Why Men Date "Difficult Women" 2

If the messy woman is your jam, there’s a strong possibility that you feel kind of chaotic inside but can’t allow yourself to acknowledge that.

The Mess

What makes her attractive: She’s often charmingly childlike and adorable, and unlike a lot of other women, she really needs you. And that feels good. What’s underneath that: She’s in trouble. She’s an alcoholic, she’s in debt, she’s bananas, or she’s got daddy issues the size of Montana. What dating her says about you: Whatever she’s got going on, you imagine you’re going to fix it, and that makes you feel powerful. And women who can take care of themselves don’t make you feel like that. If the messy woman is your jam, there’s a strong possibility that you feel kind of chaotic inside but can’t allow yourself to acknowledge that -- it would be too embarrassing (even to yourself) -- so instead you find a messy girl and try to clean her up. Either that, or your mom was a disaster. Either way, therapy would be a really good thing for you.

The Liar

What makes her attractive: She wants to have sex with you on a regular basis and keep it casual. What’s underneath that: She swears she only wants to be friends with benefits, but she’s kidding herself. In three weeks, she’s going to be demanding to know why you refuse to commit. What dating her says about you: There’s only one way a woman -- or anyone -- can successfully lie to you, and that’s if you’re lying to yourself. Usually, you know all along if a woman is really the type who can have sex casually. At least if you’re over, say, age 25. But she was there, she was cute and you wanted to believe her, so you went along with it. And now you have to deal with the fact that she’s upset you don’t want more. The bottom line here is that when you get real with yourself, everyone who isn’t being real with you will instantly bail out of your life. Which is precisely what you’re afraid of -- that if you're honest about what you want, people will bail.

What Do You Do With This Knowledge?

This is a short list, but you get the idea. So what do you do? Start approaching every date you go on, every chick you find yourself involved with and every old girlfriend you’ve ever had as embodying some aspect of yourself you need to deal with.

I’m suggesting that you start paying way more attention to those mechanics. And if you stick with it, even just a little while, I can promise you something amazing will happen. As you begin to see that women aren’t really the “other” -- they’re just you, except the flip side -- you’ll stop running around selfishly taking an up-or-down, hot-or-not vote on every woman you date. You’ll become curious about who they are as human beings and what that might reflect back on you. And you'll realize the other surprising secret about difficult women: They’re only really looking for their match.