Poll: Women like jerks?

[Dazzle Novak]

Any guy fucking the girl you want to fuck is a "jerk" especially when you're hearing about typical relationship strife from the outside. You'd never argue with your princess or have failures of communication.

Is it fair to assert "guys like psycho bitches" based on all the anecdotes I hear? Or, can I just assume it's a combination of hyperbole and confirmation bias?

 

[Mister K]

You are missing "maybe" and "not all of them" options.

I can't really say. I mean, I've read about a psychological profile of certain women, which in short can be described as "He isn't a bad guy, just misguided. I can change him for the better". However, I haven't personally seen anything that is in anyway similar to what I've described.

Then again, I don't know the majority of people in my city, my country, our world, so there is that.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

I certainly don't like jerks. And typically, the girls I have seen with jerks are jerks themselves.
So, they can be a jerky couple of jerks, jerking each other to jerkiness.
Maybe I just live in an area with a high jerk population. Or grew up in one, at least.

 

[MrFalconfly]

No.

At least I hope not, but that hope is only grounded in my belief that it is only a very little minority which acts like proverbial cave-people (both the males and females in question).

 

[Areloch]

As others have mentioned, I'm reasonably assured via my personal life experience that girls, as a whole, do not like dating jerks and more than men do.

However, most people(males and females alike) are attracted to other people that are confident and give the impression of being interesting.

Any and all objective jerks I can think of, such as pickup artists, either are, or are good at presenting themselves as that.

Beyond that, however, I very much doubt that a majority of girls like "jerks" specifically. Maybe a small, weird subset like anyone with a peculiar personality preference, but definitely not on a whole.
That said, I think we'd need to establish what being a "jerk" is in context of the stereotype.

 

[Cold Shiny]

As a male who has met many, many women and seen many many relationships, I can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt, that yes, women like jerks. Nice guys finish last is one of the most accurate statements made by man.

If you think that sounds really sad and pathetic, you are in the right.








I am so alone.

 

[GamerKT]

Maybe if they're attractive or something.


Think about fat/ugly jerks. NO ONE likes them.

 

[Hagi]

I'm sure some do. I'm also sure many, many, many more don't.

It's not like all women like one thing. Heck, even for the confidence thing I'm sure there's women around who find some amount of insecurity attractive in some way.

Basically what I'm saying is the following:

Do women like jerks or do they like nice guys? Answer: yes.

 

[Necron_warrior]

I do believe a large part of the whole conception is the idea Tha those calling guys 'jerks' are equating 'jerkness'-> those who go out to clubs/parties/drunken antics (internet speak ='normalfag').

While believing their crush to be above such things (even though she may be social/popular, and therefore do the exact same things as the 'jerks). It doesn't help that most of the guys mentioning this (ie, mostly high school age( 14-19) ish) are expecting to get girls that really, like different things than they do.

Many a good relationship can be formed in a library/mmo/other less 'jerky' areas, but they don't even realise that other girls exist there. I don't want to damn these people, but the least they could do is find out the other persons interests (as many only see looks, and a few kind things said)

EDIT: damn phone formatting making it a wall 'o text.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

There are shallow people, broken people, people with family issues and childhood things that makes them attracted to folks who are, from some perspectives, assholes or jerks.

I'll readily admit I can be a right asshole to people I don't give a fuck about. And I've had a decent list of females that have been attracted to me, whether or not its due to me being a shit at times I'm not certain.

Attraction dynamics are difficult because its a case-by-case basis to analyze the people involved. What one perceives as "a jerk" could be just a wrong perspective, outside looking in through a cracked and opaque window. Could be a friend of the woman involved hears all the bad things about the guy but doesn't know the other side of the story and makes a snap judgment of the guy, possibly because said friend is actually attracted to the woman and wants to believe the worst in her s/o, waiting for them to break up.

I could go on and on about social dynamics and attraction analysis. Point is that its not simple to nail down if women are attracted to jerks/assholes more than the "nice guy". Even throwing the "confidence" argument into the mix still doesn't simplify it.

