Issue #77: Gender Psychology: So, You Want to Be a Bad Boy II: Reins and Rumors

A while back, I wrote an article on Gender Psychology called “So, You Want to Be a Bad Boy?” in which I broadly outlined some of the characteristics and traits of a Bad Boy. The article seems to be somewhat popular or useful, as about 150 300 people per week click on it, according to WordPress.

I am constantly getting new material on the subject. I had a pretty-absurd Fall and early Winter 2014, and my condition as a Bad Boy contributed greatly to the Highs and Lows being so pronounced. I will save those stories for a later date, other than to say that that I am on the ground-level as a Bad Boy authority. Short of being involved in an international drug cartel as a meth cook, I cannot envision a more-tumultuous lifestyle.

My lifestyle stands in stark contrast to the lifestyles of my old friends, most of whom I have less in-common with by the day. Most of my friends from High School and College have now been married for a number of years, and most of them are working on their second child. While marriage-and-family is not the path I’ve chosen, I have great respect for those who have chosen to start families. The commitment it takes to build a family, and the transformation I’ve seen many of my friends undergo as they take on spouses and have children, is extraordinary.

My best friend from high school is my primary example. You never think the guy you used to get into childish slap-fights and drink ghetto malt-liquors with before hockey games would develop into a tremendous father and husband, but he has. Almost all of my childhood friends have taken this route, to varying degrees of success.

Then, there’s me. Like Lon Chaney as the Moon grows more Full, I seem to get “Badder” and Wilder by the week.

I’ve written before that my Bad Boy path started in College, when I was the antithesis of the guy you took home to meet the parents. But I was still a college kid with a large support network and an undefined role in the world. I think the expectation from most was that I would eventually evolve and take the more-traditional route of Marriage and Children.

I suppose I still can go that way. But for the moment, I have clearly gone the other way. Like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, I’ve played the Bad Boy role for so long that it has become difficult to separate the actor from the character.

The real change started several years ago, when the first of my friends began to announce their Engagements. There was an unspoken-but-sharp change in the status quo. The normal process of getting blind-drunk, dating strippers, and starting fistfights at dance clubs was suddenly immature and passe. There was an epic shift in both conduct and priorities as most of my peers sought to settle down and wife-up.

For a few years, from ages 24 to 27 or so, I was something of an outcast. Everyone in my peer group was focused on finding a committed, “mature” relationship. Like most people in their mid-20s, I probably attended 10 or 12 weddings in a two-year period. I attended most of them by myself and left many of them with only a well-vodka hangover.

Because I was seemingly not marriage-material, Women of marrying age wanted nothing to do with me. This was a drastic departure from college, when I was in constant high-demand. Interestingly, I continued to appeal to many older women, but both my friends and the girls we went to school with were both highly-invested in their long-term relationships. I was mostly an afterthought.

More recently, since about age 28 or so, there has been another shift. Like all trends, I again became fashionable. While almost everyone I associated with from ages 15-25 has committed to a spouse or had children (or both) and spent the last several years making the requisite personal sacrifices, I’ve been on my own. I have had time to work on myself and to learn a lot of things about the world. At the least, I’ve had a relatively-unique journey.

My married friends and all of the Women who had blown me off to start their families are suddenly very interested in what I am up to. The three or four or five years that they had spent building families, I had spent developing myself in different ways. My decision to do something different with my life is apparently interesting to people who began families shortly after college.

Which brings us to today. My entire thought process and approach to life is so unconventional that Women of all makes and models are attracted to me. I walk through a store and get extended eye-contact from wives, grandmothers, high-school girls, and especially the Women from my peer group who have now been married for a few years. I’ve become a cardinal in a forest full of robins, and for better or worse it has made my Life Experience very interesting.

Because for the moment I have chosen to forgo the comforts of family life, I have had a lot of negative experiences, and I have have had a lot of positive ones. My experiences have been pointed, bordering on extreme. Rather than playing the role of a Bad Boy, as I did when I was younger, I have become one. There is value in what I have learned, and will likely continue to learn, which I share for the benefit of other would-be Bad Boys and interested observers.

Here are more situations you can expect to encounter if you continue to take the Bad Boy track:

The Rumor Mill

The girl I’ve been running around with informed me of a rumor floating around that I had been taking my “Girlfriend” to public skate at the local hockey rink, apparently showing off my gorgeous Bret Hedican-style skating and re-enacting The Cutting Edge.

