“‘Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game.”
These words, beautifully written by my favorite person in the world, Taylor Swift, hold very true for girls everywhere. There is an undeniable pull girls have to bad boys, and it’s not for the better.
It’s easy to spot a bad boy when you see one. Maybe he has big muscles and plays a sport. Maybe he wears a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle. Or maybe he has long hair and a perfect smile. But it doesn’t matter what he looks like. What makes a bad boy a bad boy is who he is.
I’m not talking about the guys who break up with girls for “no good reason” or the guys who forget your birthday. I’m talking about the ones who make you crazy. Bad boys have a way of putting you in the palm of their hand.
Next thing you know, you’re staying up an hour later waiting for him to text you. But he won’t, which will make you miss him more. You’re stalking him on Facebook just to find out who else he could be talking to. When you realize he’s been talking to a lot more girls than just you, you try harder to make him like you.
You think of what you’ll say the next time you see him. But whatever you say, he still won’t give you the amount of attention you originally wanted. All of these things just make you want him even more.
Once you realize you’ve fallen for a bad boy, all you want to do is change him. And you truly feel like you will be the one to change him. The sad truth is that he’s not going to change.
He’s still going to tell you sweet things the second he feels you pull away. He’s still going to act like he doesn’t know you when he’s talking to other girls at a party. He’s still going to text you one-word answers, and you’re still going to have to carry the conversation.
Yet none of it matters, because the second he texts you first, you’re back in the palm of his hand. “He must be thinking about me,” you’re thinking. But really, it’s just 2 a.m. on a Saturday, he’s probably drunk, and he doesn’t want to spend the night alone.
I think there comes a time when you start to see through all of his BS and realize that you don’t deserve someone that doesn’t put you first. Every time you pull away, he’ll push to get you back. Yet every time you push for the two of you to be together, he pulls away. It’s an endless push-pull cycle, and he’ll never end it because he doesn’t lose the game.
So be your own winner. You win this game by getting out of it. Forfeit. Realize that he’s doing so much more bad than good for you. Realize that he made you crazy. Make the choice to not be crazy. And the next time he texts you at 1:54 a.m. on a Saturday, you’re just going to laugh.
