<p>It’s nice to be an expert. Whenever so-called experts cannot explain a phenomenon, they can coin their bafflement into a brand-new syndrome. And sometimes, serendipitously, on-point. The ‘Bad Boy Syndrome’ is one such.</p>.<p>In a 2019 paper, Ahir Gopaldasa of New York’s Fordham University, and Susanna Molanderb of the Stockholm School of Economics Institute for Research interpret the Bad Boy as “a combination of juvenile masculinities (aggression, rebellion, hypersexuality), appealing qualities (charisma, ruggedness, sensitivity), and moral ambiguities (confusion, contradiction, and cumulation), which keep audiences engaged.” But the Syndrome became a ‘thing’ in 2008 when researcher Peter Jonason led a small but signalling study with university students on the link between their “dark triad traits” and their success with the opposite sex. As it happens, Bad Boys remain unblemished, scoring serial ‘victories’ despite the dominance of three stark traits — narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy — and many Good Girls fall for these boys, not in spite of but because of these same serious faults.</p>.<p>Hindsight being 2020, the ‘Bad Boy Syndrome’ was what I was afflicted with the first boy I dated. The only legitimate claim to fame this Bad Boy boasted was that he was captain of the school basketball team. Otherwise, his inventory of infamy was long and well documented, especially in the number of ‘Fail’ scores on his report card. It would now take midlife me just one good look at him to figure out that Bad Boy had either started kindergarten at his leisure or ‘revised’ entire grades, but then, I didn’t even think to wonder. Bad Boy was not handsome or even passably pleasant. He could barely string a coherent sentence in any language, least of all in my mother tongue, English. When he did speak, it was so coarse I wished he hadn’t bothered, and on top of that, his breath smelled, even by today’s physical distancing standards. He had an indecipherable handwriting, and when he attempted to transmit his rather unfinished emotions via hard copy, it was a miserable mishmash of the most popular love songs of the time, patently plagiarised. But I had set my sights on and saved all my sighs for Bad Boy. It took little reciprocity from Bad Boy for me to promptly volunteer for the girls’ basketball team, and therefore voluntarily drag my unequivocally unsporting self to running rounds of a parade ground at 6 AM to then just make googly eyes sat on the side. Quickly, it became well-known that we were betrothed.</p>.<p>In dating him for the brief period I did, I had unwittingly declared myself un-date-worthy to anyone half decent. After all, no Nice Guy wanted to be seen with any girl, however excellent she may be, with such terrible taste. Besides, Bad Boy was known to beat up fellow students on violent whims. Gratefully, I recovered at home. With the gentlest handholding by a clever parent, I soon realized that, in addition to all his obvious flaws, Bad Boy’s vision extended only up till his nose. He did, however, have ‘free roaming’ on, and his interest in me ended as soon as I became another ‘conquest’. In fact, every time I visit my dentist, who is a class fellow, and was then a mute but bemused witness to this misalignment, it’s his jaw that still drops at my idiocy while it’s mine that needs to stay wide open.</p>.<p>I escaped with no damage done and some life lessons learnt. But we, of Hindustan, are in the vice-like grip of the Bad Boy Syndrome since about six years or thereabouts. Forget everything that has transpired before, but how else but through this can you explain a recent survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Gaon Connection reporting that 74% of the 25,000 rural Indians they interviewed across 179 districts, many who walked back home from poverty to more poverty, gave a thumbs-up to the government’s handling of Covid-19? How? Thinkers and number crunchers will pontificate their weaselly wisdoms to explain every such double-turn, but now, none of that is even mildly persuasive.</p>.<p>All said and done, our addictive devotion to the Bad Boys is inexplicable. It’s a Syndrome. We are now simply reduced to hormonal septuagenarians unable to extricate ourselves from their clutches. The ‘Pappus’, try as they might, will keep failing. And unfortunately, we have no clever Bapu to hold our hands.</p>