While my “Mistress” acknowledged that I would have to be unusually-stupid to take my “Girlfriend” to the hockey rink of all places (where my “Mistress” and I met and spend much of our free time), she knows me well enough to know that I’m brazen enough to pull something like that. She also knows that even though I’m crazy and slutty, I’m just not that disrespectful or stupid.

My Mistress pointed out that I am frequently involved in trailer-park dramas and rumors such as this on a regular basis. To cite a few examples, there were widely-circulating rumors that I shortly after moving into town that I was having sex with a pair of 21-year old girls who hated each other (which was traced to the source), that I’m a drug dealer (untraced), that I’m a stripper (partly true – I’m not currently stripping anywhere), and I’ve been linked to a number of women who are known to be unhappily married or recently separated.

Most recently – even since I started the first draft of this article – much was made of the fact I have a Plenty of Fish account. People, grown men and women no less, are so eager to discredit me that they have been running in droves to my Mistress, basically tattling on me and hoping to drive a wedge between us.

My Mistress of course knows about my POF account, because while I am many things, I am neither a Coward nor a Liar. The Women you tend to see on Internet Dating Sites, especially free ones, are like the options on a cheap buffet: you can have as much as you want, but none of it is very good. I am on POF mainly for entertainment value. The idea of finding quality Women on a free dating website seems remote, at best, and honestly I don’t really need help meeting Women. But I digress.

(UPDATE 8/31/15: For as much grief as I’ve gotten about having a POF account, I’ve gotten ten times that amount for having a Tinder account. Every bitter hag in a 100-mile radius can’t wait to tattle to anyone I’ve dated or potentially would date that I am a huge Tinder whore.

You may ask, if it’s such a big deal, why not just get rid of Tinder? I’ll save most of the reasoning for a future valentine to Tinder, which I adore, but for the moment:

A) I miss Tinder most when I am forced to wait for something, which as you know I despise. Like a recovering cigarette smoker, I reach for Tinder by habit every time I’m standing in line at the bank or waiting for my oil to be changed on my car. If I want to look at some pics of the current dating pool while I wait in line at Trader Joe’s, I feel like that’s a reasonable right as a red-blooded American male.

B) 90% of the women I know under the age of 30 have such retarded social skills that they preferentially communicate via text, Facebook, et al. rather than face-to-face. Younger women find the idea of a Man approaching them in a bookstore or at a coffee shop almost confrontational, as it rapidly exposes their inability to socialize like a normal human being.

In the interest of keeping myself sharp, I make myself meet women “80s-style”, meaning in absence of technology, and my experience has been that I receive a lot of odd looks and resistance. 

By rough estimate, I would say 15-20% of women I approach think it’s shady or sketchy that I don’t have a Facebook account. These women automatically disqualify men from dating consideration because they can’t be easily researched on the internet. We have gotten to the point where your electronic Social Proof surpasses your actual Social Value, apparently except in the case of writing.

Many modern single women pine for traditional romance and wish to be wooed, and many will gleefully send nude photos to complete strangers, but they can’t be competently civil when an unfamliar man approaches them. The mindset of the average modern woman necessitates innovations like Tinder, not the other way around.

C) I have met some really good people via Tinder. That’s not code for “thirsty thots”, but I’ve in fact made female friends that I otherwise would not have met. Again, this is just how people meet each other in 2015 2016: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and yes, Tinder.

D) Lastly and most-importantly, certain people think they’re getting over on me by showing my Tinder account to anyone peripherally interested. It tickles me in an indescribable way to dangle my Tinder account in their collective faces, and dare them to confront me in an adult fashion about it.

As a Bad Boy, I thrive on actual confrontation, rather than the passive-aggressive whispering most whelps are reduced to, so I use Tinder as an invitation to engage me. Predictably, I always hear about this nonsense third-hand, as the craven masses feign “nobility” by “warning women about me”.

In American English, the beta males who can’t compete with me try to undermine my relationships with women, and the unfucked fatties who can’t land a boyfriend cattily try to interfere with otherwise-scintillating interactions between consenting adults. 

