Nice guys and bad boys

If this isn't your first time (and I can tell when it isn't), you might have noticed how my mildly interesting romantic history is largely seasoned with men who might best be referred to as "bad boys". Not thugs and creeps, exactly, but the type of guys you might think twice about leaving alone in the room with your best friend. Or your credit card. It's so completely unoriginal, and lord knows I've been right there along with the sisterhood lamenting how we can't meet nice guys. And who doesn't have at least one male friend who's asked "Why don't girls like nice guys?  You always seem to go for the bad boys."  Yes, we often do. And you want to know why? It's not the swagger (well, not entirely), or the direct gaze, or the tattoos. It's much simpler than that: because the bad boys go for us.

Hear me out. Sure, your average bad boy has a cocksureness that can be pretty appealing, compelling even. But that's not to say nice guys aren't confident, too; it's just a bit less of an in your face (or your pants) confidence. And it's not that we don't like nice guys; quite the opposite. But nice guys are often too shy or too cautious to take that chance and lay it on the line. And nice girls (and I include myself in that category)  aren't exactly keen to stick their necks out, either. So where does that leave you? With two nice people, home alone on a Friday night. I sometimes feel like nice and nice simply cancel each other out.

Bad boys, on the other hand, are only too happy to meet you more than halfway. They'll actually meet you all the way. Like on your doorstep ("we don't need to go out, baby") if you let them. There's something comforting (and, let's be honest, flattering)  about not wondering if a guy is into you. Bad boys just so clearly WANT you, and that can be intoxicating, even when you know it's temporary. And unless you're an idiot (or me in my 20s) you'll figure out pretty quickly that you're just the latest date on an Around the Girls World tour. But while he's focused on you, you'll have a lot of fun.  As evidenced by Monday night booty calls, Wednesday morning hangovers, and the occasional episode of public indecency.

The nice guy, on the other hand, often wants to be friends first. Which is great, but often confusing. Because we usually can't tell if this is a stopover on the way to Sexytown or if we've arrived at our final destination, Platonicville. Population: me.

Here's my theory: nice guys might not like to admit it, but they tend to go for the slightly bad girls for the same reasons nice girls tend to go for the naughty boys. They don't have to make the first move and risk rejection. That no guesswork thing works both ways. However, the downside to this is that they lose the ability to read female subtlety when conditioned to blatant sluttery. So the nice girls are thinking "What is his problem? Is he blind? This is my A game" and he's thinking "She seems to like me, but it's hard for me to be sure what with this other girl on my lap."

Bridget Jones, the patron saint of conflicted women everywhere, gave us perhaps the quintessential Bad Boy vs. Nice Guy grudge match with her suitors, Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy. Sure, they were archetypes, and it isn't always as easy to distinguish one from the other; you can't always spot the nice ones simply by their reindeer sweaters. Especially in the summer. I find this to be a more reliable field guide tip, honed by years of careful study: a bad boy has his hand on your ass; a nice guy has his hand on the door, holding it open for you.

But our Bridget was onto something when she headed out into the snow in her panties, literally putting her ass on the line for a decent guy.  I think we all remember what happened next. One of the best movie lines of all time, that's what. And something those of us with a bad boy penchant would do well to remember: 

"Wait a minute - nice boys don't kiss like that."
"Oh yes they fucking do."

So what's the answer? How do you get off the bad boy merry-go-round?  I don't know. I do know that I'm no longer the least bit interested in taking a spin with the Daniel Cleavers of the world. Here's the problem: in the past, I've thought I've shown Def Con four levels of obvious interest, and my male pals  have said "Really? I'm not so sure. I'd read what you're doing, at best, as something between indifference and mild distaste." Which likely means I'm hopeless, since it's getting a little late in the game to whore it up. Not that women my age don't do it all the time; it's called a mid-life crisis. I think, for better or worse, the nice girl is here to stay. I'll remember the bad boys (mostly) fondly, but I'd very much like to see if Mark Darcy was right and if, indeed, yes they fucking do. I just hope I don't have to end up on a busy street in my underwear to find out.

My idols

I logged into Facebook two nights ago to see a post from my friend Eve. She works for a major university, and she mentioned her day had been brightened considerably when she walked back from lunch behind a group that included Dr. Jane Goodall, on campus for a lecture. 

