There’s something undeniably appealing about the classic “bad boy.” He’s handsome, aloof, and full of potential. The problem, of course, is that potential alone rarely makes for a good partner… but that doesn’t stop lots of us from going for these kinds of guys anyway. This is why some of us just can’t seem to stay away from the allure of bad boys no matter how often they break our hearts:
- They seem more exciting. Bad guys have an air of mystery and thrill about them. You never know what they’re going to say or do. For a while, the spontaneity is such a buzz, but soon enough, their unreliability and rogue ways will start to grate on your patience and your heart.
- We think we need to fix them. Lots of us like to believe that we’re that one girl who will make them change and want to be better. But the truth is, they won’t change for you or anyone else. If they’re not ready or don’t really want to make those changes, these guys will stay exactly how they are.
- The safety and security of a nice guy grows old. When you’re young, stability and safety usually aren’t at the front of your mind when it comes to dating. You’ve got plenty of time to settle down and get into a long-term relationship, so why worry about such things now? The idea of routine and predictable behavior isn’t appealing in any way, but if you want that adventure you crave, you often go searching for it in the guys who will also break your heart.
- Intimacy is often scary. Being with a guy who will never commit means you’ll never have to let your guard down and be vulnerable. This is the reason some of us continue to go after guys who we know deep down won’t ever show us their hearts — we’re scared of putting ourselves out there and revealing our true feelings. That fear of rejection and humiliation often lands us in relationships where we know crap will never get real.
- We’re obsessed with pleasing others. Lots of us are always putting other people first and leaving our needs and wants on the back burner. We give and give and give relentlessly, and the positive reinforcement we get from seeing other people smiling and satisfied is like confirmation that we’re needed. When we can make that magic happen for a guy who’s usually emotionally distant, it’s that much more euphoric for us.
- We’re trying to heal our childhood scars. Sometimes we unconsciously choose a romantic partner who’s emotionally similar to the parent who let us down when we were growing up.It’s often a roundabout way for us to “change the ending” of how our relationship with our lackluster parent turned out, but in the end, most of us only end up being disappointed all over again.
- We’re guided by our hearts and ignore our heads. We’re the girls who follow our hearts blindly, going wherever they may lead us. We believe in romance, love at first sight, and all of the fairy tales. We get caught up in the whirlwind of feelings, and once we realize we might be headed in the wrong direction, it’s too late — our hearts are already in far too deep. It makes us easy prey for guys who want to love us and leave us, and we often ignore the guys who would actually treat us right.
- We’re happier in a relationship. We hate being single and only feel happy when we’re with someone, no matter how dysfunctional and undefined the relationship may be. We’re huge targets for guys who just want something easy and don’t want to put forth the time and effort required to build a real relationship. It would be way healthier for us to just learn how to feel complete on our own, but until then, the bad boys are going to be first in line to take advantage of our need for companionship.
- We don’t learn from our mistakes. We’re the queens of second chances, and we give them out over and over again, unsparingly. We have it in the back of our minds that this will be the time he changes like he says he will. There are people out there who would stop going for bad boys once they figured out how toxic they could be, but those of us who constantly go for these types of guys will never stop believing that they’ll turn out the way we want them to.
- We haven’t yet learned to love ourselves. Low self-worth is possibly the most common reason for being attracted to a guy who isn’t treating you well. We still haven’t learned the importance of falling in love with who we are before we go and seek love out from somebody else. Self-love is something that takes a lot of time to develop, but until we manage to create it, lots of us will be stuck falling for the guys who may seem “cool” but are really just cold-hearted.