In short, I kept a Tinder account after beginning a relationship because what I do doesn’t concern 99.99% of the population. I’m disgusted by how much more people care about my social media activity than my actual feelings and thoughts.

Most people wisely don’t engage me in confrontation, but this is your invitation: if you want to know what I think about social media and dating sites in particular, speak to me in-person like a freaking adult. Otherwise, grow up and keep your mouth shut.)

I could care less about rumors involving me. I’ve always been of the “Let’s give ’em something to talk about” disposition. As my friends say, I crave attention, and any kind will do. However, I do get irritated when rumors that might be potentially disrespectful to my Mistress (who’s a peach) start spreading around.

My Mistress heard this latest rumor about “Endless Love in the Dark” from her roommate, who heard it from her 60-year old grandfather, who I have never really spoken with. I did not realize Gramps knew my name, let alone my personal affairs. Round and round the Rumor Mill churns.

My Mistress acknowledged that while I am frequently involved in rumors such as this, she does not fully understand why my name comes up so frequently. I tried to explain to my Mistress, a sweetheart if one ever existed, why a person like me is so often involved in the Rumor Mill. In my view, it boils down to these reasons, all of which tie into my Bad Boy presentation:

1) I look like the sort of guy who would have sex with someone’s wife or girlfriend. I wear a leather jacket and have bags under my usually-bloodshot eyes. I almost comically resemble Charlie Sheen in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. This makes it convenient for me to be a bit actor in the self-serving, constructed dramas of manipulative, petty people.

2) Equally-relevant is the Bad Boy tendency to run off with the local Princess, which I have a striking tendency to do. Whether it’s Ryan Atwood winning the heart of Marissa Cooper or the street-rat Aladdin catching the eye of Princess Jasmine, there is a long-standing tradition of the guy from “the Wrong Side of the Tracks” ending up with particularly-treasured Women.

My Mistress is no different. She is indisputably the local Princess. As such, there are a large number of people who care about her and perhaps cross the line from Protective to Meddlesome. Rather than tell the Princess not to run around with the Bad Boy (which will only encourage her), the Meddlers go the opposite route and try to discredit the Bad Boy. This has been a subplot in so many Disney Movies, Teen Soaps, Vampire novels, and Shakespearean tragedies that I don’t need to list examples.

3) Misery Loves Company. There are countless people in unhappy marriages or relationships who do not want to see other people experiencing something exciting. The appeal of running around with a Bad Boy is that there is a time-limit on the relationship, due to the Bad Boy’s self-destructive nature. This makes every moment together richer and more cherished.

People who have slogged through fundamentally-flawed relationships for years see two people (or in my case three people – make sure you count my “Mistress”  and my “girlfriend”) happy, and immediately try to tear them apart. Again, this concept has appeared all across the land of Fiction for so long that I don’t need to cite specific examples.

As a Bad Boy, people are going to be extremely-reluctant to engage you directly. Aggression, hostility, and unpredictability are all cornerstone attributes of the standard Bad Boy, and many people are cowardly and passive-aggressive. While most people at least know better than to cross a Bad Boy directly, quite a few will plot-and-scheme for months or years in efforts to discredit and undermine the Bad Boy.

Bad Boys are prepared for this. As I wrote in Article I, Bad Boys are extremely-distrustful of people, for many of the reasons described above. My distrust of other people borders on paranoia. But like all Bad Boys, my lack of trust in other people is often warranted, as my Life Experience as a Bad Boy has involved backstabbing and deception rather than support and warmth.

As a Bad Boy, your name will continuously circulate in the Rumor Mill. If you are a legitimate Bad Boy, you will have much larger and more-pressing concerns than the opinions of the narrow-minded. If you are merely pretending to be a Bad Boy, you may have a problem having your reputation constantly run-down. In either case, be prepared.

Becoming Mean

“…I’m already rough
I’m already lean
I’m already wanting to be obscene
I’m already cursed
I’m already dry
I’m already wonderin’ what am I
I’ve already learned a bit of sin
Enough already, let me in…”

– Silversun Pickups, Dots and Dashes

Do you ever watch a movie or TV show and think, ‘I can’t believe he just did that,’ after some anti-hero double-crosses someone or acts in some self-serving way that screws over a lot of other people?

I used to as well. I used to watch Bad Boy archetypes and then imitate them in order to project a Bad Boy image. I did this because it’s really attractive to college girls.

