Do women prefer louts? Andy Bodle’s experiment in behaving poorly makes for bad science, but a good story.
“With many women, I doubt whether there be any more effectual way of touching their hearts than ill-using them and then confessing it. If you wish to get the sweetest fragrance from the herb at your feet, tread on it, then bruise it.”—Anthony Trollope, Miss Mackenzie
Once a term, Exeter College put on a disco—a “sweaty”, as it was known, because the lack of ventilation meant that by the end of the evening the floor, walls and ceiling of the bar were coated with a sticky conglomerate of beer, perspiration and Lord knows what other fluids.
On these occasions, Guy and I always went out of our way to make visitors from other colleges feel welcome. In the summer of 1992, we were attending to Claudia, a vivacious, voluptuous, green-eyed law student from St Edmund Hall. Though we were both on reasonably entertaining form, neither of us was making much headway. After about half an hour, I nipped to the loo, and emerged to find Guy waiting for me.
“Really sorry about this, mate, but Claudia asked me—and I quote—to ‘keep that wanker away from me’.”
Now, crashing and burning is never nice. But being informed by a third party that you’ve crashed and burned—and being insulted at the same time—is beyond the pale, particularly when you’re on your fourth pint of Kronenbourg. So when I spotted my slanderer across the courtyard a few minutes later, I marched up to her.
“If you’re going to slag someone off,” I seethed, “at least have the decency to do it to his face.” And with that, I poured the contents of my almost-full glass over Claudia’s head and stomped away, leaving her a wide-eyed, spluttering mess.
My sense of triumph wore off in a matter of seconds. This was so unlike me. I’d barely raised my voice at anyone before, never mind a pint of Kroney. I was suddenly racked with guilt. Claudia might have done me wrong, but she hadn’t deserved a lager shampoo and set.
I was steeling myself to apologise when Guy reappeared: Claudia was looking for me. She and the five members of the Teddy Hall rugby team she’d arrived with.
It was clearly too late for apologies. Reasoning that time is often the best healer in these situations, I retreated to what I figured, since my digs were two miles away, would be the safest haven: the junior common room. Thirty seconds later, Claudia and the second XV stormed in.
“What,” she demanded, splaying out her drenched dress, “are you going to do about this?”
Women say they don’t want a bastard. Some even think they don’t want a bastard. But who do they end up shagging?
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Much abject pleading, a promise to put everything right and a very expensive round persuaded the rugger buggers not to use me for conversion practice.
Since I couldn’t take Claudia to my room to dry out, I asked Guy for his key. And so the bedraggled damsel, now minus flankers, squelched up the stairs behind me to his room. Once inside, I turned on the fire, set Claudia in front of it and fetched her a towel. I apologised for the hundredth time, and made to leave. But as I pulled open the door, she stretched an arm towards me, fixed me with those huge green eyes, and sighed: “Don’t go.”
♦◊♦
In the common room the following lunchtime, Guy and I sat down for a friendly game of shithead. When I told him what had happened in his room, he didn’t bat an eyelid. “A classic case, my friend, of ‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen’.”
I laid a 10 on the discard pile, cleared it away and played a king. “Bollocks. No woman actually wants a bastard.”
Guy tutted and drew from the pile. “Women say they don’t want a bastard. Some even think they don’t want a bastard. But who do they end up shagging? The rugger buggers, the arrogant, floppy-haired public-school twats—all right, Tristan!—the drug dealers … occasionally, if I’m lucky, the scruffy, arty type … and, as you’ve now discovered, the lager louts. It’s hardwired from our hunter-gatherer days.”
“It’s been 10,000 years since we were hunter-gatherers. I think we’re a bit more civilised by now.”
“Ten thousand years is an evolutionary eye-blink.” Guy’s nostrils flared as I revealed my second last card: an ace. “We were on the savannah for three or four million. Believe me, the impulses we evolved in that period are still alive and kicking.”
“Sorry, but Claudia did not cop off with me because I poured a pint of beer over her head. That’s ridiculous. She copped off with me because I was nice to her afterwards.”
