✖ the bad boy effect: why did we fall in love with a psycho version of Dan Humphrey?

✖ the bad boy effect: why did we fall in love with a psycho version of Dan Humphrey?

• Thursday, 31 January 2019

I'm sat here, with my cup of coffee and facing the aftermath of the few glasses of wine I drank last evening in order to celebrate my birthday. Thanks for all the birthday wishes on Twitter too, it's wonderful to realise how many people actually read my tweets about Twitter birthday balloons.

Now, here is the deal. If you haven't seen the latest addition in Netflix, the Netflix Original series called "YOU", I recommend you to come back to this blog post after you've actually seen it. If you haven't seen it, read this blog post and all the spoilers in it (which this blog post might contain, I haven't quite thought it through yet, I'm basically always winging these), it's on you. You like living on the edge, do you? Yes, you do. Keep on reading, then.

Penn Badgley, I'm sorry but even going for a character like Joe (YOU), won't wash off the Dan Humphrey (GOSSIP GIRL) off your shoulders. Especially if Joe is just a teeny weeny bit more obsessive version of Dan.

 Here's what we loved about Dan Humphrey:
     ✖ he is a perfect next-door type of a boy
     ✖ he does adorable things for the women he falls in love with
     ✖ he is enthusiastic about literature, which makes him clever
     ✖ he is nice, perhaps a bit too nice
     ✖ he managed to surprise us all and turned out to be the original Gossip Girl

Here's what Beck loved about Joe when she had no clue about his "hobbies":
     ✖ he seems like a perfect next-door type of a guy
     ✖ he does adorable things for the women he falls in love with
     ✖ he is enthusiastic about literature, which makes him clever
     ✖ he is nice, perhaps a bit too nice
     ✖ there's something mysterious about him

They are both basically alike. And because they are alike, and we fell in love with Dan, we also fell in love with Joe. And they both effect on us on a bad boy level. Dan wasn't a bad boy in the specific meaning of those two words and Joe was a bit more than just a bad boy, but they both had a dark side in them. But why do we fall for these type of people? People with a dark side in them?

There have been some studies about why women do fall for men with this darkness in them. However, I'm not going to refer to them because I am me and as a self-proclaimed kitchen psychologist (which means I have no clue about anything, do not take me seriously or refer to me as a professional in this matter), I'm going to analyse this thing a bit.

the mystery
People like Joe, tend to keep themselves as a huge puzzle no one can solve. They can keep up the curtain of the mystery for a really long period of times. They know things about you, more than you could imagine. You can easily share your things with them, however, they're not sharing their stuff with you. Something they do share, but it won't be specific or too personal, which keeps the mystery alive. They're like a puzzle we want to solve, which makes them more attractive.

they do adorable and romantic things for you
If a man does adorable and romantic things for you, it doesn't automatically mean that he's a bit off tune with his head. And we love them for that, those tiny little gestures and things they do to keep us interested in them. To keep us love them, in a cute, not at all weird way. We like to receive the attention. We love the fact that they'd go to pick us up the moon.
And while people like Joe are willing to murder someone because of a woman she loves, that's not adorable or even romantic. However, it indicates us that this man is willing to do anything for a woman he loves, and that's probably one of the reasons we actually like Joe. In a weird and twisted way. But that's okay, it's just a TV series. (Like there wouldn't be people like him in real life, way to go, Jasmin, live in denial.)

the attractiveness
I have a type and that type is dark-haired, dark-eyed tattooed man. I mean, if I see one you can be guaranteed my feet are swept off and if I was single I'd probably spread my legs wide open each time I see one of those creatures going around. Okay no, I'm sorry, I still have some dignity left.
Mysterious people are attractive and mysterious, like attractiveness can be so many different things to different people, it doesn't always have to be a dark-haired, dark-eyed and tattooed man. I can be basically anything that specific woman finds attractive, look-wise and soul-wise. People like Joe, and Dan, are usually pretty attractive. Perhaps that's why we fall for them.

they are clever
They are clever and well-read. They are good at stuff they do, and they can amaze you with their ability to be clever in an area they are experts in. That's why Sherlock Holmes can be found attractive, despite his lack of social skills. He's clever. And when we find a clever man, our ovaries instantly think the babies we'll make together will be clever too. And when we think with our ovaries, it really doesn't matter if the dude has murdered a couple of our friends without us knowing. Emphasis on the words, "without us knowing."

the conclusion
There's no conclusion. We fall in who we fall in, whether they're good or bad.
It's some sort of love chemistry.
And I don't know anything about anything, I just wanted to play with a thought of it.