But as I touched upon in the first Bad Boy article, this was a mask that came on and off. As my college roommate once remarked, I ‘took my hat off’ at the end of the day. At one point, it was accurate to say that I was genuinely good-natured.

That seems to have shifted somewhat. While I still Do the Right Thing most of the time, my sensitivity and thought process has changed dramatically.

Most current example: I sold a pair of skates on eBay. The buyer, a whiny malcontent if ever one existed, drove down the price obnoxiously, haggling with me over $5-$10 while claiming that he “absolutely could not pay a dollar more” after I gave him a $50 discount. I gave him a steal on a pair of nearly-new skates because he “just wanted to teach his son how to play hockey”, even though his user name looked like a sporting goods store. But I digress.

Predictably, upon receipt the guy e-mailed me and wanted to return the skates, citing a minor flaw and forgetting that he was shopping at the Internet Flea Market and not Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Also predictably, I sent him a scathing response. I not only belittled him, but I also used the details of the eBay Buyer Agreement to deflate his delusional demand for a return. I had no reason to do this, other than my refusal to accommodate an entitled pussy. It was not enough for me to just win the argument; I had to impart a good deal of shame on some faceless eBay buyer because he tried to make me dote upon him.

Berating some guy on eBay doesn’t make me (or anyone) a Bad Boy. But the mindset, meaning both an unwillingness to acquiesce to a needy person and the desire to extract a Pound of Flesh for being bothered, is a decidedly Bad Boy mentality.

There was a time when I would have talked myself into giving this buyer the benefit of the doubt and returned the guy’s money, albeit angrily. But that time has seemingly come-and-gone.

Becoming Mean is not a recommended way to live, nor is it necessarily a means to an end. It is a consequence of having good-nature exploited too many times.

There have always been people who cut other people in line at the grocery store or dangerously pull out in front of other cars in traffic. Both nice and not-so nice people repeatedly allow this to happen, to differing levels of acceptance. But Bad Boys not only have zero tolerance for inconsiderate or selfish behavior, they actively seek retribution. Not surprisingly, this calloused attitude gets a Bad Boy into a lot of disputes.

Again, being mean does not always correlate with getting results. There are plenty of people who agree that you catch more bees with honey. But a mean streak is an inherent Bad Boy trait, and one that distinguishes the Bad Boy from more well-adjusted types.

High Self-Confidence/Low Self-Control

For reasons I won’t get into here, I’ve recently taken a number of personality/psychological assessments. Don’t worry, they aren’t shipping me off to the loony bin, at least not yet. These tests were more of a formality for work and school opportunities.

I took three separate tests, all of which were different and administered for different reasons. Surprisingly, the feedback was consistent, useful, and in my view accurate.

On all three tests, I tested high for Intelligence, Leadership, and Self-Confidence (huge surprise). All three tests also described me as “easy going”, but they were obviously not administered while I was playing Hockey or putting my foot in someone’s ass. Meanwhile, I consistently tested low for Openness (VAGUE) and Self-Control, again not a major surprise.

What’s interesting is that despite consistently testing low for Self-Control, I have traditionally been referred to a “Control Freak”, which is true in a sense. I will try to explain how this ties into Being a Bad Boy:

I think a common Bad Boy problem is Low Self-Control. To survive in modern society, people like me have had to learn to restrain ourselves to a great degree. I touched upon this in my article on The Wild Side. Because we Bad Boys have such a difficult time controlling ourselves, perhaps many of us fixate on controlling as many external factors as possible.

To cite one example, Christian Troy of Nip/Tuck fame is an obvious Control Freak. In addition to being a textbook Sadist, Christian has an obsession with money, power, and status – all things that allow him to maintain control over his environment and the people around him. Don Draper of Mad Men has similar predilections.

As mentioned in The Wild Side, I focus on routines as a way of controlling myself. For example, developing my body, which involves commitment and discipline to both diet and exercise regimens, is a passion of mine. But I’m Lon Chaney, living a simple life of Reps, Sets, and boring meals only to careen off-course and embrace hedonism with growing regularity.

