how do you distinguish between an asshole and a lion tamer? Because they share many similar appearances, such as strong anterior, confidence, autonomy, etc...

It's a really intuitive thing. It's not something that you sus out with your mind or try to scan for or categorize. It's a feeling that either arises or doesn't. It's not a rational thing.

It's just that I tend to notice a visceral aversion in my body towards arrogant men... like my body is armoring itself. And it makes sense because these types of guys don't make very good fathers... which is what the female sex drive is about at its core. You need a man who is strong, responsible, and gentle to make a good father.

When potent feelings do arise for a man for me, he usually has the quality of being very stable, warm-hearted, responsible, paternal, and emotionally and socially attuned... but also that I can notice the strong and wild part within him. It's like his sexuality and animalistic nature glitters through his more civilized and responsible expressions. That's what touches the button for me... noticing the sparkle in an otherwise civilized man's eyes. 

And it touches a button as a woman because you know that underneath all of the social accoutrements and trappings, that he is still a lion... but one being tamed by an expert tamer. 

I want to really impress upon you how many magnitudes more attractive a man like this is to me compared to a man who puts his lion out front and center. 

But you don't go consciously looking for guys based on who has this relationship between lion and lion tamer. You're not trying to find a man who fits a mold. It's just an intuitive feeling that you can glean when you interact with a guy. And I find it best to just allow things to unfold organically.

Also, not all men with an integrated lion/lion tamer will click with me. Attraction is a multi-faceted gem, so it isn't just about that.

Also, I want to make sure that you're realizing that I'm largely talking about average guys who have integrated these aspects of themselves that are in the running to become attractive to me. It's not some specimen of man... just an average guy who is integrated. 

I think a lot of time guys tend to doubt women's accounts of what they find attractive because they believe that they're not attractive and this creates an insecurity. And then, it's easier to use confirmation bias to say, "Women only like _____ guys."

But this is a quality that any many can possess through integration... and it will be sooo attractive to so many women.