Why Men Love Bitches

My friend Kay is a real bitch, and I mean that as a compliment. You'll never see Kay sitting by the phone willing for it to ring. She may (or may not) return a man's calls, but is unlikely to initiate one to him in the first place. She won't drop everything to see a man. She won't ask a guy out, and if she thinks he's calling at the last minute to ask her out she simply won't pick up. A guy she knew, who had once promised to call and never did, had the audacity to ask for her number again saying he'd lost it. She politely refused. That's right, I said politely. Kay may be a bitch, but she's a damn nice one.

Some would call this a game. But it's not, at least not to her. She doesn't deliberately and purposefully ignore men to get them to pursue her, but the end result is the same. They do - at least the ones who really want her. She doesn't bother with the ones that don't. Kay doesn't make things too easy for men. Those not willing to make the effort, go the extra mile, are weeded out. She doesn't need to reject anyone, the weak simply takes themselves out of the equation, and only the strongest survive. Natural Selection. Survival of the Fittest.

And it doesn't end there, oh no. The ones who make it to Round 2 aren't necessarily guaranteed her affections, though they receive marginally more attention than their fallen comrades. She continues to challenge them, and in this way further eliminates those who pursued her purely for sport. Some women get the first part right. They let men chase them, but then high off of the attention they quickly succumb. Game over. Kay keeps them on their toes and believe me, the chosen few feel mighty special to be in her company. They don't get it all right up front, and thus they appreciate it more. No man feels as though he has 100% hold on her so he doesn't get lazy. He knows he can't walk all over her and get away with it.

Like I said, Kay doesn't do any of this "on purpose". She argues that she is overly protective because of a fear of rejection. If this is the case, then we should all be blessed with this affliction. OK, I'm kidding. But seriously, we all have this fear of abandonment. It's primal and it's real. But unlike Kay this same fear leads many of us to behave desperately, and desperate behaviour, especially early on in a courtship or relationship, signals that we don't place a high value on ourselves because already we are prepared to deal our best card. While Kay's way is great at the outset to ensure only the ones who really like her remain, her fear of rejection does give her an excessively heavy foot, which will sometimes drive even the most well-intentioned ones away. Make no mistake, Kay is an expert game-player and oftentimes its the boys who want to play. The men, real men, are smart enough to not even bother.

Books like The Rules seek to give women a strict list of "Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right". I think this book was written tongue in cheek and, if read with this in mind, makes a lot of sense. It encourages women to be happy, confident, and too busy pursuing their own goals to care whether he calls or not, to stop making excuses for him when he doesn't call. Kay is loosely A Rules Girl, but not because she tries to be. In the end, it's not about following a set of rules. The only rule to remember is to love and respect yourself. Don't let yours be a relationship of convenience. Don't waste your time loving someone who doesn't love you back. Go ahead, be a bitch, as long as B.I.T.C.H. stands for Babe In Total Control of Herself.