Here is a direct quote from one of my evaluations:

“…As someone who exerts little control over your actions, you may find that you commit social blunders that might offend other people and get yourself in trouble. For example, if you’re given responsibility to work on a project that requires close attention to detail, you may be likely to overlook important details because you have difficulty staying focused. Consequently, you might feel more comfortable delegating such tasks to other people who are more detail-oriented. Being able to recognize such characteristics in yourself and having more detail-oriented people do such tasks could be an effective way to manage your own stress level.

Low self-control may diminish your effectiveness at work. Acting too relaxed can make it difficult for you to focus on projects that require organized sequences of steps or stages. Thus, your ability to accomplish may be inconsistent. Indeed, it’s possible that you might be criticized periodically for being unreliable or unable to “stay within the lines.” Nonetheless, you may still experience many short-lived pleasures and never be thought of as boring.“

You may or may not know me personally, but that sounds exactly like two people I know: Don Draper and myself. To illustrate my point, you can check out this clip of Don attempting to work.

I am the same. Many Bad Boys are the same. The inability of a Bad Boy to completely control himself is both infuriating and extremely attractive to the fairer sex.

One of the reasons I so enjoy writing is that there are no lines to stay within. I can write about whatever I want. Rather than be chastised for my inability to think like other people, I am rewarded for it.

The downsides of Low-Self Control are obvious. As noted above, I have extremely-mixed results completing step-by-step tasks. Getting along with others in a professional environment is a chore, to say the least. A Bad Boy is easily provoked, and this leads to an almost-unending parade of interpersonal conflicts and disputes with authority figures.

I try to work on my self-control, but it’s like a Hockey Player trying to become a Golfer. The Good News for me is that I am intelligent and at least cognizant of the Bad Boy condition, and this helps me head off a good number of potential problems. Still, even if I catch 90% of these problems in-advance and map-out responsible courses of action, it still seems like I am frequently pulled into fights and romantic entanglements, which I will talk about more below in “The Drama Elixir”.

If you are a Bad Boy wrestling with self-control issues, or if you know one, weigh the points made in this article and consider adopting some sort of productive lifestyle routine. Body Development, Sports, and Writing have all helped me to a large degree, but Low Self-Control requires constant vigilance and a good deal of foresight.

Married Women and Bad Boys

Confession: a Wedding Ring has never served as a stop-sign for me.

This isn’t to say that I go around trying to bewitch wives or wreck homes. But if an attractive Married Woman makes me an aggressive offer, I will usually at least consider it.

There are many exceptions to this: I will not consider Military Wives or the wives of Firefighters. I will not consider the wives of my friends or, God forbid, family. I’m not Marty Brodeur.

But as I wrote above, for me a Wedding Ring has always been more of a blinking Yellow Light rather than a stop-sign. The presence of a ring just makes me consider the situation differently. I think this mentality is unique to the Bad Boy breed.

Daniel Craig as James Bond probably said it best:

Bond: You’re not my type.

Vesper: Smart?

Bond: Single.

My view is not that Bad Boys run around trying to steal involved Women. But the willingness to physically-engage an involved Woman is a very common Bad Boy trait.

When it comes down to it, Bad Boys are animals. Bad Boys take the traditional rules of society with a grain of salt, or at least do not consider them as strongly as more-socialized types. This is both extremely-vexing to society-at-large and extremely-attractive to most Women.

Again, it’s not as though I go around trying to drive a wedge between happily-married couples, or for that matter, people in happy relationships. But as one Woman told me when I was 19, “I’m going to (cheat) with someone, and it might as well be you.”

Take a cursory run through Books, Movies, and Television, and you will see a consistent trend of Bad Boys and involved Women gravitating toward each other. As I have written before, the only guide in situations such as this are the Bad Boy’s conscience, however large or small.

Taking the Reins

Maybe to my own detriment, I have never really lusted for power. In fact, my idea of happiness is being left alone in peace. A book, a comfortable place to sleep, something to exercise with, and something to write with is really all I need to be perfectly content. The brief company of a low-drama lady would be the cherry on the sundae.

My point is that I am not a power-hungry beta nor a would-be cult leader. But ironically, I frequently find myself Taking the Reins in almost every situation I’m involved in. Here is how that ties into Being a Bad Boy:

As I wrote above, I test high for Leadership qualities. This is the direct quote from one of my evaluations:

Perhaps the defining feature that sets you apart from most people is the exceptionally high standards that you set for yourself. Your competence in social gatherings as well as at work should provide ample evidence for this. With these characteristics, it’s very likely that people come to you for advice and generally think of you as someone with leader-like qualities.

