Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: why do women date guys who are jerks Message-ID: <4899@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Thu, 10-Jan-85 10:15:31 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.4899 Posted: Thu Jan 10 10:15:31 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 10-Jan-85 10:15:31 EST Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 65 Disclaimer: I only read net.singles when I don't have any other work to do -- like now when my work machine is on day 2 of the crash. It is getting fixed now. When it is fixed I will be back to work, so if this article generates tons of flames or discussion or whatnot I probably won't be reading it. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. Okay. I know 2 reasons why certain people I know dated people who were ``undesirable'' (again, by their standards) rather than people who were ``desirable''. They aren't wonderfully pretty reasons, alas. The first reason that I know is that some people are really terribly angry and outraged a lot of the time. This is not primarily directed at the SO -- it is just a general feeling. The problem is that any SO who is going to be around at the time is going to get chunks of this anger anyway, even if entirely innocent. So, for people who figure that they are going to use their SO as a real focus for their anger anyway would rather have a SO who deserves getting angry with. Ranting and raging at a perfectly nice and considerate guy is very mean -- but ranting at a jerk? That almost seems morally justified to many people. They can be angry all they want and noone can accuse them of being unreasonable... The two people I know who gop out and get relationships like this (but not, they don't go out and get women who beat them up, just are thoughtless and inconsiderate) seem (from mys perspective) to have confused ``having a fight with someone'' with ``having wonderful communication with someone''. When (shudder) they end up going out with a reasonable person they end up doing no communicating at all (since what tehy want to talk about is how angry/depressed/pissed off they are) and thus consider their relationship a wash out. The other person who sprang to mind was a Christian girl (we were all in high school at the time) who went through nearly all of my Jewish male friends in about 3 years. I never got to meet her, but for a while it seemed like everybody I knew was either going out with her or recovering from the experience. She had decided that 4 months was about all she wanted in a relationship. So far, I think, so good -- but have you ever tried to go out with someone and tell them that you didn't think that this was the be all and end all of all relationships which was going to end up in love, marriage and whatever all that means to the other person? It doesn't go over very well -- even if you have no illusions left about ``finding the perfect one who will last my entire lifetime'' (especially at age 16!) there is considerable pressure on you to maintain this fiction while in the presence of the SO. [Except, maybe, for the proverbial ``summer romance''. But I never had any of those...] So, at any rate, she had a convenient out. She had 4 months of fun, and then, almost to the day, every one of my friends would get the same speech. ``You know, you really are terrific, but I can't hack your not being a Christian''. That it was a prepared speech would have ticked us off if not for the fact that we had already noticed that after finding Daniel unacceptable (but only because he was Jewish) she moved on to Steve (who also was Jewish) and then to Andrew... it was a very convenient out to have. I figure that things would have been better if she could actually have said ``I want 4 months of relationship and then I will be moving on'' but, realistically, I don't think that any of my friends or I would have been willing to listen to that at the time without being tremendously hurt. (Or at least acting as if we were tremendously hurt.) It is amazing the amount of bs that one absorbs as a kid about ``the way relationships are supposed to be''... Laura Creighton utzoo!laura