The Bad Boys

Whether you were fawning over Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind or rooting for Mr. Big in Sex and the City, we're all guilty of being a sucker for the "Bad Boy." My own personal guilty pleasure is True Blood, all due to scary, but sexy, Eric Northman. What is it about these womanizers, chauvinists and sometimes down right crazy men that makes women swoon? Do we really like to be treated badly? I don't think that's the real reason. The common factor of most bad boys that makes us melt every time is that they evolve from the uber scary/mean/troublesome man and meet someone that makes them change their ways. Eric meets Sookie on True Blood, Rhett finds Scarlett, and Mr. Big ultimately abandons his bachelor ways to be with Carrie. I think we all want to be that one woman that finally grasps the unobtainable and forces the bad boy to change his rebel ways. I mean who doesn't want to be the girl that the liar never deceits, the cheater never strays from and the player settles down with? It makes us feel like we've conquered a nearly impossible task. Is that a real thing though; changing a man? Or is this just something romanticized in movies and television? I believe we have unrealistic expectations about how we're going to change our real-life bad boys. Just like in the movies he should see us, fall madly in love and completely throw away the way he's been living for, oh right, his whole life. If you can't grasp the sarcasm dripping from these words, then let me break it down for you. People don't change. As much as we'd like them to, they don't. I'm not saying they won't change for awhile, I'm saying that eventually the "liar" will test your trust, the "player" will hit on your co-worker, and the "cheater" will probably have a double life and a wife in Connecticut. The most accurate quote on character I've ever heard is, "The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior." Also, "Once a cheater, always a cheater," but that's just something my mom always said. What both sayings have in common is that people are going to repeat what they've already done. So, maybe the "Bad Boy" seems like the best choice and maybe he seems dark and dangerous and mysterious now, but I'm going to stick with the "good" guy, who is nice and loyal and wonderful always.

Why have you returned, Mrs. Cleaver?

I'm completely perplexed as to why we've reverted back to the 1950's when it's clearly 2013. Girls in their late teens and early 20's are getting married, having babies and settling down to play house. I'm just blown away as to why anyone would want to settle down so young when you have your whole life ahead of you. Is it to obtain the glamour of being the young bride? To be the cute mom toting your tots around town for play dates with other young mom's? Why are smart and capable women rushing to put on the facade of doting wife and caring mother, just to let their dreams and aspirations falter? It's sickening that women these days would rather stand on the sidelines, or for most the kitchen, cheering on their husbands to get that raise or land their dream job. We have evolved through the years and fought for women's rights, for what? To fall back into the same lives that our grandmother's lived? For some this may seem like the safe alternative versus finishing school, landing a job and making a career and life for yourself independently. However, I feel like playing house would get old very quickly. For me, I wouldn't want to come home from my job/career (if even having one) and cook dinner, pack lunches, do laundry and clean like a stepford wife just for the sake of keeping my husband happy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so subversive to tradition that I don't eventually want to be married or even make a home, I'm just simply saying what's the rush? It's so common for women to have children in their 30's and even 40's now, so why is it in many small towns and elsewhere, women feel like they need to plant their roots in their early 20's in homes that will eventually lose their new house excitement, marriages that will inevitably end in divorce and with children who will suffer the consequences. To each their own, I just find it maddening that women are selling themselves short and instead of seeing the world and accomplishing their goals, are so quick to settle for being a house wife with a small town life. Or maybe I've just been watching Mona Lisa Smile too much.