This is all true. I don’t want to be in-charge, but I do expect those in-charge to govern fairly, judiciously, and professionally. Typically, I am disappointed because the decision-makers in most cases are crooked and self-serving. Rather than do the French thing and consent to oppression, I do the American thing and fight for Equality and Justice.

Bad Boys are hard-wired like this. While I think Bad Boys are generally loners by-nature, most of us are forced into extended social interaction. I don’t believe most Bad Boys think they are the best and smartest guys for a given job, but I do believe that most Bad Boys think they are better and smarter than the clown in-charge most of the time.

Bad Boys Take the Reins because there is often not a viable alternative. It’s not that a Bad Boy aspires to command, but liars and schemers are frequently those who ascend to authority positions, and most Bad Boys – no matter how rough around the edges – often threaten to trample a House of Cards that a beta social manipulator has carefully constructed.

When combined with a typical Bad Boy’s hair-trigger temper, politicking from a corrupt leadership figure often leads to a conflict. As the politician exposes her or himself as a disingenuous liar, more and more people look to the Bad Boy for guidance and resolve. Bad Boys often take leadership roles if only because they cannot stand the current leader, not because they crave power.

The Drama Elixir

I had an opening written for this section, but this trumps what I was going to write:

A woman just sat down directly across from me. She caught a glimpse of me from across the restaurant I am writing this article in, and walked across the restaurant to sit directly in front of me even though there is plenty of seating available elsewhere. I am experienced enough to pick up on her coy looks and suggestive posture. She wants me to approach and engage her.

I glance over at her. She smiles coyly, and lingers with eye contact. After a moment, she looks down, then looks back at me. She pulls at her sweater a bit and rubs her neck. My expression does not change, but I hold eye contact. There is no verbal exchange, just looks and non-verbal cues. I know this is not the typical for everyone, but it’s typical for me.

In fact, this happens to me often. I do not meet Women because they start casual, normal conversations with me, or by the conventional means that most of my friends have described to me. I probably wouldn’t know an appropriate, normal interaction with a Woman if it hit me across the face. I meet Women because they either bait me with sexual suggestion (to varying degrees of subtlety), or assign me a personality they crave and desperately throw themselves at me. I do not believe as an adult I have ever dated a Woman who started as a friend or via the traditional dinner-dating route.

You might be thinking, “Here he comes again talking about how Hilarious and Sexy he is, Yawn”. I won’t dispute this, but I am also trying to illustrate a point and stay within the scope of the article:

As a Bad Boy, I have a high Potential for Drama, due in large part to the Low Self-Control issues I described above. Many Women, particularly those in the 16-35 age demographic, readily pick up on this using some kind of advanced formula available only to Women. Leather Jacket + Bruises/Cuts on Neck + Contemptuous Look on Face + Muscles + Plain Black T-Shirt + Standoffish Attitude = Drama Reservoir.

I believe what makes a Bad Boy attractive is not necessarily how he looks physically. At the least, I do not believe Looks play the biggest part in the Female-to-Male attraction process as a Woman assesses a Bad Boy. The smaller cues – the hungry & lean look, the scars, the five-o’clock shadow, the distant look in the eyes – are what attract certain Women to Bad Boys.

Younger Women especially are drawn to this Drama Elixir. For reasons Men will never fully understand, younger Women feel this tremendous need to inject Drama into their lives, and a Bad Boy – with his lack of impulse control, unwillingness to commit, and short temper – is sure to inject Drama into her life in one way or another. I have never been able to explain or qualify it properly, but it’s almost as though many Women are not living unless they are experiencing the Dramatic range of emotions – angst, elation, excitement, jealousy,  joy, and so forth.

For many Women, a high Potential for Drama is like a seductive bombshell for Men. While the mind may protest otherwise, the base instincts want what they want.

As I wrote in the first article, a frequent occurrence is that a Woman will be borderline-rude to me for no reason whatsoever. Again, these are not Women I am trying to pick-up in bars or clubs, but Women in Retail who were hired to be pleasant to customers.  I will stand in line and watch a Woman be overwhelmingly-friendly with other customers, but become defensive and short with me before I even speak to her. I would ask these Women why they act this way for informative purposes, but I do not believe I would get a forthright answer out of most of them.