This made me happy for a couple of reasons. That Eve was so thrilled about her almost-encounter, and that many of her friends were commenting about how envious they were. These days, I fear many young women wouldn't recognize one of the most trailblazing women of the 20th century, but they could name every member of the extended Kardashian family. I don't have many idols. But I can tell you this: there's not a pop singer or reality show cast member in the bunch.

First up, Dr. Goodall. I have been fascinated by her since I was a child. I suppose I became aware of her through National Geographic, or Life magazine, or television specials. I don't remember a time when I didn't know who she was. I am in awe of her pioneering work at a time when women didn't jaunt off on posh holidays alone, much less set up camp on the rugged terrain of a lakeshore in Tanzania to study chimps. Young women were meant to be housewives, not scientists. The woman was also the subject of her very own Far Side strip. If that ain't cool, I don't know what is. Dr. Goodall will be 77 next week, and the word that comes to mind when I think of her is formidable, 50 years after she first went to Gombe.  I may have an opportunity to meet her next week during her lecture tour, and I will be hard-pressed to form a complete sentence. I love her.



Miep Gies. It is one of the big regrets of my life that I didn't ever get her to sign my copy of  Diary of a Young Girl. Well into her 90s, she would apparently sign copies of the book sent to her from all over the world. For those who don't know her, she was the woman who helped hide the Frank family in that attic for just over two years. When I visited the Frank house and walked through that bookcase into their hiding place I had a physical reaction.  At great personal risk to herself,  Miep helped to shelter eight people and, when the Nazis took them, gathered up Anne's writings for safekeeping, without reading them. Years later, she would say of finally reading the diary, “The emptiness in my heart was eased. So much had been lost, but now Anne’s voice would never be lost. My young friend had left a remarkable legacy to the world." And this one tiny woman, barely five feet tall, who risked her life to protect her friends,  is the sole reason we know Anne's story.  Miep literally gave Anne's voice to the world.

Josephine Baker. Now, admittedly, I love most anything to do with Paris in the 20s and 30s. But Josephine...
Ernest Hemingway said that she was "...the most sensational woman anyone ever saw."  She was a muse to not only Hemingway, but F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Christian Dior. It is a rare woman who could star in the Folies Bergères, work for the French Resistance, and go on to speak at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King. She rose from sleeping on the streets of St. Louis to becoming the toast of Paris at the start of the Art Deco movement. She married many times, adopted a dozen children, and refused to perform in segregated venues. She staged a triumphant "comeback" in her late 60s, though to the French, she'd never really left. She died four days after opening a retrospective revue of her 50 year career to raves and an audience that included Mick Jagger and Sophia Loren. She was laid to rest with full French military honours.

As for why these particular women are my idols, it isn't about fame, or fortune, or even a truly awesome banana skirt. I want my idols to do far more than hit a high note. It's about what they accomplished but, more than that, what makes these women so special to me is who they were, and are. It's their intelligence and strength of character, their integrity, courage, and spirit. It is the things about them that I hope, in some tiny measure, might someday be said of me. And okay, maybe that banana skirt had a little something to do with it.  It was pretty darn cool.

Spring Fling

Just like the first little crocus starting to peek up through the ground, there's the April issue of Cosmo, peeking its smutty little head out from behind that boring Good Housekeeping. I give you the highlights.

The cover promises 50 Ways to Seduce a Man (in a minute or less). Presumably not while wearing What Guys Hate for You to Wear to Bed, and likely while having some Kinky Sex (which 64% of you tramps secretly want to try). I'm in!

The 50 tips are a fairly typical grab bag of short skirts, discreet public crotch grabbing and a slutty maid costume. Not just for Halloween anymore, I guess. The one that made me laugh AND gave me pause was this: "You know those treats you used to find at the bottom of a cereal box? One morning, I hid [my] new finger vibrator in my guy's cereal for him to discover." Maybe I have a startling lack of imagination, or maybe guys are different, but this doesn't make me think of sexy times; it makes me think of questionable food safety practices. I'd be on the phone to the Superstore faster than you could say "Want to frost my flakes,  Big Boy?" And here's the thing about the dozens of monthly tips: how are you supposed to remember them? Do you pick a few and commit them to memory? Flash cards in your nightstand? Create a mnemonic device? Many years ago, I had a copy of this somewhat racy "how-to" book, along with a willing partner who agreed to hold the book while we gave the alleged number one tip a whirl.  It was called "The Firestarter". He made me promise never to read that book, or any like it, ever again.

