I love a bad boy – and it’s the bane of my life.

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i I was 16 when I met my first “bad boy”. He was 17 years old, rode a motorcycle, had shoulder length hair and wore a vintage Levi’s. He was a heartbeat.. He was fired from one. A boy’s boarding school and was attending a college over the road from his school in Kensington.

I was introduced to him by a friend when I got off the coach who took us to play lacrosse. He was standing against the wall smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke in my face. He glanced at me – and I at him. it was.

It was exciting. When he wasn’t running from his rich, hippie artist parents, who wanted to ground him for dropping out of school, we were hanging out in his bedroom in Kennington. Listening to Lou Reed. I was soon gone every weekend. When his parents were away at their country house, we had wild parties, and we drank all their expensive wine.

After that everything changed in my world. Why? From then on, I always went for the “bad boys”, and it’s been the bane of my life ever since. I think only once I had another kind of boyfriend, who I’ll dub “Steady Eddie,” and I couldn’t stand him. I needed unpredictability. Those guys, though, are never the married type – even though I often wanted to marry them. Instead, they’re brooding and complex, beautiful yet rugged, charming yet commitment-phobic, and so passive they could practically live on the therapist’s couch.

There’s always the possibility that you can change them, of course, or even save them from their bad behavior. I have tried many times. Above all, they’re charming, and even when they behave terribly – or have no talent other than charisma – you can’t help but love them. And given the pop culture landscape right now, many of us can’t resist them. See Hardlyof tattooed reality star Pat Wicks, or upper-class Lothrio Rupert Campbell-Black in the recent adaptation of Jilly Cooper. Rivals. They’re a stark departure from Gen Z’s beloved “softbois” — fragile, all-around nice young men like Timothée Chalamet or Tom Holland.

Wicks has been embroiled in high-profile sexting scandals and is currently not only romantically linked. Love Island star Maura Higgins (who is currently in the jungle I am a celebrity.) but also his Hardly Fellow Jowita Przystal. Despite all this, though, he has proved popular with the show’s voters, making it to the semi-finals despite being bottom of the leaderboard earlier. This is a definite case of a bad boy’s ability to subdue attention.

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Campbell-Black, meanwhile, plays tennis naked and has an illegitimate daughter – he’s the archetypal rich bad boy, a mash-up of real-life aristocrats such as Andrew Parker Bowles, Rupert Lycett Green and the Earl of Suffolk. And, as brought to the screen by actor Alex Hassell in the Disney+ series, he’s been completely irresistible to viewers.

It’s understandable why we love men this way. They do not represent domestic or unusual types of stability. You don’t talk to them about who’s going to wash the car on the weekend, or take the dog out for a walk. They’re meant to be entertained, or to be laughed with when they make yet another outrageous but ultimately forgivable faux pas.

However, it seems that I no longer have to give myself a hard time for my romantic choices. According to psychologist Jason James – wanting a bad boy is all about base instinct. He claimed that I The Daily Mail That, as humans, we are “attracted to a challenge” and bound by the idea that “we can conquer the invincible”. It’s like these guys are lions, and not just a basic pain in the neck.

“You are the savior who can tame the wild beast,” James explained. “It’s human nature and instinct. Bad boys often exhibit traits like dominance, resilience, and independence, which can be linked to an evolutionary instinct toward strong, capable mates. Even if they’re the right choice for long-term stability. If not, they trigger an emotional and physical response that can be difficult to cope with.

I had an eight month honeymoon phase with my first bad boy. Then he lost interest. Maybe it was my fault. I became insecure and needy – and he became more distant. The next thing I knew, he wasn’t adding me to his new group of friends. At a party at his parents’ lavish country house near Oxford, I realized – to my utter horror – that he had actually given his Rolex to another female guest, who he sat next to all evening. I tried to keep my jealousy under wraps and reduce myself from making a scene in front of 50 people – but my senses weren’t in my head.

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A week later, I jumped on my moped when I couldn’t catch him and caught him at his parents’ house in London – they were having an affair. My friends said it was probably for the best because I wasn’t happy anymore. But it still broke my heart. I hoped it was just a bad boy experience, but no such luck.

The bad boy came back in many different guises throughout my life. There was a water skiing rack that had fled to America. Drop dead gorgeous free spirit who shot Lapland and dated my sister before. An eighties guitarist in a famous band that I managed for a month.

They broke all the rules – and I admired them for it. And they kept me on my toes, remember. My bad boy relationships lasted a year or so – they weren’t a flash in the pan. Some were more important than others. I remember the first time I met the father of my children, if not in the best place – we were outside an AA meeting. He was tall, dark and handsome and a few years sober. I could see him playing skillfully across the room, but it made me love him more. I saw through his alpha male face. I could see his inner weakness.

When we first started dating, I often wondered where he was half the time. I knew it would drive him away if I kept an eye on him, so I tried to cool it down. “Slowly, charming monkey” was my catchphrase. It took 10 years.

I believed I could save him from his addiction – after all, I had been through it too. By then my maternal instincts had gone into overdrive. The fact that he didn’t even want to commit to a relationship — let alone children — was a red flag. But did that stop me? No

He had intimacy issues, and often sabotaged our relationship. Yet somehow we always worked through it – mostly because I never gave up. We tried to conceive, then resorted to IVF. Years later it all ended in disaster when he tragically killed himself after suffering from depression. I had two children after her death through IVF, but at least we committed to each other before she died. This was a first when it came to my experiences with bad boys. I am very happy about it.

I don’t feel sorry for any of the bad boys, but spending one’s life dating them has lost its appeal. They are too complicated for me, and I think I have outgrown them. I think of them as fairground rides, which I used to love – since I have kids, I can’t stomach rolling around in one. All this has to do is make me feel uncomfortable.