This also frequently happens between me and Women who are in longer-term relationships or marriages. As I alluded to above, I do not interfere with happy or successful relationships. But a consequence of my Bad Boy presentation is that happily-involved Women almost refuse to be civil to me. I suspect this happens to most Bad Boys.

A common occurrence is that an involved Woman will be a raging bitch to me for no identifiable reason, then get sexually-aggressive the moment after her boyfriend or fiance or husband leaves the room. As a Bad Boy, you are expected to take the heat in the event an angry husband or boyfriend catches you with his Woman. However, too little derision is placed upon the Women who shamelessly flirt or gleefully cheat with Men other than their own.

To tie a bow on the story from the beginning of this section, the Woman who sat next to me while I was writing this article continued to throw a variety of suggestive gestures and glances my way for 15 or 20 minutes, until her boyfriend/husband showed up. At that point, her entire presentation changed, as she switched from flirtatious and sexually-suggestive to bubbly, naive, and sweet. She walked out of the restaurant without so much as a second look in my direction, holding her boyfriend/fiance/husband’s hand.

This has been my continued experience as an adult. When I was a 22-year old bartender and Women treated me this way, I always assumed that it was situational and temporary. But years later Women continue to play this game, still throwing provocative looks behind the backs of their boyfriends and finances and husbands. As I’ve grown and learned more about myself and the world, I realize that I am just a certain type – or at the least, Women assume I am a certain type.

What does the Drama Elixir mean for a Bad Boy?

As I wrote previously, Bad Boys are usually not consciously-manipulating Women. Bad Boys are either distracted by more-pressing matters (like going to jail or having guns shoved in their face), or like me wish to be left alone. But as anyone who owns a cat will tell you: the more you push the cat away, the more the cat will keep trying to climb onto you. The indifference or even contempt a Bad Boy shows toward a Woman will usually only serve to make her more attracted to him, via one mechanism or another.

You will know that you are a Bad Boy when you start pining for a calmer or steadier lifestyle. While a Woman who exaggerates the circumstances of her life for attention is a Drama Queen, a Man who downplays or tries to minimize a litany of legitimate problems is likely a Bad Boy.

My last word of advice for the would-be Bad Boy is to be leery of a sexually-suggestive or aggressive Woman. As I pointed out above, the Woman who sat next to me and tried to bait me with an arsenal of slutty gestures and glances left the restaurant with her boyfriend/husband. Provoking a Bad Boy is a no-lose proposition for most Women, because they can always feign innocence to their devoted partner.

After all, who is an angry boyfriend/husband going to believe most of the time: the Love of his Life, or some shady-looking guy who is seemingly hitting on her?

Many Women come to know that a Bad Boy is not intimidated by approaching her, so Women are often much more forward in their actions toward him. But the Trap is that the Women who are beckoning the Bad Boy, as in the example above, are often in committed relationships. While these Women tend to justify these seductive invitations as “innocent flirting”, they are less likely to consider – or at least take responsibility for -the consequences of these actions.

Hell, some Women may want to see her boyfriend/husband fight for her, and may attempt to draw a Bad Boy into a self-constructed Drama just to reaffirm his commitment to her. Some Women may aim to turn a Bad Boy into a pawn in a kind of emotional game. I can personally attest to this, as it has happened to me numerable – repeat, numerable – times in recent memory.

A Bad Boy concocts the Drama Elixir the same way certain Women have blonde hair and big breasts: by nature, not by choice. Just be cognizant of the fact that as a Bad Boy, you consciously or unconsciously produce the drug of choice for many Women. While it will serve to make you more-attractive, it will also serve to cause you continual headaches and inconveniences.

Closing

These Bad Boy articles will likely be ongoing. As I wrote above, I am constantly getting new material on the topic. I would hope that as an astute reader, you are noticing all the caution flags I am throwing up for younger or would-be Bad Boys. Inexperienced Men will read this and cherry-pick for ways to sleep with more Women, but savvy readers and fellow Bad Boys will know that the Bad Boy lifestyle is pretty aggravating.

Above all, I suggest younger or less-experienced readers continue to learn from my mistakes. There will undoubtedly be more to follow.

Jack