We don’t actually love bad boys.

Far too often do we hear the phrase: “Why can’t I fall for the nice guys.” There are so many things wrong with this phrase that I have learned over the years.

We don’t not fall for nice guys. We just don’t fall for people who aren’t the right people for us. Not every nice person will meet our heart’s criteria. I mean, to be honest, we would all live very messy and indecisive lives if the only criteria was being nice.

But then, Lish, why do I still fall for the bad boys?

Let me ask you this. Do we really fall for the bad boys, or do we get excitement from their adventurous ways that create adrenaline rushes in us. Scientifically speaking, this is an infatuation, which unfortunately for us, is very easy to confuse with love.

“An [infatuation is an] intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something

—World Languages, Oxford Dictionary

Then you add on the time you invest in these boys who give us the adrenaline and we get physically involved with them too. All of these things muddy up our brain to make us feel love for someone who doesn’t treat us well.

My question for you and myself is: Why do we let go of nice boys at the slightest bit of discomfort but we keep making excuses for the boys who keep hurting us.

Now there is truth to the fact that media and the entertainment industry has in many cases, normalized toxicity and this is a problem I will delve into in another blog, but at the end of the day, it is because we associate any immediate good response with plus points in our brain and anything that we expect or think should be expected with neutral/no points.

We spend one night with a good boy and award no plus points because he was decent and decent is normal or boring.

We spend one night with a bad boy and we award a million plus points for their ability to make us laugh or make us feel like life is an adventure even if its at the expense of what we need in life.

Then the nice boy does something for us that all human beings should do and our brain thinks – ‘eh whatever.’

The bad boy doesn’t do something for us and our brain thinks about his audacity for the next few days – or in other words, we keep him in our mind for longer than he deserves.

Now when you constantly think about someone, associate them with wildness, in other words fun, invest a lot of our time/effort in them, and get physically involved with them, what do we call it? We call it love, but what we should be calling it, is misplaced desire for love.

We all can and will fall for nice guys eventually. When we meet the right person, they won’t have to be a dick to us to get our hearts racing. Their perspective in life and the way they both contrast and relate to you will. Until then, our heart and mind will try to grasp onto anything that will be close enough to this feeling – the closest being an infatuation. As human beings, our desire to not be alone will have us seek things we don’t even want.

Bad boys are the example. They fit the criteria that fulfills our immediate needs, but in the long term they leave us with less than we had before. We have to rewire our brain to understand that immediate gratification should not be equated with long term contentness.

One of my favorite lessons in life has been to seek contentedness and not happiness. We may not always be happy (nobody will always be), but if we can be content even in our down times, we have truly made life better for ourselves.

There is a poem from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara that I believe fits:

“Jab jab dard ka baadal chaya Jab ghum ka saya lehraya Jab aansoo palkon tak aya Jab yeh tanha dil ghabrayaHumne dil ko yeh samjhaya …Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai Duniya mein yunhi hota haiYeh jo gehre sannate hain Waqt ne sabko hi baante hain Thoda ghum hai sabka qissa Thodi dhoop hai sabka hissa Aankh teri bekaar hi nam hai Har pal ek naya mausam hai Kyun tu aise pal khota hai Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai“

—Javed Aktar, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

English translation Below:

“Every time the cloud of pain loomed A tear filled my eyes When this lonely heart was scared I told my heart ‘Why do you cry for such reason? This happens everywhere in this world’hese dark lonely times, time has distributed them to all. Some sadness is part of everyone’s story, Some sunshine is a part of everyone’s life Your eyes are damp for no reason Every second is a new season Why do you waste your time over such matters Why do you cry I asked my heart”

—Javed Aktar, With translations by Trupti Kantilal and Vani, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Now l’ll leave you with this. We all will have our times being lonely and sad, but wasting our single years trying to get attention from the wrong people will do nothing to help us.

It’s hard to leave people who bring excitement into our lives, but the best guarantee to enjoy life is to make yourself the person that brings the enjoyment, not another external being.

TLDR: Sometimes what we think is love is just a misplaced desire for someone who makes life momentarily interesting.

#badboys #toxic #goodboy #relationship #lifelesson