Why do we do it? All of us at one point or another have somehow allowed an asshole (male or female) into our lives and hearts for them to trample all over our trust, reason, and self-worth. We practically whisper in their ears the secrets to our pain, nearly drawing them a map of the path to emotional destruction. We keep an ample supply of opportunities to be belittled, and we swallow more pride than water. So how could we have let this happen to us, we who value respect, cherish kindness, preach strength?

Truth be told, we were tricked and trapped. Our love is literally kidnapped when a seemingly good stranger offers us candy. Before we know it, our love is no longer ours to control and we pray for the strength to break away, the mercy to be released, or even the good fortune of being rescued.

Those who are not dating assholes do not understand. They do not see us as victims because we are all masters of our own fate. "He sucks. Get out of this relationship, don't speak to him again." Ahhh…so easily said. And though for every grain of sand on earth, there is an "I know. You're right," we cannot escape. This dreary, cold cage has become home, and there is no place like home - twisters and all.

You see Love doesn't seem to care if he's nice, just as life doesn't care to be fair.

What's so painful is that it's difficult to not blame yourself. Yes, you've been trapped into loving whatever the person had showed you leaving you unprepared for what he's hiding. Still, you're left wondering what ever happened to your judgment? How could I have not seen this coming? How could I not know that this was going to happen? How could I have let another person hurt me when I swore last time that it wouldn't happen again? How many more times do I have to go through this?

How many times can you break and be glued back together before the cracks are too obvious and you run out of glue?

This led me into another concept though, which I hesitate to include here since my original plan was to simply discuss the phenomenon of dating assholes. Then I realized there is no way out around it, you have to talk about love.

There isn't a person who has been born to this world that hasn't desperately tried to define love. We rely on our artists, our musicians, our poets, our writers, even our chefs to give a taste of what love could be because this strange, intangible force is the only reason why we are alive and often the reason we want to die and yet we don't even know what the hell it is. I have been trying to sum it up in one sentence for as long as I can remember. When I was in seventh grade, I defined it as simplicity. To me, this meant many things. It meant comfort, it meant breathing easily, enjoying life, experiencing color and deliciousness. As I've grown a bit, I realized that I was only talking about falling in love with someone who loves you back, because anyone who's experienced love and all its vicious phases knows that love is anything but simple. It becomes the most complicated and devastating truth we often believe we could do without. It is a wide misconception that love is only beauty. Its hideousness becomes to us something completely different, but that is the magic of love: its dimensions.

The question is, how do you know if you're in love? If you ask anyone in love, they will tell you one thing: You just know. This is true, but study psychology for a few years, and you'll understand that "knowing" is complicated in itself. We know many things, but our coming to terms with them, our acceptance of them, even our acknowledgment of them is where we run into trouble. There are so many people in the world who are in love that don't know it for any of a million reasons. They are afraid of vulnerability; they have been hurt by love before and aren't willing to accept it easily again; they are confused by the agitation of passion and mistake the love for hate. This list goes on forever, and somehow we often only learn that we knew something after that someone is gone.

Let's take a moment to examine the problem with admitting you're in love. I, along with many other women that I know, will only say we're in love when it's safe to say it. In other words, we are crazy about him, but if he finally says "I love you," you better believe that an "I love you too" will come spewing from our painted lips. Exceptions exist, but let us admit that this is common behavior. If/when the relationship goes to total shit, and especially if it goes to shit real quick, we take it back. We say that maybe we didn't love them and that we were caught up in the moment. Because the relationship was not a success by a long shot (maybe even compared to ones we've had that were much more successful), we say that maybe we weren't really in love. This led me to question how I know if I'm in love if I say it and take it back? I knew, but what? I was wrong? How is that knowing then? How can I ever know?

I decided to not be so hard on myself. Maybe I was in love even though the relationship itself turned out to be so terrible. Love doesn't care if he loves you back. So what exactly went wrong and when did it go wrong? (I'm speaking generally here, not just my own relationships.) When I ask what went wrong, what I mean is, sometimes we "fall in love" early on, convinced this is "right," until we learn enough about the person. The things we learn, we may not like…at all. (This goes both ways. In many cases, you like what you keep learning, but it turns out they don't like who YOU are after getting to know you. If that happens, oh does it suck.) So, if you feel like you love someone, but you don't like them that much anymore after getting to know them, then what the hell IS that feeling? Is it no longer love? The heart of this lies in one question: Can you feel actual love without loving something actual?

