What is it about the bad boy that we find so appealing?
Why – despite the fact that he’s a good-looking scoundrel who’s guaranteed to bring us nothing but heartache and betrayal – do we still want him, chase him… need him?
Is it because he’s handsome? That’s undoubtedly part of his appeal. Is it because he’s an alpha male, so difficult to domesticate that if we do get him to commit, we’ve won the ultimate prize? Certainly.
Whatever it is, they captivate us, these bad boys. They romance us, seduce us, and then, inevitably… they leave us. And the thing is, we know they’ll leave us. Yet we keep coming back for more.
Bad boys, whether real or fictional, have attracted women from the beginning of time. Lord Byron, Rhett Butler, James Dean, Warren Beatty, Daniel Cleaver, and, more recently, Robert Pattinson and Stephen Moyer… we’re inexorably drawn to these men like fashionistas to a sample sale.
Lady Caroline Lamb once famously said that the Romantic poet, Lord Byron, was “mad, bad and dangerous to know.”
She spoke from bitter experience. Although married, she succumbed to Byron’s charms. Their affair was brief but scandalous. Bryon ended it, spurning Lady Caroline and leaving her so heartbroken that she never quite recovered. He went on to take other lovers, one of them rumored to be his own half-sister, Augusta Leigh.
He was a classic bad boy.
Big, Carrie’s paramour on “Sex in the City,” was wealthy, attractive, and powerful – and regularly left her either disappointed or heartbroken (or both). Yet she couldn’t stay away from him for long. Samantha made a career out of dating (and bedding) a dizzying string of bad boys. And Miranda ditched sweet, good-natured Steve for a brief but intense fling with a sexy sports doctor who moved into her building – and her bed.
Are these women crazy? Self-destructive? Maybe. But just like Carrie and Samantha and Miranda, we keep falling for the bad boy’s charms because, deep down in our female psyches, we’re convinced that our love will change him…
… until we realize that it won’t.
For those who prefer a more supernatural bad boy, there’s the vampire. What do women find so appealing about a vampire? We know there’s no such thing; and we’d probably run away screaming if we came face to face with an actual card-carrying, blood-sucking member of the undead.
Yet we swoon over Dracula, the vampire Lestat, Bill Compton, and Edward Cullen. Could we be the one to soothe the vampire’s dark, tormented soul? Could our love save him from the very depths of nothingness and despair? Yes, we imagine, and once we do, we’ll forge a love together that’s so passionate, so all-consuming, that it’s… immortal. What could be hotter than that?
Answer: Not much.
No ordinary guy can possibly compete with a man – human or not – like that. Of course, fiction and real life are very different things. While vampires and dangerous men provide a welcome and exciting distraction from our daily (and often dull and/or frantic) lives, and fill a need deep within, would we really want a bad boy outside the pages of a book or a television screen? Probably not.
Because in the real world, after the bad boy trashes our heart and turns it inside out, most of us would much rather find lasting, uncomplicated love with a man who loves us back. There’s nothing better than to love – and be loved – in return.
If you’re lucky enough to find a guy who’s willing to take the garbage out or change a diaper, someone who has dinner on the table – without being asked – when you get home from a long day at work, congratulations. You’ve found a keeper.
Sorry, bad boys – but the good guy always wins, and not just in fiction.
Oh, we’ll still read about you handsome scoundrels in books, and watch you in movies and television shows, and dream of being Bella to your Edward, or Lady Caroline Lamb to your Lord Byron.
But as for me – I’ll take the steady, dependable guy who gets along with my mother, mows the lawn, and makes better meatballs than I do. Oh, and the bonus? He really loves me, too.
Top that, Edward Cullen.
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