The Chuck Bass Effect

A friend of mine recently announced her undying love for Chuck Bass. For those of you unfamiliar with Gossip Girl’s resident Bad Boy, Chuck Bass sleeps with hookers, deflowers virgins, conspires against his enemies and repeatedly breaks the heart of our favorite frenemy, Blair Waldorf. In short, Chuck Bass is Bad News.

What is it about Bad News Bad Boys that makes us want them so much? Every girl I know at some stage has lusted after a boy who treats her badly and converts her into a Clingerella—that needy, emotionally unstable, schizophrenic version of ourselves that sends too many text messages, angsts over the lack of reply, and ends up with the 1AM drink-dial crying, “Whhhyyyy? Whhhyyy don’t you caalllll meeeee?” which, to be fair, sounds very empowered and confident when one is inebriated.

I went through a whole phase of dating Bad Boys. Aside from being desperately good-looking, they have an air about them that suggests they’ll pull your hair and call you filthy names as you do it in an alley somewhere. They’re the guys that will drag you back to their cave and know you mean ‘Yes’ when you’re actually saying ‘No’. They don’t have feelings, they just have desires. They can nail a shelf to a wall and they can nail you to well, just about anything.

They exude so much self-confidence that their arrogance is a turn-on, because you suspect that there’s nothing they can’t do in bed. Maybe it’s the way they straddle that purring motorcycle, or, at the other end of the scale, the knowing way they order champagne while discreetly handing over the credit card. Any man with such deftness and abilty to multi-task must be a natural in the sack.

And the fact that they’ve slept with a gazillion women? It’s always nice to have the toy that everyone else wants to play with.

But the problem with Bad Boys is that it always ends in tears. All the things that attracted you to him in the first place—the inability to commit, the serial whoring, the fact that he’s an emotional cripple—are all the things that end up being your downfall. And the reason we persist is that sick conviction inside us that makes us think, “I’m The One. I’m going to be The One to change him, to make him commit, to heal the emotional scars left by his disturbed childhood, his crazy ex-girlfriend and that brief stint in jail which wasn’t assault, he was just misunderstood.” You believe that you can kiss it better, but sadly, this isn’t the solution. Because the only thing that can reform a Bad Boy is a Badder Girl.

I suspect it’s evolution. Men, who are natural hunters, understand that the easiest meat to catch is usually the weakest member of the herd. The best, most delicious meat is the one that requires a chase. The prize gazelle is the one a hunter has to work the hardest to catch. For women, who are the gatherers, we understand that the low-hanging fruit is definitely not the juiciest. And no girl wants a man whose plums hang low. Experience has taught that when it comes to collecting our nuts, it’s best to climb higher.

Which is why Badder Girl, who doesn’t appear to fall for the honey trap of their charm, becomes the one they want to catch. So unless you are Badder Girl, that leather-clad lothario is always going to be The One That Got Away.

As for me, I’m done with dating the Chuck Bass’ of this world. Because apparently, there are plenty of fish in the sea, and that fish no longer gets this girl wet.