This is where I've decided that my definition of love splits in many directions. For example, when I've fallen in love with someone who turned out to be much less than I expected of him, I was frustrated because I refused to believe that what I felt was not genuine just because it turned out that he was asshole, and all that talk about being a great guy and his plans to treat me like royalty turned out to be bullshit. I truly believe I felt love, real love. I lost sleep for weeks just at the thought of him. I got hot flashes just picturing his face. I blushed when someone mentioned his name. I smiled ear to ear when he called. I wanted to be a part of his life, and I wanted him to be a part of mine. We were very happy, and enjoyed each others' presence so immensely that everyone in the room could feel the energy between us. I was in love. I don't doubt it for second. So, when things spoiled so quickly for so many reasons, some being outside the relationship, then where did the love go when it was still burning in me? When the relationship failed so miserably before it felt like it even had a fair chance, does that mean it's no longer worthy of being called love?

If a guy or a girl turned out to be liar, and you fell in love with the persona they created that was non-existent, that means you love something that isn't real. The relationship is a lie because the person who you thought you loved doesn't exist. Is it still love?

My personal opinion: yes. Absolutely. You end up taking it back that you loved them not because it wasn't real, but because you feel so damn stupid. You fell in love with a guy or girl who turned out to be someone with whom you would never fall in love. Who wants to admit to that? So, we belittle our own experiences sometimes. We begin the, "I thought I was in love with him, but I guess I wasn't." Well, you were in love. Love exists as a feeling and it doesn't matter what or who you love. So what can you say to the person honestly if things don't work out? "I fell in love with whomever I thought you were, and I'm still in love with that person, and I'm heartbroken because now I feel this incredible emotion for someone that never really existed." Hard to find closure with that one. Maybe that's why it's so hard to get over relationships like that. You can't fight with an imaginary boyfriend/girlfriend.

Then there is the love that comes from the textbook, the Love that we most mean when we speak of it: when you love the person for whom they actually are, flaws and all. This is the love that we usually wait for before saying the words. When someone falls more quickly than his partner, he usually gets scared because how can you love someone without knowing them? Well, there's where the definition splits: I call it chemical love versus emotional love. That love you feel right away that feels real? It is real, just because you don't know them yet doesn't mean your emotions are necessarily fake. Emotions are the only real things that exist. This is the love-at-first-sight phenomenon I'm talking about here. It's chemical. It literally is chemical too, but that doesn't sound very romantic. They set something off in you that drives you crazy. You become addicted to that person, her presence, her smell, her voice. She walks in the room and you KNOW you love her, without even meeting her. I believe in that. However, I do NOT believe that you've reached emotional love yet.

Let me say that this "chemical love" as I call it is what is commonly accepted as "lust." "I wasn't in love, I was in lust," some may say when they're learning they do not so much like the person they are in love with. I have personally confined the word lust to sexual relationships. I think people confuse lust with love when they are having a pleasurable sexual relationship that does not go beyond that, but feels fulfilling. Physical fulfillment is disguised as emotional fulfillment, and we haphazardly call it love when it's lust. I do NOT believe lust and chemical love are the same. I think there is a difference, but the line is very thin, and it is difficult to differentiate verbally since it is based on feelings, and no words can accurately grasp an emotional sensation. I believe that lust and chemical love are often confused, and I have no personal suggestions on HOW to know the difference even though I claim there is one. All I know is that I've felt both in my life. In a feeble attempt to decipher which is which, I can only say that when one is in chemical love, not lust, and not yet emotional love, then that person feels this without any sexual activity. I mean that this feeling of love is through conversation or emails with no mention of sex at all. Lust relies on the sex completely, and without the ability to have sexual relations or discuss sex, there is a feeling of emptiness and awkwardness between the two people. This is the best explanation I can offer as of now.

Now, just as chemical love can exist without emotional, emotional can exist without chemical. This is what happens when relationships lose their fire a bit. You still love the person, but the spark has fizzled. In this situation, I think what I call chemical love is what is commonly called "being IN love." This is the difference between loving someone and being IN love with them.

It is when emotional love and chemical love meet up that we find ourselves in what the rest of the world is most comfortable calling "real love." The romantics and the practical-types both often reserve those three magic words when all forms of loving are complete and match up together. My point is that in my opinion, both chemical and emotional are each "real" love, even when felt separately, though I agree with the world that when both align, it is ideal and the more appropriate time to use the words. It's been through the course and passed both tests, now it's fair to say the words and not feel stupid about it later.

