erttheking said:
So I brought up women so I already doomed this thread to be a shitstorm but can we at least try to keep it to a minimum?
So I hear a fair amount of people claiming that women like, and by extension prefer to date, jerks. The thing that puzzles me is that this is one of those things I hear talked about a lot, but personally never see. Personally I have a bit of a hard time swallowing it. So, out of curiosity I thought I'd ask.
Do you think women like jerks? Why or why not? Personally I don't. It just doesn't feel real. I've never really talked to women who act like they secretly desire someone to treat them like shit.
I don't think many, if any, women actually WANT someone to treat them like shit. Maybe women who are actually masochists would want that, but from what little I know of BDSM culture, even women who want to be dominated want a partner who values and respects them in some way. That being said, I'd known too many women who seemed to unconsciously prefer jerks to say that it doesn't actually exist or isn't real in some way.
Originally, this post was going to be very long because I've actually known (in passing) a woman who was murdered by her husband. She was a "Work Acquaintance" - I dealt with her on a semi-regularly basis, just often enough to think that her wearing turtlenecks in the summer was weird, but not often enough to know if that was a fashion choice or a necessity to cover up the bruises her husband was leaving on her. It wasn't until after she was murdered that people in the office began to share their stories of how they tried to help her, starting from when she was dating the man (and already he was psychologically abusing her) to after she married him (up to and including offering to transfer her to a department on the other side of the country, and paying for her to move), to no avail. And how some of her friends talked about how this was what they feared would happen - that she just kept on dating guys who were abusive.
I've also lived with women who seemed to be attracted to assholes. For about 8 years during university and just after, I lived in rooming-style houses (4-6 bedrooms, everyone paying part of the overall rent) that were always co-ed (not enough people looking for year round housing to be picky), and two women in particular stand out. One who dated men who had the "balls" to come up to her at our housewarming party and say "I bet those tits are the best thing about you." in front of a dozen strangers. Another woman who latched onto the first man who had a steady job and was interested in her, married him, then when that situation became untenable (mostly because he embodied many of the worst stereotypes of "Gamers", not because he was violent) she divorced him and married a man who was arguably worse for her (racist, homophobic hunter while she is a vegetarian with an openly gay brother). Later, after moving into apartment life with Mrs. Makt, we've shared apartment buildings with women who have made whole assortments of bad choices in men, from men who cheated on them (one woman dating multiple me, all of whom cheated on her), men who mooched thousands of dollars off of them, to women who have dated violent men - one of whom was arrested for inviting the man she had a restraining order against for throwing her down the a half flight of stairs (breaking her wrist and giving her a concussion) over to her apartment for sex while the restraining order was still being enforced!
I put in a great deal of context for these situations, but when I got to the end I realized that it wasn't really necessary for this thread. None of the women I know have actually gone out and intentionally looked for someone to abuse them. None went out at night and said "I want a man who is going to break my bones, literally." or "I want a man who is going to belittle what I find entertaining and make me his target for his own personal MST3k production." or "I want to find the man who's going to straight out murder me someday." But all the women I've noted, and many of the women I've known but left out (mostly due to not having enough context for their actions) have all dated, or married, multiple assholes. Often times the same variety of asshole - the asshole who cheats on her, the asshole who steals from her, the asshole who verbally abuses her, the asshole who only uses her for sex when he wants to have sex, etc. But I've witnessed it at least a dozen times, in a dozen different women, where they simply seem to be attracted to assholes.
I don't know what it is. But I've seen it far too often to try to say it doesn't exist. I'll be willing to say it's not a conscious choice (most of the time), but it seems to be a choice women make on a regular basis.
(I'd mention how men make stupid decisions like this too, in dealing with female assholes, but that's not the topic of this thread.)
