A friend of mine was madly in love with a girl who sent him an average of 97 texts and 48 FaceTime requests a day.
Another friend was head-over-heels in love with someone who burst into tears every time she saw him talking to another girl.
Another friend was enchanted by a girl who once used a rock to break into his bedroom… after a week of knowing him. And another friend was dating someone who announced one day she was “batshit crazy.”
We all know this girl. Better yet, at one point or another, we’ve all BEEN her (myself most definitely included).
It doesn’t matter how soon she blurts out “I love you” or how often she breaks and enters into his home. This beautiful mess somehow trumps every nice, normal girl he’s been with.
We’ve all seen it happen. But WHY does it happen? I did some research to find out just why it is certain men seem to love crazy women so much.
There’s less fear of rejection.
Nicole Prause, Ph.D., a sexual psychologist and founder of the Liberos Center, which conducts research through brain stimulation, indicated in an email interview with Elite Daily that men fear rejection less when with mentally unstable women.
When describing women who suffer from mania, borderline personality disorder or similar mental disorders, she explained:
At least part of the reason I think men are attracted to these women is that they are less likely to reject the men. While being ‘easy’ is often a way women are described, it could just as easily be turned to describe men who are more sensitive to rejection that seek out these women.
The uncertainty is intriguing.
The Psychological Science Journal published a 2010 study that sought to test the “tried-and-true” reciprocity principle: People like people who like them back.
In the study, conducted on women in college, the participants were told their Facebook profiles were viewed by four male students who either liked them a lot, liked them an average amount or liked them to an uncertain degree.
The study found that “participants in the uncertain condition were most attracted to the men — even more attracted than were participants who were told that the men liked them a lot.
Uncertain participants reported thinking about the men the most, and this increased their attraction toward the men.”
As long as a safe amount of uncertainty is present, people stay interested. In dating mentally unstable women, men feel a certain level of excitement and attraction by not knowing what to expect.
She reminds him of his mom.
Current Psychology, a scientific journal, published a study in 2000 that tested Freud’s famous psychoanalytic theory of mate selection, which claims that stated people seek romantic partners who remind them of their opposite-sex parents.
The study actually ended up confirming Freud’s 1927 assertion in its finding that:
Subjects perceived their significant others as similar to their parents across all variables. Relationship satisfaction was significantly related to the degree to which participants perceive similarity between their parents and partners.
His mom was his first model for what a woman should be. If this woman reminds him of her, odds are that she has his heart in the bag.
He’s mistaking dependency for love.
Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., psychotherapist and author of “The Real 13th Step” (and more informally-named “Dr. Romance”) explained in an email interview with Elite Daily that we live in a society that presents us with a skewed model of what love should be.
We are constantly presented with movies, books and songs that blur the lines between love and dependency:
This behavior is a result of being bombarded with images that imply love and dependency are the same thing: Lovers should depend on each other to supply their needs, to take care of them and ‘make it better,’ that they should need each other (‘You are my happiness; I’d die without you’) that they are incomplete without each other and that two should ‘become one’ — losing their individual personalities, friends, interests and opinions in the process.
From Cinderella to Bridget Jones, we’ve become more than familiar with this concept of “love”: girl is weak and vulnerable, boy saves girl, boy takes care of girl, and they live happily ever after.
The man interested in a woman who is mentally unstable is seeking this kind of love. He and she both equate “love” with taking care of her and her many highs and lows.
The sex is better.
We’ve all heard it before: “Crazy girls are better in bed.”
Dr. Prause confirmed this age-old truism for us. She explained that men, on average, tend to have a higher sex drive than women (shocker!).
People who have higher sex drives “tend to engage in a wider range of sexual behaviors, such as oral sex, anal sex and same-sex behaviors.”
And who else tends to have a higher sex drive? Mentally unstable women (who suffer from mania, borderline personality disorder or similar mental disorders).
Needless to say, “men’s sexual preferences are probably better matched to these women.”
The Sex Is Always Hotter: The Science Of Why Men Love ‘Crazy’ Women
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