Bad Boy Syndrome: Why Do I Fall In Love With The Wrong Person?
On many occasions the media focuses on spectacular cases of criminals who, apparently by virtue of being criminals, gain a generous number of fans and people romantically interested in them. The best-known case is that of Ted Bundy, a serial killer who achieved fame both for the media coverage of his trial and for his charisma, to the point that several women tried to contact him, taking his side and trying to establish A relationship.
This phenomenon is what is known as hybristophilia: the psychopathological attraction towards very dangerous people with several crimes behind them, especially those of a violent nature and involving murders, robberies with intimidation, rapes, etc.
Now, between this problematic sexual-affective trend, on the one hand, and “normal” relationships, on the other, there is a rich gray scale. And at those intermediate points it is possible to find those who notice that, although they are not attracted to extremely dangerous people, they do tend to fall at the feet of problematic profiles: people who lie all the time, who like to be noticed and always being above others, breaking the law quite frequently and without needing to look for justifications… It is what is sometimes called “bad boy syndrome” and occurs especially during adolescence and young adulthood, especially in women. What are the causes of this?
Among those who go to a psychologist for emotional problems, it is relatively common to find young people who complain of not finding the right person to start a stable and healthy relationship. Among them, it usually happens that after the initial dazzle, the headaches arise from having to deal with someone with little interest in compromising taking into account the interests and opinions of someone else, or who directly breaks the rules systematically, as if that formed part of your lifestyle. And in the long run, this generates both practical problems due to the complexity of living with such a person, and discomfort due to the fact of being aware that It is not possible to have the protection and mutual care that is desired when being with someone in a courtship or marriage
But if every day there are no shortage of “red flags” and signs that this person has a very difficult time connecting emotionally with others… How do you explain the emergence of falling in love in the first stage of the relationship? Let’s see what the main causes of bad boy syndrome in relationships are.
1. Falling in love is based on idealization
Falling in love is always deeply irrational and based on first impressions, it does not arise from an analysis of the objective information we have about a person.
Two key psychological elements come into play here: the halo effect and idealization. The halo effect consists of a cognitive bias that leads us to assume that, because we see a positive quality or virtue in a person or entity, they are full of other positive qualities or virtues and it is these that predominate over the defects. For example, the halo effect is behind the “fan” phenomenon, in which many people admire practically all facets of a singer solely because of his spectacular presence on stage. Thus, the halo effect is very relevant especially in the first contacts, when we do not know someone well and we use our imagination to clear up the unknowns about their way of being and behaving, their personality, etc.
On the other hand, idealization leads us to trust only in someone’s positive and to ignore the negative, attributing it in any case to bad luck, the influence of external elements (for example, people who supposedly “provoke” him to show his aggressive side), etc.
Combined, these two ingredients can lead a person to become romantically interested in someone they know little solely because they unconsciously fail to pay attention to worrying signs of their personality.
2. The attraction to profiles that stand out
On the other hand, we must not forget that one of the characteristics of people who are rebellious and break with the rules is that in many cases, they attract attention. And in youth, a stage of life in which Much importance is given to the ability to stand out and earn admiration or attract attention, this can be interpreted as a characteristic linked to charisma. The stereotype of the “bad boy” is someone who is respected by practically everyone because he does not have to make an effort to please others, he sets his own conditions to relate to them.
3. The combination of traits of the dark triad is associated with charm and seduction
The dark triad is a combination of personality traits related to maliciousness, antisocial behavior, and a predisposition to harm others for personal gain. These traits are three: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy
Well then; Several studies show that narcissistic people, statistically, tend to be more physically attractive, hypothetically because they take more care of their image. And even if we stop taking physical appearance into account, on average, men who have high scores in the personality traits of the dark triad are somewhat more seductive than other men because of their way of being, their way of speaking, to deploy non-verbal language, etc. It is believed that this is because they are able to manipulate others better through strategies that make them seem charming, because they have an easier time treating others as objects and by not empathizing with them, they become less nervous and are able to communicate in a more fluid way; It’s almost as if they were acting in front of a mirror, without worrying about the image they give.
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My name is Thomas Saint Cecilia and I am a psychologist specialized in the cognitive-behavioral model, from which I intervene in people, teams and companies. I attend in person in Madrid and online via video call.
