The Asshole Theory

One of the more frustrating things I hear guys say is that girls only are attracted to assholes.

I find this theory confusing. Where I believe there is some truth to girls not being attracted to total saps, I do not believe that rules out nice guys. I think ultimately girls do want nice guys. No one really wants a guy who is a dick to them all the time.

What gets confusing is how can one determine if the guy is just acting like an asshole to attract a girl based on the asshole theory? Is the guy genuinely an asshole?

Drawing from the personal experiences I have had and those from my friends, here are some true stories that I have tried to figure out where the guy falls on the asshole meter.

*When I was in Florence, I was working promoting a bar/restaurant by passing flyers out around the Duomo in the center of the city to make extra money. What my friend and I would do was literally walk in circles around the church all day. Although I must admit sometimes we would just find a far away trash can and throw them away and hang out for the rest of the day. After a few days of working we got a following of creepy Italian/Albanian guys that would follow us in circles. Sometimes we would give them flyers to pass out since they were stalking us anyway. One guy decided he was in love with me. After work we went to the restaurant we were promoting with our stalkers for a drink. We had one drink with them. This guy was literally just staring at me and occasionally asking for my number. My friend, to be funny gave it to him. She has an interesting idea of what funny is. He called me everyday multiple times a day. The first few calls were him asking me out or asking to come over and me saying no. After those he would just call me and play American love songs over the phone (mostly because we didn't really speak the same language). He would call me from many different numbers to avoid me not picking up the phone. A few days later, this guy's friend sees me working and tells me to please go out with his friend because he has gone on a hunger strike until I went out with him or kissed him...something like that. A day or so after that and many music phone serenades later, he calls me telling me he is very hungry. He sent me a picture of his room where he had hung about 50 or so of the flyers we gave him to pass out as a shrine to me. I told the guy he should start eating again because I had recently realized that I was in love with my coworker and I needed to explore the fact that I may be a lesbian. This didn't work so stopped answering the phone to any number and just avoided him while working. This guy does not fall into the nice guy category. This guy is a total sap, thus being unattractive to most women.

*I have heard many variations to this story from different friends. I have my own variation of this story as well. Guys who take you out on dates, you have a decent to good time. At the end of the night, you kiss. The guy decides he doesn't want to stop at kissing, the girl decides that she wants to wait. Then the guy gets angry and calls the girl fat or makes a comment about how he wasn't really interested in them anyway because she was too fat for him. (This has happened to at least 3 of my friends). I have also heard of guys that a girl was dating who after the charm of a new romance moved on the guy said things like "I like you because you are good lay" and then commented about how they were too fat. This is the guy who is genuinely an asshole but at other times is a good guy which perpetuates the theory that girls only like assholes. This guy just confuses girls because they start off nice and romantic but throw in asshole commentary and the girl has to determine where to draw the line.

*I honestly do not have any stories to tell about myself or friends who have dated guys that were assholes from start to finish. Mostly because they met the guy, thought he was an asshole or mean and didn't see them again. Maybe there may have been one "still trying to figure it out" date, but that was it. *Case and point, girls do not like assholes. Guys only think that because they don't see the full story about how nice the guy was in the beginning and only see the ending where the guy was an asshole, they assume that the guy was ALWAYS an asshole. Not true.

*One of my very attractive, smart and cool friends was telling me about the guy she has started dating. I asked her what she liked about him and her only response was "He is literally the nicest guy I have ever met. He is genuinely a good person which is hard to find and I love that about him." Since I know this guy, I can vouch that he is a good person. He is not a sap about her or about anything too worldly. He has a good sense of humor and is not like a puppy dog about her, but obviously cares for her. This is the guy that every girl wants!!!

To every guy's credit, girls sometimes stay with assholes longer than they should. Once the guy has blown his "nice guy" cover, it can be hard to break up with him. One theory that is true is that every girl does believe deep down inside that she can get a guy to change. Not necessarily entirely  but enough to revert him back to where he used to be that attracted her to him in the first place. This is a problem that is hard to overcome and perpetuates the asshole theory.

My advice to men: If you are an asshole, show that from the beginning and let me decide whether or not that is something I can handle or am attracted to. Don't act like an asshole if you know you are not one and it feels wrong. If sappy ideas ever come up in your head, maybe keep them to yourself. There is a difference between saying "you look beautiful tonight" and "wow, are you real? I feel like I'm living in a dream...".