Aloof

Do girls really like assholes?

I mean, logically speaking, they shouldn't, right? But obviously conventional wisdom has proven that more often than not, they do.  Don't worry. This isn't the 'woe is me' post that most perpetually single, consider-themself-to-be-a-nice-guy-but-can-never-find-a-girlfriend, sexually frustrated dudes like me, might normally be gearing up to make at this point. No, I'm not bitter.

Really, I'm not.

If you're a guy working from a distinct disadvantage (in this case, being an asshole) and can still get many a fine young lady to fall for you, that's no reason for me to be mad at you. What is an asshole supposed to do? Never date? "Sorry, you should put your clothes back on. Jerks like me don't deserve to see naked ladies…" It's not their fault that they're just doing what works. The only person you should be mad at is yourself. You're the one that's working without this disadvantage but is still unable to get the same results. There's no point in getting mad at the ladies either. "Boo hoo… girls say they want a nice guy, but they always end up with jerks." As though a girl might overhear it and think, "you know, that guy has said that 300 times already tonight (and let me tell ya, it gets more attractive each and every time), but he's right…" and boom, suddenly all the ladies in the world will be into the nice guys that complain at parties about not being able to find girls.

When has complaining about the way something fundamentally is, ever changed it? If girls like jerks, then it's your own fault for not being a jerk. Leveling all the blame at the guys that are jerks in the first place or the girls that fall for them is like getting mad at the sky for being blue. The sky doesn't know how not to be blue, it's just doing what the sky does. It's your fault for wishing the sky was red.

The real question you should be asking yourself is 'why is the sky blue?' Or, more specific to this blog, 'why are girls drawn towards jerks?' Although we could try to figure out the sky/blue thing too. I mean… what is it? Like, the reflection of the ocean or something? Wait… why is the ocean blue, then? Is it just a reflection of the sky? But if the sky is just the reflection of the ocean, and the ocean is just a reflection of the sky, then which came first, the sky or the ocean? Wait, what do you mean that they have nothing to do with each other? Man… science is hard.

Err... sorry. Where was I?

Ah, yes. Look, I'm not saying every guy should start acting like a jerk. If a girl was drawn to the sight of a jerk like a bull is drawn to sight of the colour red (yeah, yeah... the whole bull/red thing is a myth… I know. Didn't I already establish my scientific ignorance when I didn't know why the sky is blue?), I'd have done it years ago. Obviously there's much more to it than that. Being a jerk alone isn't the source of the attraction. The key is figuring out what it is that could be so great that makes a jerk's jerkiness worth putting up with. And, when you think about what women are attracted to, and what common traits jerks process, it does kind of all make sense.

First, and most importantly (in my opinion) is the initial: is the person into the other person or not? I've discussed it at length previously, but to recap, a person will overlook and ignore a lot of your flaws if they're really into you. They will go out of their way to spend time with you. They will want to talk to you, be around you, and they want you to want to be around them too. It's simple stuff. Unfortunately, the delusion a lot of guys easily fall victim to is that despite the obvious signs, there's always the chance that she's just 'playing hard to get.' Because that's what girls do when they're super into you: Never call or text you. Find excuses to cancel on you when you're supposed to get together. Date other dudes… All because they're playing 'hard to get.'

But, as it pertains to this discussion, most importantly: if a person is into you, they'll be more apt to look past your flaws. Flaws such as you being a bit of a jerk. Or if they're super starry-eyed-smitten from the start, you being a big old fat jerk. But how does a girl get so 'starry-eyed smitten' to begin with? Is it all just based on how a person looks? Is that what I'm saying? Good looking guys can be jerks, because girls will always fall for them after just one glance?

Well, yes and no.

I don't think that a good looking guy gets up every morning, winks at himself in the mirror and declares "Man, we are one good looking guy, reflection. In fact, we're so good looking that why don't we just be complete jerks to everyone we encounter today? What are they going to do? Not love us? Please… not when we're this good looking!"

Well… maybe some guys do that (I'm looking at you, Hoff). But probably not all of them. That said, even if it's not a conscious decision, I do think that being good looking does make it easier to evolve into a jerk. Not over night. Not over a weekend. But over the course of an entire life? Of course. Look, attractive people will always have it easier than the rest of us. If two people go in for the same job, they have the exact same resumé, are both equally charming during the interview, but one person is good looking and the other is not, guess who the job is going to? Is it fair? Not really. But that's just the way society and human nature works. There's no point in losing sleep over it, that's just the sky being blue.

So, if you're a kid, good looking, and ask to borrow a dollar from another kid to buy a chocolate bar. The kid, naturally inclined to seek the approval of a good-looking alpha male, might go so far as to say "here you go, you can have it." The good-looking kid isn't going to turn down a free chocolate bar, and gladly accepts. Smash cut to a year later, and maybe the good-looking kid doesn't ask to borrow the money anymore. Maybe he's so used to the other kid just giving it to him at this point, that the conversation sounds a little more like "hey, give me a dollar for a chocolate bar."

A jerk is born.

When you don't hear 'no' as much as everyone else growing up, you just kind of get used to hearing 'yes'. And eventually, you're an adult that's used to getting things your way, expects that people want to make you happy, and somewhere along the way, started thinking that you might just be a little bit better than everyone else. It's not necessarily a choice you made, but how else are you going to turn out if that's how people have been treating you every single day of your life? If you were told by every person you ever met, every day of your life, that you were a duck, eventually you'd have to start believing that you were a duck. If everyone treats you like you're better than them, eventually you're going to start thinking you're better than them.

Look, I'm not saying every good looking guy is a jerk. I'm just saying, I can see why attractive people are more inclined to turn out that way.

But, not every girl is so quick to be smitten by a pretty face. In fact, girls are way less concerned with looks than guys are. So, if not looks, what else attracts a girl to a guy on first sight? Well, word on the street is that few things are more appealing to a lady than confidence. And, well… if there's one thing jerks don't seem to lack, it's confidence. Again, not all confident guys are jerks, but almost all jerks are confident. I mean, you almost have to be to get away with it. It's hard to be a sheepish jerk.

So, what does any of this have to do with me? I mean, there must be some connection, right? Otherwise why would I bother mentioning it? Well, funny you should ask. You see, while it's pretty easy to say that being good looking and having confidence are good ways to attract women, I have another theory as to why girls might like jerks. Now, obviously I could never go fully down the jerk road to test this, no matter how much I'd like to try (I can only imagine the look right now on the poor bastard's face that accidentally stumbled upon this blog after Googling 'Jerk Road' expecting to get something completely different…), but on a scale of Friendzone Tool to Complete Asshole, I have dabbled in the Aloof area of the spectrum a bit. Now, the theory behind Aloof is that if a girl is good looking, then most guys will bend over backwards to please her. They'll do favours for her, buy her things, and find any excuse that they can to be in the same room with her. And I can only imagine that while flattering (and I'm sure they'd never want it to stop), at some point it also becomes a bit tedious.

So, by that logic, if every guy is constantly fawning over them, wouldn't the guy that didn't fawn at all, stand out just a little bit? Not a lot. But at least a little bit. No drunken texts sent at two in the morning declaring love, no flimsy excuses as to why you need to meet up on Saturday night for dinner, no Valentines chocolates 'because we're such good friends…' None of it. Just complete indifference. "Ya, you can pick up that CD you wanted to borrow, but make it quick, I've got things to do." You can see how it's sort of like a distant cousin of the jerk, but without, you know, the complete jerkiness.

I think it's rooted somewhat in the 'people want what they can't have' theory. Sure, as much as you'd like to look at an attractive girl across the room at a party, have her look back at you, give each other a quick once over, nod in agreement of mutual attraction, and then spend the rest of your lives together, really, that's no fun. There is some thrill in the chase. If a girl is used to always getting who and what she wants, then it doesn't matter if she actually wants you, just knowing that she can't have you is enough to make her want to prove that she could get you if she really wanted to. It's sort of like, "wait, I'm supposed to be the one that's not interested in you… not the other way around." It's the reason rock stars almost never end up dating their fans. Most of the time they prefer someone that has basically never even heard of their band before. Why? Because a fan is just sitting there waiting to be given the green light to pounce, the non-fan has to be chased.

Does it work? Well, in my experience, not really. It still comes down to whether she's into you, or she isn't. Again, not much is ever going to change that. There's a big difference between 'thrill of the chase' and 'thrill of the never-going-to-happen.' But, I will say this, in the small bit that I've dabbled with aloof, I can see why it works. I can see why, when cranked up to 'jerk' levels, a girl can basically wonder to herself 'man, nobody ever talks to me or treats me like that, why isn't he doing whatever I say, and telling me I'm beautiful all the time, like every other guy I know?' and it's almost fascinating to them. And they start to think about it some more. And then again at work the next day. And just like there's no such thing as bad publicity, soon, all that matters is that the only guy she's thought about in the last few days was the jerk. Does it matter why she's thinking about you, so long as it's you that she's thinking about? Well, girls always seem to end up with assholes, so I guess the answer is obvious.

(In case it's not that obvious… Yes. The answer was yes.)