Guys apparently would like us to stop wearing nightgowns to bed. You know the ones - usually long sleeves, a neckline, possibly a ruffle, a hemline that hits the knees.  What shocks me is that they needed an article to tell women this. Were you home-schooled? They should have to card you before you head for that rack, and if you're under 55, sorry. T-shirt. Boy shorts. Tank top. Donair sauce. Anything but a little number from the Little Women collection.

Okay, pervs, I know why you've kept reading this far. You want to know what 64% of you want to try. Turns out it's the training wheels version of S&M, the stalwart combo of a blindfold and handcuffs. There are a lot of assurances that it's perfectly okay to find this appealing, your guy won't judge you, etc. The experts suggest bringing it up by mentioning you find the video for Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" really hot, and asking him if he thinks it is, too. I admit I'm out of the loop, but if any guy I'm sleeping with has any opinion whatsoever on a Lady Gaga video, we have bigger things to discuss than whether he wants to play good cop / bad cop. Whatever happened to "hey, you know what might be fun?" I swear, this inability or reluctance to say what you want is an epidemic. And since I know you're wondering ....please. I came of age with "9 1/2 Weeks" and Madonna's "Sex" book. I'm not saying I've seen more blindfolds than a Spanish firing squad, but I could probably put together a decent  Lone Ranger costume on very short notice back in the day.

Apparently, 48% of men say they've learned pretty much everything there is to know about sex. How sad that would be, to think there's nothing new to discover. And gentlemen - no,  you haven't.

There's a whole page dedicated to "Ferosh Date Shoes!"  I didn't know what they meant. At first I thought they'd misspelled "fresh". Or "frosh". But then I realized they meant a derivative of "ferocious". This bothered me more than it should. Then I realized I was horrified over a Cosmo colloquialism, and this bothered me even more. It was like I was on one of Escher's never-ending staircases, wearing ferosh shoes and searching desperately for my dog-eared copy of Strunk & White.

Do guys have signs they look for to guess whether a girl is going to be good in bed? My guess is if she's holding a one way ticket out of town dated tomorrow morning in one hand and a jumbo margarita in the other, but I could be wrong.

Oooh - there's a bonus section they don't tell you about on the cover. It's Cosmo's Sex Fantasy Game. There are 12 cards, each printed with three words, and you're to weave those words into an erotic scenario involving you and your partner. You're supposed to describe the scenario in a sexy way, and act it out as best you can. It's like "Whose Line is it?", only with lube.  Let's see - I think my favourite word combo is this one: bar / over-the-knee boots/ phone. Maybe it's my fashion sense showing, but when I think over-the-knee boots and bar, I assume the phone would be for your clients,  since you're clearly a working girl.  And I literally cannot imagine any sort of scenario involving bench/ bra/ mints without giggling. I must admit tent/ chocolate/ camera has potential. But who am I kidding? I'm a simple girl who thinks many of the bells and whistles are fun, but unnecessary. My ideal card would say  Kettlecorn/ PVR/ Missionary. What? I have to work in the morning.

Weird fact I learned: a study by the University of New Mexico found that lap dancers earned up to 80% more in tips on days they were ovulating. I smell an awkward conversation with my boss in about 8 days.

Quiz time:  Do Guys Think You're Exciting?  Let me reflect on the weekend just past. Hmm. Yeah, I'm gonna save myself some time tallying those answers. But one question caught my eye:  "You're dying to get with (really?) your man, but he's still at work. How do you let him know you're craving him? " Answer b), worth the maximum 2 points, is "Tape your panties to his garage, so when he pulls up, he can't miss 'em".  Okay, maybe I'm overly concerned with details, but what if he lives in a building? And I'd like to address this directly to any future paramours who happen to read this:  Honey, if you ever come home and my delicates are taped to your garage, it does not mean you're about to get your world rocked. It means I've been kidnapped and the unsub is sending you a sick, twisted, lacy message. Call the police.

One final tidbit from Cosmo this month. They asked 100 guys about their dream way to end the weekend. 31% said cooking a big dinner together. Where the hell are these men? They sure as hell aren't in my kitchen on any given Sunday. If they were, they'd totally find a beer/ remote control / Lone Ranger card beside their dinner plate.