LITTLE-THOUGHTS: WHY THE JERKS GET ALL THE GIRLS

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I see a lot of commotion about how the jerks get all the girls. So I wrote a response to this age-old dilemma. Let me know if it's helpful. Or share your ideas as well in the comments below!

WHY THE JERKS GET ALL THE GIRLS:   

Well, the jerks don’t get ALL the girls…but they do get a LOT of them. I'm not going to dispute this. 

Why is this!? Girls are always whining about how they want to be treated better. So why don’t they pick guys that treat them better? There are enough of them out there. What is the problem?    

1. Jerks have a much higher tolerance for rejection.  

This means that if a girl says “no thanks” to JERKFACE, then JERKFACE doesn’t really take it personally. He didn’t have much invested into her emotionally to begin with. He wants her for reasons that satisfy HIM. He couldn’t care less about HER.    

This has NO relevance to whether he is good-looking or not. He finds himself good looking. That’s all that matters.    

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So if Sally says, “No thanks,” the JERK has three options: 

• Push harder to close the sale 
• Move on to the next available bachelorette  
• Try more creative ways to win her over 
• All of the above   

In any scenario, he will choose whichever is most convenient, or whichever gives him the greatest reward with the least amount of effort. But the fact is, he will not usually give up easily. Defeat is not really in his vocabulary. It's either something he wants, or something he doesn't want. Her feelings are irrelevant, unless they get him what he wants. 

2. Jerks don’t mind manipulating to get what they want. 

A JERK will do whatever he has to to get a girl, or keep a girl, as long as the benefits outweigh the risks. Or as long as the pleasure outweighs the problems.    

This could include using manipulation, deceit, and trickery to keep her around. He might pay extra attention to her feelings so that he can play more effectively to her emotions. He might read up on her favorite political platform so he can woo her into falling for him intellectually.   

He might suddenly develop a keen interest in saving lost kittens if he knows that it will win her over idealistically. 

He might borrow his best friend’s Corvette and dress differently if he knows it will win her over financially.    

But the best example of manipulation I can think of predates some of the readers here. It’s from a movie called The Saint, starring Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue.    

Disclaimer: it is cheesy. And also maybe a little bit of creep factor to it. But this was in the 90s, and back THEN, I totally thought Val Kilmer’s long hair and leather pants were the best. Anyway, to the point. So what this guy wanted was a scientific formula from the main character. She was a scientist, and she had developed a formula for free energy. He was commissioned to steal the formula. He broke in to her apartment while she was away to study her and learn about her. He looked through her journals, her books, her pictures and letters, and her personal effects (they didn’t have FB back then, or he would have just scoured her profile.)    

He came up with a Sir Thomas Moore/lost-soul type character who longed for all the things that she deeply desired. And he embodied it, down to the long hair, the sketch book, the intellectual comments. And then he baited her at the museum, where he knew she would be attending a conference and passing by her favorite sculpture……see clip below.    

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So anyway, she falls in love. He steals her formula and runs off with it. And all because he used tactics to get in her pants (which is actually in her head...as a hint, boys).  

And although this is an extreme measure of stalking, deceit and trickery, something like this actually happened to me when I was a freshman in college. I totally fell for a guy who had been essentially studying me for weeks. He knew my schedule, my politics, what I was interested in, who my friends were, how I carried myself. It was really easy for him to make a convincing appeal to my sensitivities. He was brilliant. He was older. He was more experienced in the ways of the world. He had it all packaged up nicely and with a bow when he ran into me on campus right after one of my classes one day. It was an easy sell.    

He was not just a jerk. He was a creep. It didn’t last long. We had COMPLETELY differing views and values on everything, he did not respect my space or my other relationships, he was condescending and controlling, and altogether a classic jerk. The charade only lasted so long.    

He only cared about my feelings as long as he could play them to benefit him somehow. And although I was naïve, I figured out something was up before long.    

But we can learn something from him. He learned what I like so he could put on a charade that he thought I would respond to. And he would play whatever tune seemed to appease me. And it worked! For awhile.    

There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, learning a little about the woman you want to go out with, and doing what you can to impress her or make her comfortable. This is what a nice guy would do. 

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But here’s the thing. A woman of substance will sense inauthenticity. And she will never last with a guy that doesn’t really care, without throwing her integrity away also.    

She will get bored or annoyed with him very quickly.    

The fact is, most of the time, good girls don’t KNOW they’ve got a jerk...yet. And how can they? Either the nice girl is inexperienced in knowing what a jerk looks like, or it takes time for the jerk to show his colors. But once he does, she may have a lot invested, and the guy knows how to manipulate her into sticking around. So it’s not always so simple.    