TL;DR - Relationship and attraction dynamics are too intricate and case-by-case to boil down to "women like jerks more than nice guys."
Nice guys can turn out to be the real jerks, and assholes can actually be sweet and wonderful people.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

First off: Uh, no. Generally people can like someone despite them being a jerk, or without knowledge that they're a jerk, but it seems kind of ridiculous to assume that women are drawn to people because they're jerks. Whatever gender you are, if there's someone you're infatuated with it's hard to be objective with how you judge how they treat others. In my experience this just happens to people, it's not really something gender specific

You know, I wonder why we don't have an accompanying stereotype, "Men just go for crazy chicks". Huge amount of time when I hear about someone's past girlfriends they're described as crazy (The frequency of which I see this kind of makes me question the validity though). Sounds like there's as much evidence to be judgmental about men's dating choices as well. "There there, it's okay. Guys just don't go for sane girls"

 

[Gorrath]

The, "Girls like jerks" thing comes from a seeming contradiction that can seem very real to someone who isn't emotionally savvy and has trouble understanding/forming relationships, especially romantic ones. We've seen the story a thousand times:

Girl confides in Nice Guy about how her boyfriend is a jerk and she wishes boyfriend were nicer to her.

Nice Guy can't understand why she complains about jerk boyfriend when he, a perfectly Nice Guy is right there, lonely and happy to be her boyfriend if only she were interested in him.

Girl stays with jerk boyfriend, leading the Nice Guy to believe that the girl he's so interested must be crazy, have her head up her ass or is not logical.

What Nice Guy fails to realize is the level of her boyfriend's jerkiness is of only marginal consequence and he likely has a ton of other much more desirable traits. Maybe he's funny, attractive, fun, makes money and is popular. Nice Guy might be genuinely nice but lacks every single one of these other desirable traits. Since Nice Guy only ever hears from girl that jerky boyfriend is an ass, he assumes she prizes Niceyness above these other considerations and lacks the emotional maturity to realize his error.

Nice Guy goes on to assume women like assholes and becomes asshole, which makes him even less desirable, causing even more confusion.

Nice Guy goes from thinking of girls as emotional instead of logical to just thinking they are crazy, and though he desires female company, feels jilted, is consumed by his own social impotence and gives up on trying to be Nice at all, ditching even the "cocky-asshole" facade and just turning into a reprehensible ass because he's given up hope of courting a girl, doesn't understand his mistakes and now has real venom for the opposite sex, often resulting in him becoming a dyed in the wool misogynist.

So, do girls like jerks? Sure, if they have a bunch of other desirable traits that outweight their jerkiness.

To Nice Guys everywhere, I beseech thee. If you want to gain the attentions of the female do not assume being nice is your ticket. Be a well rounded, interesting person who isn't a self-obsessed ass-wipe. Being social is a skill, develop it. Entitlement is a turn off, ditch it. Lamenting your failures will get you no-where. And if you listen to nothing else I have to say, heed this: if you want to have a relationship the best way to attract women is to treat them like people. No, not like a princess, not like a plaything. All that messed up stuff in your head you think and feel? She thinks and feels that stuff to.

So, be Nice, Nice Guys, but be more than that. Don't reinvent yourself to be someone you're not, just be a better version of who you are.

Sincerely, a Genuinely Nice Guy who was once confused like the rest of you but grew up and got married to a hot, nerdy woman.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

1. As covered already, the vast majority of the time this charge is uttered, it's the person delivering it that is "the jerk". It's some combination of frustrated expectations and social inadequacy manifesting as jealousy and scorn. When applied in the blanket sense, IE "all women do X, or think Y", then you've got some misogyny in the mix as well.

2. Confidence can masquerade as "jerkiness" to people who have none. Notably, people who ARE jerks are usually jerks because of an innate sense of entitlement, and those people are often confident. Their confidence will frequently present long before their less admirable qualities, so they can appear attractive in the short term.

3. Human beings are hard wired to strive (a biological function built in so we don't sit around languishing on rocks all day, and are out chasing antelope), and thus tend to be intrigued by "the chase". "Jerks" may be harder to get/elusive, and thus seem more appealing than an option that is throwing themselves at you/has the reek of desperation.

 

[Evil Moo]

I think talking about 'women' (or indeed any other large group of individuals) as a single homogeneous blob is never likely to be very productive on subjects like this. Do some women like jerks? Yes probably, though the 'jerkness' of someone is very much subjective, so they would probably say no even if everyone else thinks otherwise. Do some women not like jerks at all? Also yes.

