What's Wrong With Nice Guys?

Bad to the Bone

James Dean, James Bond. Colin Farrell. Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones's Diary. That high school senior with the leather jacket who'll probably be a senior again next year. What do they all have in common? They smolder. They smirk. They smoke. They are tragically troubled, fatally flawed. They are physically unable to call when they're supposed to.

They are bad boys. And goodness, how we love them.

"Our love affairs with bad boys sweep us off our feet time and time again," says Carole Lieberman, MD, coauthor of Bad Boys: Why We Love Them, How To Live with Them, and When to Leave Them (Dutton, 1997). "They can be unpredictable, dishonest, or downright mean, but scoundrels have always had an undeniable appeal to many of us -- an erotic edge of danger that's hard to resist."

Still, in real life and in real relationships, our love for bad boys -- and yes, also for the "nice guys" who hate them -- is actually quite nuanced. Read this good vs. bad boy guide to debunk some male myths and find out who really does finish first.