There once was a maiden who dreamt of a handsome white knight who would only send her messenger pigeons after the sun has set at the end of the earth (which was flat), having had his fill of sweet ale and wine. You guessed it, that maiden was yours truly and, for many moons, a sure way to keep my interest has been to treat me like crap.

The funny thing about white knights, though, is that they only remain such – so absolutely right for us – only as long as they stay stubbornly blind to this fact. Unlike the, what’s that dirty word, nice guy with whom you know where you stand, this type of guy is always just barely out of reach. Which is why you must have him, obviously. Unfortunately, this sexy, elusive, perpetually on-the horizon factor also means that he is probably a selfish asshole so there has to be some method to the self-destructive madness, right?

“But wanting what you can’t have isn’t exactly a new concept,” you would argue (perhaps over a glass of wine), “and is just as, if not more, pervasive among our penised counterparts”. Word. And I can imagine there are a lot of convenient evolutionary reasons for this – like the need to spread their seed to the highest amount of diverse mates. The lady side of the discourse, however, is a little more muddied. Behold the results of a quick Google search on the subject of “why women like jerks” (often euphemized as “bad boys”). And, yes, this is not unlike the curatorial process I applied to my graduate thesis.

Women Choose Jerks Because They Are Looking Through “Ovulation Goggles”.

How is that for a disturbing mental image? This study* claims that an ovulating woman’s hormones influence who she views as an attractive potential father, and these “hormones” are pretty superficial because they prefer the baby daddy to be sexy and rebellious rather than dependable (because, you know, they can’t be both). So right as we are primed and ready to get knocked up we do not think that the “dependable” men are the way to go. Talk about unintelligent design. Evolutionary speaking, selfish jerks that treat us like crap are more likely to survive or, in Cersei’s timeless wisdom, “the more people you love the weaker you are”. So basically, we want our babies to have asshole genes so they can also selfishly survive. I guess that means my imaginary prodigious kid isn’t buying me that beach house.

*It should be noted that the women based their evaluations on online dating profiles. Tough crowd. In my experience, if your profile picture isn’t a mirror cellphone shot or a close-up of your abs, I’ll probably go on a date with you. Wait, those are the bad boys…right??? Guess I wasn’t ovulating, fellars.

Women Prefer Jerks and They Themselves Created Said Jerks. Meta!

This pop-psych enthusiast insists that jerks are actually ex-nice guys who had their heart torn out by soulless man-eaters when they left them for assholes that would unavoidably make them miserable. I guess this logic loop would imply that these assholes they left them for are, themselves, ex-predictable-old-Joes who were abandoned by coldblooded women/cyborgs for some other jerks. What came first, the jerk or the nice guy? If a jerk falls in a forest…brain hurts, system malfunction.

Now this doesn’t tell us why we like guys that are clearly bad for us but it does sum it up to being all our fault. We act on “impulse and emotion rather than fact” and “inadvertently give life to these jerks”, creating a mutant, vengeful race that will, eventually, wipe out all the dependable guys (but we knew that already; see above). Guess I better stock up on some MRE’s for the Jerkopolypse.

(In other “what did we expect would happen” news, there is just a general War on Men. I am willing to martyr my own career to support an official journalism audit.)

Women Want to Do Jerks But Can Talk Themselves Into Dating Non-Jerks…or Just Get One of Each.

This guy approaches the topic ambitiously by differentiating between three types of love: lust, attraction and attachment. While lust and attraction are more deep-seated and primal (read: ovaries like bad boys), attachment is a conscious decision based on post-neanderthalic social norms. The tension arises from the fact that this new breed of independent, Amazonian woman (currently waging war) wants a man who is supportive and agreeable but, at the same time, her aforementioned ovaries make her want a guy in a dominant leadership position who is consequently unwilling to prioritize her ambitions. This leads to a lifetime of frustrated hovering between these two, as we’ve learned, mutually exclusive types.

All hope isn’t lost, however. One solution is to join the “best of both worlds club”, which is just as weird and unpractical as most relationship arrangements/sexual exploits that come with a “club” qualifier. In the world of “mixed-mating”, you give into your punch-drunk hormones by having a baby with a genetically–superior asshole, while satisfying your anarchist urges for love and support through a healthy, albeit less exciting, relationship. How didn’t I think of that?

Women Like Jerks Because There Are Less of Them and We Want to Win!

Another possibility is that the bad boy worship is simply a question of supply and demand, or the Invisible Band (I really wanted to make an economic theory/musicians pun. It didn’t work, sorry). Bad boys are not as available, both in physical numbers and in terms of emotional conquest, so when we do “tame“ or “fix” this guy, we feel a sense of amateur-therapist accomplishment and, what’s more, better than all our female compatriots who were not special enough to provoke the metamorphosis. However, the problem with our new phoenix-from-the-asshole-ashes boyfriend is that we probably don’t know how to function with him beyond the editing stage.

Women Like Jerks Because They Don’t Think They Deserve Better.

Another prevalent contingent believes that the masochism of dating jerks comes from our own insecurities – our belief that we don’t deserve to be treated any better. Hmm, that’s so simple yet true. I mean – pshh, can they be more on the nose?! Eyes down.

 

Also, these reasons.

 

Well, team, I feel better. At least it’s not me but my ovaries, late capitalism man-conomics and a myriad of insecurities that are responsible for my bad judgment. Good thing I read up on some actionable solutions. Oh wait, having a child with an asshole while, at the same time, being in a loving, committed relationship with a nice guy isn’t a realistic arrangement? Shit, never mind.