Meanwhile, the nice guy is keeping track (both consciously and subconsciously) of how the girl feels simply because he cares how she feels. Period. She’ll KNOW this. You really cannot counterfeit true concern, especially not for prolonged periods of time.    

The real trick is convincing her to go out with you in the first place.    

3. Jerks don't take no for an answer.... 

This gets back to the high tolerance for rejection thing. A jerk might not really care if she says no. And this means he might push the boundaries or get extremely creative until he hears a yes. This could include asking out dozens of women in one week, which is something a nice guy is not prone to doing. 

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For the jerk, it could include doing things that put him in her world to level the playing field: joining her favorite charity as a volunteer, attending her church, signing up for a class she’s taking, reading a book he knows she’s also reading…whatever it takes, as long as he plays it off subtly enough or he’ll look like a stalker.    

But he needs to make a good impression. He will not stop until he has accomplished that. And he will change his tune until he finds the one she likes.  

Whereas nice guys might be more respectful, less inclined to push the envelope, more worried about offending her or coming off as creepy or weird. And this is a GOOD thing. I promise.    

But the thing is, girls really do respond to guys who insist. Unless she's a total snob, and completely high maintenance or unbelievably boring, she'll respond to insistence. It's flattering. It feels good to be sought after. There are ways to do it without coming off totally gross. And even then, the jerk would come off gross and wouldn't care. And he'd keep insisting until he won her over with humor, charm, flattery, guilt, cold shoulder--whatever it took. He would not likely give up where the nice guy had already thrown in the towel after the first sign of rejection. 

4. Jerks don’t second-guess themselves 

Most people have a healthy sense of self-reflection to some degree. We tend to examine our motives, behavior, and approaches to things on a fairly regular basis, asking ourselves questions like, “Should I have said such and such?” “Was I wrong here?” “Am I going to be a jerk if I do this?”    

It is all part of our way of getting along with those around us, as it should be.    

The JERK, however, is asking things like, “Who in this room is most likely to give me what I want?” “How can I go about getting it with the least amount of risk?”   

Keep in mind, if it were possible for a JERK to get ahead without having to keep track of people’s feelings or risks, they probably would.      

5. Jerks have to mix things up and keep things interesting

Jerks don't have much to offer in the way of substance. So they've got to mix things up to distract her from finding out they are complete narcissists. They may compensate by being highly intellectual, taking a lot of trips, inviting friends over for date night, making a big fuss over something that she loves, changing things up so she can't predict what he's going to do next. 

This gives her a sense of adventure and curiosity. And this is not a bad thing! But the difference is, the jerk has to do it out of necessity--so he doesn't get found out. 

The nice guy has to do it out of necessity so she doesn't get bored. 

Either way, it can't hurt to try something you haven't done before. Change things up and make it a little unpredictable and interesting, so she has to trust you and follow your lead for a few minutes. It can be fun. 

Remember, Jerks are only attached to one thing—pleasing themselves. As long as what they are doing is getting them what they want, then why should they care whose feelings are hurt in the process?  

Nice guys, on the other hand, want to please others. And this should never change. They have a lot more to lose. They would rather keep their friends and have good relationships with their co-workers and family members, than trounce them just to get ahead.  

They know they need to use entirely authentic methods to achieving their goals, without trouncing other people. 

6. So Why Try at All? 

It looks like jerks will win out every time, not just with the girls, but with the promotions too! They don’t care as much about rejection, they don’t second-guess themselves, they manipulate and take advantage to get their way, they use trickery and deceit to get what they want, and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process.    How can a nice guy POSSIBLY compete with this?    

He can’t. And he shouldn’t. At least, not THAT way. But this is a good thing. 

Stay nice. The nice girls will see it. And they’ll jump you when they figure it out. But they need to figure it out. It helps if they’ve had good father figures. This way they know what to look for.    

In the meantime, try employing some of the "jerk" tactics above, such as not second-guessing yourself, or leveling the playing field by finding something she is interested in and learning about it. You’ll be surprised how these simple things can be a total turn on for a girl.    

Don’t worry about turning into a jerk by accident. It won’t happen. My prediction is that overcompensating toward "jerk" will probably just result in you being more confident and self-assured than you are now. And that can only be a good thing. And that will also attract the ladies. Especially if it's authentic. 

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Good luck!

My next article will be on how to increase your sex appeal. So stay tuned and follow me for more!

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