It happens to every woman. You wake up and realize you're living a cliché. You're a good girl who is infatuated with a bad boy. You like him more than he likes you. He barely notices you exist, and he is obviously trouble waiting to happen. He's bound to demolish your heart and annihilate your ego. You can already taste the tears, but he makes you hotter than an ant begging for mercy under a magnifying glass.
If you are lucky, this only happens once in your lifetime, but many women have a chronic condition, obsessed with men who don't treat them well. You can search for the root causes of this type of attraction. Daddy issues. Self-esteem issues. Issues about having issues. But that doesn't mean it is any easier to douse to blaze of your desire.
You can spend years in therapy trying to understand why you find this archetype sexy, and hopefully, in time, you will outgrow it and learn to appreciate men who appreciate you. But what do you do in the meantime? There are going to be guys along the way who will be tempting you with their seductive hair and bad attitudes. The depressing thing about this is the inevitability of getting hurt. But there is hope, ladies. If you want to pounce on a boy who will use you and abuse you, it is time to stop throwing yourself at him and be strategic. If you refuse to give up on your bad boy crushes, don't give up on yourself in the process.
Here are some hints on how to tame a bad boy
1)Never sleep with him on the first date
During your first make-out session feel free to unleash your inner vixen, but do not sleep with him. Not because "you can't," or you "don't want him to get the wrong impression of you," because those are excuses he will think are lame. You don't sleep with him because you don't want to. And that is what you tell him. If you say something like "I am just not feeling it," that will really screw with his head. It will make him think that you are frisky enough to have sex on the first date, but he is not inspiring you to do it with him. Getting a bad boy to question why you don't want him will make him want you more.
2)Don't always sleep with him every time you hang out
After you have given him access into your sacred arches, that doesn't mean he has a free pass for entry. In fact, there should be times you let him go downtown like a horse at a feeding trough and then say you have somewhere to be when he expects reciprocity. You might be asking yourself "wait, Toni... isn't that using sex as a weapon?" Yeah. It is. Pretty awesome, right? I bet you didn't understand that you have the power of a nuclear warhead in your pants.
3)Tell him you are not looking for a boyfriend
It is very important that you do this with sincerity. If he questions you on this, explain that you "don't believe in monogamy because it isn't natural for women." Then go into detail about birds who cheat on their bird-boyfriends and make him raise their bird-babies from another guy. This will confuse him. He will wonder why he is not good enough for you to want him as your boyfriend and ponder the value of commitment.
4)Do not answer all his calls or texts
Once he sees you as a wild spirit who needs to explore the variety the universe has to offer, when you don't answer his texts he will feel paranoid and insecure. It will be hard for him to maintain his swagger with other women when he is too busy wondering what you are up to.
5)Don't always say "yes" to seeing him
Anyone that is too available is easy to take advantage of. If he thinks he can see you whenever he wants, you will end up with 4 a.m. drunk texts.
6)Act unimpressed by him
Bad boys think highly of themselves because they have a lot of girls interested in them who tolerate their aloof self-involvedness. When he is talking about things that you can tell are intended to impress you, respond with a complete non sequitur that is apropos of nothing.
Of course this means you are going to be playing a lot of games, which does not facilitate true intimacy. This dynamic is not the recipe for finding your authentic self with a life long partner, and I strongly suggest attracting the type of man you can be unfiltered and genuine with. But, in the meantime, if you are going to play the game, you might as well win.