The five levels of badboyhood

The phenomena of women loving badboys is a well known one; why be with a man who will treat you well, hug you when you are crying and tell you that you are beautiful when you can be with a guy who forgets your birthday and hits on your mom? Characters like Edward Cullen, Christian Grey, Mr Rochester, Chuck Bass and other well shaped bastards are the dream men for many girls and boys all over the world (I for one prefer Hemingway, Han Solo, Sherlock, Don Draper, Dylan Moran and Tom Waits, mostly because I seem to have a thing for men trying to drink and smoke themselves to death. It seems to be a reliable character trait), and people seem to tolerate all kinds of crap from their boyfriends: "Well, he did cheat on me with my pet rabbit, but he did it wearing a foxy leather jacket, so it's all right!". The phenomena doesn't seem to apply to women; if a women would act like the typical badboy, people would just call her a bitch and burn her. Or is that witches? I don't know anymore. A lot of people would criticize me for generalizing like this, but generalizing is one of my finer character traits, so I'm just going to go with it: no woman or man can resist a well shaped badboy. Looks is a necessity; you will never see a badboy being 100 pounds overweight and living in his mother's basement - people accept all kind of crap from beautiful people. Yet many boys today seem to claim that they are gangsta or badboys without actually being bad in any way, and other boys are so terrible and depraved that they are soaring into Charlie Sheen-territory.

Therefore, here are the five levels of badboyhood:

Level 1: The young poser badboy
What he claims he is: "I'm gangsta, I commited tamagoochi-genocide at the tender age of 8"
What he actually is: A 15-year-old boy trying to impress his friends and promote his self produced rap songs  "Why all girls who won't kiss me are lesbians" and "Mom won't cook for me anymore - a rapper's blues"

Level 2: The hipster badboy
What he claims he is: "I just made this tattoo of a skull making out with a Japanese school girl. It represents my mother's breast cancer. I only eat chips and I won't shower until Tibet is free."
What he actually is: A man who spent all his money on Halo 3 and can't afford to pay his bills or dress like anything other than a hobo. A sexy hobo.

Level 3:  The daredevil badboy
What he claims he is: "I like living on the edge: I eat yogurt that has expired and I bravely defy traffic lights!"
What he actually is: probably a Mormon

Level 4: The Hollywood badboy
What he claims he is: A misunderstood and tender hearted artist
What he actually is: Probably rummaging around your purse right now for coins to buy meth with. Very bad meth. AND HE WON'T SHARE IT WITH YOU. So very bad manners, basically.
What you claim: Choking on your own vomit and dying at the age of 27 IS truly the ultimate romantic gesture.

Level 5: The genocide badboy
What he claims he is: The savior of the Aryan race. He likes long walks on the beach and hates Jews and Mondays.
What he actually is: A war criminal responsible for a vast genocide.
What you claim: "I can change him: He used to kill 7000 people a day, but I just know he will go down to 2000 a day for me. Because of our deep love."

My conclusion is, unless you found a badboy who will treat you like a human being whilst also dress like a drunken Jimi Hendrix, the best thing is to ignore any men reading "The game" and trying to win your heart by spitting in your coffee and start looking for cute nerdy boys with sexy neuroses and Doctor Who-hair, because they are the guys who will hug you when you are crying for four hours because all the good people in Downton Abbey are dying. If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

"A New Year: Big fucking whoop" and other optimistic musings

I've never seen the point of celebrating New Years; I love the chance to get wasted and fire off explosives into the faces of small children as much as the next person, but celebrating the fact that another cycle in our method of measuring time has begun is as much fun as doing your taxes. If doing your taxes ends with your lying in a puddle of your own vomit. So doing taxes, basically. Yet every New Years eve I dress up in something shiny, buy the bastard child of champagne and mountain dew and run around yelling "Happy New Years!", mostly because people won't talk to me when I yell "Happy new step towards our impending death-day!". The thought of becoming a hermit is becoming more and more appealing. This is what happens when you are so bored that you try to reenact all scenes from Der Üntergang using only your cats and a homemade bunker made out of a laundry basket. I might have a problem.

However, this New Year's Eve made me think: why are we so obsessed with rebirth? Every single New Year, we promise ourselves to work out more, eat more vegetables, breathe less, get promoted - and yet every year, we get disappointed. I mean, what are the chances that I, a whisky-drinking, exercise-resenting, marzipan-binging history-geek, will just wake up January 1st 2013 and feel inclined to start eating beets and paying machines to violate me at the gym? Why not make New Year's resolutions that we actually might fulfill, such as "I promise to breathe on a regular basis" or "I promise to keep a strict diet consisting mainly of quesadillas and cinnamon buns", or "I promise to start hiding bodies in less noticeable places" if you're a serial killer. I don't want to exclude anyone.

Basically, what I want to say is that celebrating a new year is merely celebrating the fact that we are one more step closer to death, and one step away from everything wonderful; wonderful things like Victorian corsets, the roaring 20's, Clark Gable, French artists sipping absinthe in cafés, happy prostitutes and sexy dandies with less-sexy syphilis.

Hang on, Sherlock season 3 is due December 2013. Ignore this entire post, there is hope for the future! HAPPY NEW YEAR, SIMPLE MINIONS!