Cemar said I think what is happening is that women "Desire" the bad boys, but end up marrying the good guy, the one that brings security, is a good father, provides for the family, looks after her needs.
This is absolutely true and has a basis in biology - supposedly monogomous birds exhibit the same behaviour. What female biology desires is "bad boy" genes for her sons so that they will survive and fight off the competition, however, the best evolutionary strategy is to marry the good guy and shag the bad guy on the side (which is what birds do). The safe nest-building good guy is great to make sure the off-spring survive childhood, the bad guy gene makes sure they survive beyond childhood and get to pass the genes on to the next generation. So on this theory the guy's best move is to act confident and arrogant to attract the women, then "reform" under her influence into a good guy, walk her up the aisle and revert quickly back to the original version that made her heart beat faster in the first place. After all this is what romance novels are made of (except they don't get to the bit where the guy switches back to his cheeky original self). This is what I see happened in Hairdog's case, he started off assertive and cheeky which is what made Mrs HD fancy him, then he got all nicey nice on her and married her but she really wants the old Hairdog back.
I often think it's a pity our generation (generation X) never really did formal couple dancing. When a man leads a woman on the dance floor you can tell straight away whether he is alpha, beta or omega. The alphas dance fantastically and know how to lead without stepping on your toes or pushing you around, the betas haven't got a clue and the omegas just barge you around like a shopping trolley. The interesting part is that it really doesn't make a lot of difference how good a dancer the woman is.
I think good leadership, like I described about the paint colours, is about coming alongside someone and gently but persistently edging them in the direction you want to go. The direction is firm but the method of getting there is gentle.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
