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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Nice Guys – Bad Guys










In response to a previous column entitled “Are You a Nice Guy?” a reader sent me a very interesting question: “Why are women more drawn to the Bad Guy?”

Well, we are generalizing, something I dislike because generally, to generalize is just plain wrong. However, our life’s choices are at the root of all. Depending on the choice of mate that we make we are headed in the direction of happiness or sorrow. I can see so many examples of disastrous consequences based on bad choices that I hardly know where to start.

So, let’s start with the question “Why should I care if other people make bad choices?” The answer is that when others around me make damaging choices it somehow comes to involve me through the collapse of friends and family relations, violence in the home and the impact of that on neighbours, and appeals to those of us known as The Public for sympathy and support.

This business of choice is primarily a woman thing. We men think that we chase you and we have a conquest when we catch you, but the truth is that we chase you until you catch us.

One of the most dramatic examples of bad choice I have ever known was that of the lady who grew up in a small town and eventually married one of its leading citizens. She had what appeared to be an ideal life, but without any real provocation, except boredom she gave it all up. She moved away from her town and eventually became involved with a married man who lived with his wife. He treated this lady like a doormat, and he quite regularly beat her.

Those of us who formed her circle of friends never understood why she left her husband in the first place. She always spoke highly of him, the perfect gentleman who respected and loved her dearly. She broke the poor man’s heart and disgraced him in the eyes of the town.

We certainly never understood why she maintained her affair with her bad boy lover. We tried to persuade her to give him up, but the worse he treated her the more determined she was to stay. I once asked him why he treated her so badly. His reply was, “she likes it!”

Many young women are attracted to hardened criminals. They seem to find some sort of status if their man is serving time, and while he is away in prison they will be absolutely loyal to him. One reason being that if they are not, when he is released they will be in for some serious pain.

For men who properly respect women this is completely baffling. If you’re a nice guy you will surely have any number of stories of lost loves to the Bad Boys. Here you are, properly courting the girl you love, doing nice things for her, treating her like a lady when up comes a bad boy who has no respect for your relationship with her, and no respect for her or anything else, and she goes soft in the knees and in the head for him. She is last seen riding off on the back of his Big Bike clinging to him with that peculiar look of rapture on her face.

What seems to be at work here? Psychologists might say that the man who presents no challenge and is too easy also presents no chemistry. Sure, on a pure human-to-human level proper respect and conduct is appreciated, but in the love stakes nice guys really do finish last far too often.

What a horrible realization is that! What a topsy-turvy world we live in. This does not augur well toward the objective of eliminating violence in the home. So many times we will hear the woman say I really did try to make it work. I did everything by the book, so how can I be blamed? Well, the answer my dear is you chose the cretin in the first place.
He was probably one of those your mother warned you about, and when you brought him home she pulled her hair out.

Nice guys are not all simply victims. Guys have choices too, only not the final choice. The woman makes the final choice, but in both sexes we seem not to value that which is too easily attainable. To have a partner who does not provide us with a challenge seems to devalue that person. We tend to take that person for granted and as our own behaviour becomes cavalier our partner has to work harder, and the whole awful circle is completed.

This is certainly not good news, and I, for one do not have the solution to this quirk in the human condition.

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael