Why Women Love Dating Jerks
By Curt Smith of AskMen.com

It's an endless mystery; women claim that they want a nice and caring man, but when you inspect the evidence, the only thing that will make a woman's heart go thump is the attitude of the macho, egotistical, self-serving male.

an invitation

Mike Hubberd, the producer of the Debra Duncan Show decided to see if he could find the answers to such a mystery and invited Renee Piane (author of Love Mechanics), Neil Scott (Psychotherapist), Cowboy Bill, Chris Jericho (WWF wrestler), and yours truly to debate why women keep kicking nice guys to the curb and welcoming in the jerks.

bring out de-bait

Needless to say, everyone had their respective opinion, but the ones that caught my attention were Ms. Piane's remark about traumatic experiences, and Chris Jericho's "it's all bullsh*t" outburst.

emotional void

Renee Piane remarked that when women are attracted to jerks, it's because of an emotional event that occurred at some point in their lives.

According to Piane, the most common event is when the woman loses her father at a very young age. Usually, this emotional void leads her to seek any man to fulfill this void, and when she finds him, she becomes so attached that she'll just take any abuse thrown at her.

This explanation makes sense. However, it only explains why women are addicted to and stay in abusive relationships. But it did not offer any explanation as to why women are attracted to jerks to begin with. After all, I know a lot of women who come from a stable family environment and still date jerks.

bad boy is a nice guy

Of all the comments that were exchanged back and forth between the guests, the dumbest one had to come from the genius wrestler (why does that not surprise me?) Chris Jericho.

Mr. Jericho claims to be a nice guy, and what he portrays in the ring is very different from his real personality. When asked what his thoughts were about nice guys finishing last, Chris went into his whole wrestling spiel shouting, "It's all bullsh*t, I'm a nice guy and I don't finish last. Just be yourself and you'll meet lots of fine people." That sounds perfect in a magical world where stars are flying around your head after the The Rock shows you the people's elbow.

Of course any nice guy with celebrity status, a fat bank account (even though it doesn't look like it by his fashion sense -- wearing tights for so many years will do that to a man), and an exciting bad boy persona will keep a woman interested.

But take away Jericho's celebrity status, wealth and bad boy persona, and let's see how far his nice guy attitude will take him, or how many women will fall at his feet.

So I guess Jericho's just going to have to keep acting like a bad boy to stay popular in wrestling, and now that the WWF owns the WCW, Mr. Jericho might have to become a little more mean, especially if he wants to reach superstar status with new bad boys coming to his playground.

curt knows

I know why women prefer jerks over nice guys. It's actually very easy to explain. In fact, once I'm finished, every nice guy is going to want to enroll in Curt's How To Be Her Dream Jerk seminar. But before continuing, it's important to clarify what constitutes jerks and nice guys.

the nice guy

The nice guy cannot set his priorities straight. He lives to please everyone around him at all costs -- even if it means he has to sacrifice his own happiness.

In other words, he's a pushover who can't say no to anyone and lets himself get walked on. He's so nice that he'd even do his girlfriend's ex a favor.

The nice guy does not practice the game of challenge and eventually gets dumped as the woman in his life becomes bored with all the niceness.

the jerk

A jerk wears his agenda on his sleeve. He's a strong, dominant, untamable man who knows the dating game and how to prioritize his life -- putting himself first. He won't let people walk all over him, and by doing so, he effectively becomes a challenge.

A lot of people think the jerk has low self-esteem and needs to prey on other souls in order to make himself feel better. I say rubbish. It's a lot more than low self-esteem.

Humans consider themselves civilized, but the fact remains that we're still animals and civilization is only skin deep. The reality is that we have millions of years of instincts programmed within us and ten thousand years of civilization will not silence the animal instincts within.

So when you notice the jerk manifest, it is not because he has low self-esteem, but rather because he knows the rules of the game: survival of the fittest.

After all, when we observe a lion copulating with all the lionesses, we don't say that the lion has low self-esteem. Instead, we say that the lion is a dominant male ensuring that his genes get passed on to the next generation. Well, why can't we accept that the human male has the same instincts? Food for thought, right?

the jerk has his act together

Through time, we evolve and adapt to our environment -- including our mating rituals. So if the bad boy strategy didn't work, it would have been discontinued many centuries ago. But because it works, jerks continue to flourish.

Remember; if it isn't broken don't fix it. And that's exactly what jerks are doing. Women are obviously interested in certain jerk behaviors. As long as women are demanding a certain type of behavior (the jerk appeal), there will always be a healthy supply of jerks to go around.

I know exactly what women want.

A few months ago, I attended a single women group meeting. I took this opportunity to ask the women what kind of a man they're looking for. Every woman claimed that she wanted a nice man.

I asked if the nice guy is "the perfect guy", and all of them agreed that there is no such thing as a perfect guy. Then I asked the women to assume for a moment that perfection was attainable and if so, would it eventually become a disappointment or lead to boredom. Amazingly, 90% of the women said yes.

Thus if the perfect man is a myth and perfection leads to boredom, these women were essentially saying that the perfect man doesn't exist and even if he does, he's boring. So what do women want or rather, what do women need?

what women need

What women want and what they need are two different things. You see, civilization dictates that women want a nice family-oriented man. But evolution tells women they need a strong dominant male to mate with and ensure strong offspring. Unfortunately for them, it's their animal instincts that override their learned behavior.

It is not that women deliberately look for jerks, but rather, they're attracted to certain behaviors that satisfy their genetically programmed mating instincts. This has a lot to do with estrogen -- the emotion hormone -- as opposed to testosterone -- the reaction hormone. Therefore women are attracted to men who can make them feel, feel, feel excited -- not bored.

Unfortunately, these behaviors are also the ones observed mainly within the jerk persona. So women are not bad people at all, they have no choice but to fall for these dominant, strong and untamable males.

the truth hurts... we're animals

We like to think of ourselves as the superior beings of this planet. In order to separate ourselves from the animal kingdom, we come up with civil explanations for our behaviors such as women love jerks because they think they can change them, they're exciting, there's a mystique element, bad guys are cooler, jerks are better in bed, and women feel sorry for them because they are lower life forms.

But the reality is that women are at the mercy of their genetically programmed instincts. The sooner we realize this, the faster men will understand what women need and combine it with the chivalrous traits the women want.

If men can have a balance of those dominant behaviors that women instinctively need and those nice behaviors that women want in order to remain satisfied, they'll maintain a lethal combination that will attract and retain any woman. Here are some of the traits you should have on your list.

Women want a man who:

• Can make them think.
• Can make them feel excitement, sexy, and turned on rather than bored.
• Can prioritize his life and doesn't let anyone walk over him.
• Is not afraid to voice his opinion.
• Keeps them on their toes through challenge.
• Holds and maintains an element of mystery.
• Is spontaneous.
• Gives them space and freedom, and keeps his own space.
• Is a lover, not a son.
• Is a Romeo, not a Fabio.
• Is chivalrous.

curt's corner

So what did you learn today? If nice guys are what women want, and jerks are what women need, it is important to keep a balanced character towards the relationship.

Get it on!

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