The Modern Romantic

So, one of the promises I made to myself when restarting blogging was to be more personal. Everyone says 28 is some magic year of major life transition and so far, for me, it has been. This has mainly occurred through recognizing bad habits I have developed over the years. By far, one of the biggest, that I'm finally owning up to is my love of "bad boys".

A friend of mine handed me Addickted: 12 Steps to Kicking Your Bad Boy Habit by Kristina Grish yesterday, and I haven't been able to put it down. This is sort of embarrassing in itself. I'd like to think that I'm not the sort of fellow who would read chick-lit self-help. I mean, this is from the author of something called Boy Vey. But she's speaking my language. I mean, how many times have I told myself, "I'm the only person who understands this guy!", caught up in the complexity and mystery of their tortured soul.

There's a great bit that made a light bulb go off in my head, that once read, made everything else make sense: "For bad boys romance is simply a means to having a good time". The doting affection, the wild nights, the impromptu whirlwind trips are just an ends to themselves and aren't actually leading to any kind of deeper love at all. This makes total sense to me, or at least it rings as true.

The first step to liking nice boys is recognizing that you really do have a thing for the bad boys. In no particular order, let's do a quick jog down memory lane of Boys of Japhy's past (cue wavy transition here):

• Ben told me he really wanted to be with me, though he said it outside of his bedroom where the other boy he was sleeping with was waiting for him to snuggle with him. He eventually wound up on Judge Judy.
• Eric had a problem with coke and when I left him at a bar because he was doing it, he wound up picking up a boy who looked just like me and was one foot in the taxi when I strolled by. He asked me to come along and we sat awkwardly on this guy's couch for an hour before I left. We never spoke of it again. Later, he would call me "trash".
• Donald wanted to burn down everyone in our hometown. He threw a text book at the wall during our gay youth meeting one day and never came back.
• Nick was a Republican corporate exec. He worked late hours and would make me wait for him outside his building in the cold. "Just one more hour", he'd say. When he finally came down, we went home and he passed out. This happened four or five times.
• Met this hot model at a club one night. We went uptown to Harlem where he left me in the subway station while he went to pick up what I later learned was opium. He did it in a Kinko's bathroom and then told me he knew a place where we could go. Turns some guy told him if he brought another guy to his apartment, they could have a threesome. When I finally left, he told me "You're just like all the other guys."

Now, the thing is, I'm not really bitter about any of these guys. They were sexy and exciting and fun. You can hear it in my descriptions if them: Ooooh, I'm dating someone with a substance abuse problem! The problem is that in the end, this usually works out to me crying, wondering what I did wrong and collecting Arizona tea cans in my room for an art project (don't ask). So, I need to wean myself off the high that comes with dating these dudes and somehow, someway learn to see 'nice guys' as interesting, sexy people. But before that, I need to get it out of my head that it's fun to be the only person who really understands your guy, that you can somehow make him into a better person, that gifts are a sign of a deeper commitment and all that bad boy jazz.

Have you dated a bad boy? Any advice? Stories? Comment away.

Labels: books, gay, personal