Girl Meets World: The Bad Boy

If the bitch is the kind of woman that should be avoided, then the bad boy is her male equivalent. As a women magazines’ aficionado for many years –on multiple languages and of two major continents, I’ve eventually read thousands of articles on:

a)     How to tell him apart. Combine Johnny Depp looks, Johnny Depp’s drinking habits in the Rum Diaries and a permanent who-cares attitude. Add a pinch of troublemaker and two shots of womanizer appeal and you have him.

b)     10 good reasons on why to avoid him. It seems that a relationship with the so-called bad boy is detrimental for our mental health, self-image, career and personal development.

c)     10 good reasons on why to date him actually. It might sounds strange, but half of the magazine articles suggest dating a bad boy on an early age, when his presence in the female life is most likely to cause less trouble. Just like many childhood deceases, you have to go through the bad-boy-phase pretty soon, so as to get him out of you system. The other half insists that you have to learn a lot from him in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or any other space of your choice.

d)     Autobiographical pieces by the magazine writers themselves or readers who suffered until someone or something knocked some sense into them. This last kind makes me wonder –if not want to pull my hair off- about how easily and often women overlook things in the name of “love.”

Yet the question I’d like to make it’s a little different. What about the repentant bad boy? How can we be 100% sure that the bad boy is truly bad and not just faking it (idiotic male insecurities, worse than those of a woman in an itty bitty tiny polka dot bikini)? What about when he decides to go off course and actually be good? In this case, how do we avoid jumping to conclusions?

To tell the fact, we can’t. In my opinion there are two kinds of woman behavior related to bad boys:
 

a)     The romantic one. Girl meets boy, realizes he’s the devil –as well as devilishly attractive- and then makes the biggest mistake she could possibly make: She thinks that she could possibly change him, something that never happens. Disappointment and heartache follows.

b)     The realistic one. Girl meets boy, realizes he’s the devil –as well as devilishly attractive- and decides not to take him seriously: If she’s in her teens, she uses him to rebel or simply trick her parents into thinking she’s into trouble. If she’s a little older, she takes advantage of all the, erm, aforementioned qualities he has to offer.

The bad news: Timing as well as karma has no sense of humor and the bad boy is most likely to make an attitude change while he’s with the realist. This is quite bad, if you ask me, since he’s doomed to get a taste of his own medicine.

However, there is still hope left, since there are always tiny signs of this change of course. For example, I was astounded when he* discreetly reached for my hand while we were walking along a heavily crowded street. To be honest I didn’t expect him to; he didn’t have to, yet he did. He was also extraordinarily sweet with little kids and nice to strangers.

So if you’re reading this post … I have to admit that I can’t reach a conclusion! All I can say is that a bad boy can’t stay bad forever; eventually he’ll realize that it doesn’t lead anywhere. If you are a good girl determined to find a bad boy (literally seeking for trouble, huh?), remember to be… realistic.

F.

*He will remain anonymous, since I haven’t reached a final conclusion about whether he was a true bad boy or not. Not that if I knew for sure, I’d tell you. ;)