Now, let us return to why we date the assholes. Why do we look for love in all the wrong places? Nice guys always get mad because they listen to women complain about how they're looking for someone nice, but they repeatedly go for the ones that treat them like shit. Though not as popularized in discussion, good women also get really annoyed when we see this great guy who's trapped in some relationship with a total, mind-fucking bitch. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why is it that when we finally grow up and KNOW better, we go right back into these heart-wrenching disasters? Like Carrie of Sex in the City asked herself during the end of her relationship with Big, "Why do I keep doing this to myself? I must be a masochist." Are we? I think it's possible, but I offer up another explanation…

It's not like we're looking to get hurt, any of us. Of course we're not. There's more to it than being masochists. We want to feel loved, but more importantly, we want to feel special. This is an important point to understand. Let me try this in a scenario: When a girl meets a player, she knows she needs to stay away. (e.g. Bridget Jones, and fuckwit boss). However, when that player is giving HER the attention, she starts to wonder if she is the one that can change him and have him singing, "I don't wanna be a playa no mo'." Here's a guy that treats every one else like shit, but YOU are so important, that he can't help but be good to you. We don't WANT him to be mean to us, we want him to love us. (This is very important to understand because it is a common misconception that when women go for assholes, it's because we want to be treated poorly. I cannot reiterate enough that this is NOT true.) Our romantic comedies are all about this plotline: amazing girl catches the uncatchable. Pretty Woman - He has a flavor of the week until he meets the one women that can surprise him, when so few people can surprise him. Autumn in New York (Richard Gere again, weird), he finds someone so honest and innocent he no longer needs the rich beautiful women. Reality Bites - Winona's character was the only one that could humble Ethan Hawk's. Someone Like You, Ashley Judd lands the guy she thinks is a womanizer. Boomerang - Hallie Barry is so wonderful that Eddie Murphy resists the siren that is Robin Gibbons and learns to commit to one love. So, I Married an Ax-Murderer, "Charlie" is deathly afraid of commitment and creates ridiculous excuses to end good relationships until he meets Harriet who makes him want to take the leap and marry. Are we good enough to make an asshole a sweetheart? We keep testing it out. We don't even know that we're doing it. We see the player, we get played. Somehow, we end up surprised.

It's not even always players. It's guys or girls that do not know HOW to be in a relationship. We want to mold them, and not even to have power over them, but to give them something, to make them see us in a light they never experienced with someone else before. Or it's just that person that everyone else wants. How special are you if he picks YOU.

We begin to fall under this subconscious assumption: The nice guys are great…except that they are nice to EVERYONE. If you didn't stumble into their lives, they would be with someone else, treating them the same way they would have treated you, probably using the same cute little nicknames, giving the same wonderful little gifts. Yeah, that's nice of him, but you're not special. He's not treating you that way because you're you and his heart is lifted, he's a nice guy…nice guys just do that. What seems like a virtue ends up being a vice: This sweet man sees every woman as unique, but if everyone is unique, then how does this make YOU unique compared to them? If everyone is special, no one is special.

I know when a nice guy comes around, I feel like it's too easy, then I complain about how hard relationships are. I whine about wanting something effortless, but when a nice guy arrives, I'm bored. Where's the challenge? He seems to like me no matter what. This may not be true, but somehow it feels true. In fact, I'm admitting that it's not true, but it is an illusion. This is what I believe we feel subconsciously. I do believe logically that a nice guy can see me as special, but something does feel strange when you've watched him hold another girl so tightly, and it's the same way he's holding you.

Maybe this is why those assholes end up getting bored with me, because I like them so openly and easily. I don't play games, I don't act like everyone wants me are you're lucky if you get my attention. Then, when the relationship is over and I'm over them, they come crawling back. Who hasn't experienced this at least once? First scene in Swingers is this exact subject. She doesn't call until you ACTUALLY stop waiting for her to call, not pretending you've stopped waiting, not convincing yourself that you've stopped waiting, it's ONLY when you've STOPPED WAITING for real. This is no coincidence. This is the vibe we let out. It's what me and friends call "the inner glow." This is also the same reason why when it rains, it pours. Ever find yourself single forever, and then one girl or guy likes you and then so does everybody else, it seems? Yeah, no coincidence there. You're glowing like a son of a bitch. People can FEEL confidence. They are attracted to independence. When you aren't looking, you find the one, right? It's annoying how true this is. "I know by now that you'll arrive by the time I stop waiting" -Bjork. It's all about the glow. Assholes like that glow, but when you fall for an asshole, they get bored, you lose your glow, and it's not until you're long gone does the glow come back and they come floating towards you like a bug to a zapper in the middle of July.