“You could ask her.” Guy flipped over his last card, cursed, and picked up the pile. “Of course, that won’t settle anything, because even though women are attracted to bastards, they’ll never admit it.”
I tetchily revealed my last face-down card and threw it at him. “Shithead.”
I would have asked her, of course. If I’d ever seen her again.
This was previously published on Womanology.
Read more of Andy Bodle’s Womanology studies on The Good Life.
Image credit: AlbertTheBollix/Flickr
I think that bad father models is your answer as to why some women appear to prefer jerks. We recycle what we have learnt in our families and unless we do some work with ourselves we keep hitting on the same wall. Too bad, no? The same goes for men, of course. Why do men keep going for girls that reject them? I can tell you that the partner of 5 years now (even in long distance) is not a jerk. Yes, he’s handsome -especially in his high school days when he was thin, though quite unpopular- but above all… Read more »
I know I sound like a broken record, but another great article Andy. I had the same revelation as you after three years of college, and I was never the same afterwards.
That’s OK, I have to accept that people are going to react emotively when I write about sensitive subjects like this. Perhaps this will teach me to be a bit clearer in future!
That was obviously supposed to be a reply to Iben, not Jimbo. To Jimbo: that’s the kind of broken record I could listen to all day! (We Brits are so insecure.)
Andy. You are right. I should not tell anyone what they think. Here is why I became so mad. You tell us a story about meeting a woman that kill you a wanker. You two fight and end up in bed. That is nice. But why then bring in all this ugly talk about ” women only want to shag bastards”? If I knew how to write I would have written a long article about this. An article about men that see themselves as nice gentlemen and other men as bastards. And who are these bastards anyway ? And how… Read more »
These stories weren’t originally designed to stand alone. This is one of a series of stories about strange dating experiences in my youth. It’s just one event, and one piece of research that I’ve found that might throw some light on it. When these appear alone, sometimes they can appear didactic, but that was not the intention – the overall plan is to present as many viewpoints as possible.
I don’t genuinely believe that all women are attracted to bastards. I think some are, some of the time (and evolutionary psychology provides some good theories as to why). That’s all.
OK Andy
I am sorry I got so mad at you .
I think it’s a story about how an individual women is a bit screwed up…
I was hoping to convey the idea that I behaved like a jerk, and got lucky (having spent my life prior to that behaving like a perfect gentleman and getting nowhere). But it’s supposed to be a curio, not a how-to guide.
Andy
If I could write like Conner Habib,I could have explained to you how upset this made me.
But writing is not my art form.
I am surprised you don’t see how insulting this article is.
And I am surprised that you don’t realize that the second you poured your drink over her you had your moment of self respect and she knew it.
She was the bastard,and you are so proud to have fucked her.
And so little you understand of women Andy.
You even have to kiss and tell.
Draw whatever conclusion you like from the story, but don’t tell me what I think.
My initial comment wasn’t ‘moderated out’ it just sort of ‘disappeared’, oh well. Anyway, as I was saying, although women deny it (especially to men), they seem drawn to ‘Bad Boys’, kind of like moths to a flame. Some time back, surfing the net, I came across an article on the ‘Cosmo’ web magazine page asking more or less that eternal question. ‘Why are women attracted to ‘Bad Boys”? They couldn’t supply any answers. So, if the womens ‘Bible’ doesn’t know, I would guess us men will never figure this one out!
Hi Andy
It is hard to understand you.
What is it that you are trying to tell us?
That you got laid?
The question that has befuddled men for eons! Women will usually deny (especially to men) that they are attracted to “Bad Boys”, yet while surfing the web some while ago I came upon their ‘Bible’ (Cosmo) online mag. and there was an article titled ‘Why are we attracted to the ‘Bad Boys”(or something like that). I guess us guys will never truly know since , at least to us, women deny that it’s true. Oh well, another part of the ‘Feminine Mystique’ that keeps life interesting for us guys.