<p>It’s nice to be an expert. Whenever so-called experts cannot explain a phenomenon, they can coin their bafflement into a brand-new syndrome. And sometimes, serendipitously, on-point. The ‘Bad Boy Syndrome’ is one such.</p>.<p>In a 2019 paper, Ahir Gopaldasa of New York’s Fordham University, and Susanna Molanderb of the Stockholm School of Economics Institute for Research interpret the Bad Boy as “a combination of juvenile masculinities (aggression, rebellion, hypersexuality), appealing qualities (charisma, ruggedness, sensitivity), and moral ambiguities (confusion, contradiction, and cumulation), which keep audiences engaged.” But the Syndrome became a ‘thing’ in 2008 when researcher Peter Jonason led a small but signalling study with university students on the link between their “dark triad traits” and their success with the opposite sex. As it happens, Bad Boys remain unblemished, scoring serial ‘victories’ despite the dominance of three stark traits — narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy — and many Good Girls fall for these boys, not in spite of but because of these same serious faults.</p>.<p>Hindsight being 2020, the ‘Bad Boy Syndrome’ was what I was afflicted with the first boy I dated. The only legitimate claim to fame this Bad Boy boasted was that he was captain of the school basketball team. Otherwise, his inventory of infamy was long and well documented, especially in the number of ‘Fail’ scores on his report card. It would now take midlife me just one good look at him to figure out that Bad Boy had either started kindergarten at his leisure or ‘revised’ entire grades, but then, I didn’t even think to wonder. Bad Boy was not handsome or even passably pleasant. He could barely string a coherent sentence in any language, least of all in my mother tongue, English. When he did speak, it was so coarse I wished he hadn’t bothered, and on top of that, his breath smelled, even by today’s physical distancing standards. He had an indecipherable handwriting, and when he attempted to transmit his rather unfinished emotions via hard copy, it was a miserable mishmash of the most popular love songs of the time, patently plagiarised. But I had set my sights on and saved all my sighs for Bad Boy. It took little reciprocity from Bad Boy for me to promptly volunteer for the girls’ basketball team, and therefore voluntarily drag my unequivocally unsporting self to running rounds of a parade ground at 6 AM to then just make googly eyes sat on the side. Quickly, it became well-known that we were betrothed.</p>.<p>In dating him for the brief period I did, I had unwittingly declared myself un-date-worthy to anyone half decent. After all, no Nice Guy wanted to be seen with any girl, however excellent she may be, with such terrible taste. Besides, Bad Boy was known to beat up fellow students on violent whims. Gratefully, I recovered at home. With the gentlest handholding by a clever parent, I soon realized that, in addition to all his obvious flaws, Bad Boy’s vision extended only up till his nose. He did, however, have ‘free roaming’ on, and his interest in me ended as soon as I became another ‘conquest’. In fact, every time I visit my dentist, who is a class fellow, and was then a mute but bemused witness to this misalignment, it’s his jaw that still drops at my idiocy while it’s mine that needs to stay wide open.</p>.<p>I escaped with no damage done and some life lessons learnt. But we, of Hindustan, are in the vice-like grip of the Bad Boy Syndrome since about six years or thereabouts. Forget everything that has transpired before, but how else but through this can you explain a recent survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Gaon Connection reporting that 74% of the 25,000 rural Indians they interviewed across 179 districts, many who walked back home from poverty to more poverty, gave a thumbs-up to the government’s handling of Covid-19? How? Thinkers and number crunchers will pontificate their weaselly wisdoms to explain every such double-turn, but now, none of that is even mildly persuasive.</p>.<p>All said and done, our addictive devotion to the Bad Boys is inexplicable. It’s a Syndrome. We are now simply reduced to hormonal septuagenarians unable to extricate ourselves from their clutches. The ‘Pappus’, try as they might, will keep failing. And unfortunately, we have no clever Bapu to hold our hands.</p>