See, the assholes all have the inner glow, glowing so fucking brightly you think you're hitting heaven. Why do they glow? Because they don't need you and they never will. Confidence. Independence. I think this inner glow is what we mistake for life force, like Carol Ann (sp?) in Poltergeist. All those spirits are attracted to her and won't let her go because that life force is so beautiful and attractive. Life force is what we really want, not just some glow. Think about how much we admire people who are confident, who don't let other people get to them too much. We feed off that glow as if we're starved for it, as if it could extinguish some famine inside of our souls. We find ourselves drawn to it, wanting to be a part of it, whether we like it or not. Even Hermoine Granger couldn't help wanting a piece of Viktor Krum. Deny it all you want, girl, but you know he's cute, and you know you checked him out a few times in the library.

Do nice guys have the glow? They do, but it's a different kind. Maybe it isn't so bright because it's not self-contained, it's shared a lot. Logically, this is what is more attractive when we finally get over the dating-asshole thing, but when we're stupid and young, our attention is drawn to whatever is brightest, and that would be from the guy or girl who never shares her flame. Bright and pretty, but lonely and cold.

It's a tough cycle to break, and we find ourselves having a hard time getting out of it. I had this discussion with my friend, Erin, when I was staying with her in New York one weekend. We rambled off a list of what we were looking for in a man, and decided we were going to find it. Sitting around talking about it wouldn't help much, but maybe hitting up the lower east side would do the trick. After crawling from bar to bar, we finally found one that seemed to have some available bachelors to our liking - the Black Star. She pointed out one guy she found attractive. I pointed out his friend. It only took about ten minutes before this group of good-looking shitheads started belting out Sweet Caroline at the top of their lungs, even though R&B was blaring through the speakers. We rolled our eyes, downed another shot, and grew increasingly frustrated that we had picked the same kind of assholes we swore to avoid. One of them addressed me as "woman." Who does that?

Low and behold some cutie-faced nice boy stood in the background building up the nerve to speak to us. We saw him looking, we saw him trying to approach, then turning around once he got too close. After witnessing this and giggling enough, we turned to him and invited him into our conversation. He admitted he had been eager to talk to us, and Erin and I looked at each other sharing a mutual "aaaww" for his obvious innocence. He asked us interesting questions, he shared some nice stories, he made fun of the obvious assholes who were now packing their bags and deciding which skank to prey on for the night. "What a sweetie," we agreed when he was buying our drinks, but soon we picked up our purses and coats to move onto the next bar. Aware that this was a nice guy, exactly what we were hoping to find, we reluctantly admitted that we were not attracted to him. Our initial attraction was right at the light. The assholes won again, and we were the big losers.

I don't know how to stop it. I'm annoyed by this seeming inevitability. I guess we look for combinations that are rare, but are possible: Someone who is familiar, but with an element of mystery; someone who is kind, but knows how to pick his battles; someone who knows how to be sweet and how to be sexy. The list can go on forever, and I know I'll keep looking, hoping each time that the next guy will be kinder than the last and still know how to excite me.

"Nice guys finish last" is not a phrase I created, or even something I necessarily believe. I am merely trying to explain why this phenomenon exists at all. What is important to note here is that these assumptions are misconceptions. We cannot throw men into these two narrow categories and be done with it. There are men and women out there who are kind, loving, sweet, and ALSO are strong, independent, sexy, and respectful. These qualities are not to be divided as though a person is incapable of having all of the above. There are people out there who give the rest of their gender a bad name, so let's not judge too quickly, shall we? We don't want to miss the good ones because we were too busy assuming they can't be good.

I guess when a stranger offers you candy, you can't help but want a taste. Pretty soon, we'll realize that a piece of candy is not nearly enough to get us into that car and on that journey to someplace we may not want to go. Well, I need more, and I'm not falling for a guy again who has nothing more to offer me than fist full of Skittles and some promises he doesn't plan to keep. Hand me a full course meal and move on over to the passenger seat, and then maybe we'll talk. I'm done being driven around.