Thinking of it in the other direction is more interesting to me. How do the 'jerks' get anyone to like them? I have known a fair number of guys of varying levels of unpleasantness, many of which have had girlfriends to my knowledge. The standard school bully type has often seemed to attract a girl of similar mean spirit, which makes a degree of sense. The asshole, inconsiderate stoner room-mate is probably not so bad when he's trying to be nice and you don't have to live with him all day, every day, banging on your door, drunk at 3am for no good reason. It's a matter of perspective and what people choose to show or hide from each other to keep up appearances.

Then again, this is all from an outsider's perspective. I've never been in a relationship. I've never tried to be in a relationship. Unless the opportunity literally falls into my lap (which it won't), that is unlikely to change and I would probably walk away even if it did.

The absolute minimum for people to find you attractive, I suspect, is to actually try and put some effort into it; speaking as someone who does not do this and has received no indications of attractiveness from others (except for one instance, but I'm inclined to dismiss them as an unstable anomaly).

 

[RebornKusabi]

No.

And just so this isn't a low content post, I used to think this when I was an idiot. But now, in my late 20's, I've learned that the reason I never had much success with women besides "sleeping" with them is because I lacked the confidence to ask them out. I am wired weird where casual flings were never and issue but relationships were galactic hurdles. I used to feel that women didn't go out with me because I wasn't an asshole. Or a jerk. But the truth you learn when you grow up is confidence and assertiveness. This is a feature jerks and assholes have, and since dating is such a uniquely western way of courting a woman, there are winners and there are losers.

Keep in mind, men in the audience, there are TONS of women that feel this way reversed. All the men only date haughty women or super superficial blonde chicks. It again goes both ways.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

*snip*

This is an interesting deconstruction. Just wanted to add that when the girl who confides in her Nice Guy friend she's not necessarily a reliable source for whether or not the guy is a jerk. When people talk about their relationship issues it's almost always the other person who's the jerk. The Nice Guy gets a description of events that, intentional or not, is filtered in such a way that she looks like the justified party.

Not that this is always true, obviously there's not much subjectivity if you're being physically harmed or similar situations. But I doubt that's the normal case of "Girlfriend confides in Nice Guy about boyfriend being a jerk"

 

[balladbird]

I think well known nice guy and fedora aficionado Al Capone said it best: "You get a lot more of a girl's attention with being a nice guy with a gun, than you do with just bein' a nice guy."

... I admit, I may be mis-remembering his quote.

 

[Maze1125]

When guys say that women go for jerks, they mean that the person they want isn't interested in them

There may or may not be a fedora involved

I do believe we need to make a fedora equivalent of godwinning for internet arguments.

Yep, because suggesting someone might wear a particular type of hat is exactly equivalent to comparing them to Hitler...

 

[Gorrath]

*snip*

This is an interesting deconstruction. Just wanted to add that when the girl who confides in her Nice Guy friend she's not necessarily a reliable source for whether or not the guy is a jerk. When people talk about their relationship issues it's almost always the other person who's the jerk. The Nice Guy gets a description of events that, intentional or not, is filtered in such a way that she looks like the justified party.

Not that this is always true, obviously there's not much subjectivity if you're being physically harmed or similar situations. But I doubt that's the normal case of "Girlfriend confides in Nice Guy about boyfriend being a jerk"

Oh no doubt. I could go into greater detail on everything I mentioned and various ways these things manifest but my post was already going on long. Just from that part alone we have what you said, everything the Jerk does is filtered through her perception. What's more, maybe the Jerk did or does do some genuinely jerky things. What Nice Guy fails to realize is that Jerk isn't just a Jerk, he's also a human with all the same baggage as Nice Guy and Girl, too. In Nice Guy's mind, Jerk exists as that one sole trait, he's an ass. This is why Nice Guy can't see why she stays with Jerk and his sexy hair and his nice car and his popular role on the sports team and his nice abs, ect. ect.

So yeah, Jerk forgot her birthday, something Nice Guy would NEVER EVER DO! Because obviously, all Jerk has ever done is forgotten Girl's birthday and has no other redeeming qualities and OH GOD WHY IS SHE WITH HIM?!

Glad I climbed out of my own ass long enough to realize how immature I was being.