I was a bad boy and a lone wolf well into my forties, and while I was never a threat to Brad Pitt in the hottie department, I always had more women than time to date. In truth, he was such a screwed up guy that I admitted that I still don’t fully understand why my dance card was so full. Any positive character traits associated with my condition were accidental. Bad boys and lone wolves are often the same type because they are both dysfunctional men who share similar characteristics and both enjoy their antisocial reputation. And more importantly, men choose the lone wolf path because they have trust issues with other men. Any lone wolf who denies this simply denies it.
I think part of my appeal to women was that I was dangerous. He had no connection to anything or anyone. I was a true free spirit. I went where I wanted to go and did what I wanted to do. I would never put up with anyone telling me what to do, and if they tried, I would lash out defiantly. I was a successful entrepreneur, which meant I had money to travel and money to spend on my passion, which was motorcycling, a traditional bad boy pursuit. I always had a couple of fast bikes in my garage and rode them like I owned the road. I considered speeding tickets my rights-of-way to bad adult childhood. I laughed at the police as they drove off and immediately mounted like my hair was on fire again. I was an angry, defiant social misfit.
Outwardly he seemed happy and full of life, and in a way he was, but I always felt inferior to other men, particularly men who enjoyed friendships with other men. Women loved that I was an independent man, especially at the beginning of our relationships, but over time, my independence turned against them. I was inconsiderate, selfish, and needed women, but not in ways that necessarily worked for them, too. He was totally immersed in being cold and distant. I modeled my cool demeanor on the Hollywood bad boy, lone wolves. When I stopped to think about the women I liked, I couldn’t help but notice that many of them were also loners.
The social life of our relationship was predictable, particularly considering that we were outcasts who avoided social norms. That meant we spent too much time together and rarely with other couples. We always quickly realized that while the sex and some of the time we spent together was great, we were a dysfunctional couple by anyone’s definition. I distanced myself from women who had a lot of friends, but in retrospect, I think that was mostly because I wasn’t comfortable around people who seemed socially normal.
Since becoming a lone wolf has a lot to do with a lack of trust in other men, it wasn’t hard for me to trace the roots of my behavior. My childhood with my father had been lousy. He was an angry and violent guy who seemed to always be fighting someone in the community. He had not been able to support his family and I think it was our constant lack of money that brought him to the brink of anger and violence. It was just a convenient target. I never trusted him, and he never stopped giving me reasons why I shouldn’t. I avoided him and although I tried not to give him opportunities to betray me, he was older and smarter and often succeeded despite my best efforts.
I became a man who didn’t trust other men, so becoming a lone wolf was just a natural progression. He had been a juvenile delinquent as a result of my turbulent home life, so carrying that bad boy attitude into adulthood was easy. At twenty-five, I was already the quintessential bad boy, lone wolf, and since he was going on more dates than he could handle, I figured everything was working out just fine for me. Part of my self-assurance was because I never talked to other men and therefore never received feedback on my behavior.
At forty, it no longer worked. I felt empty inside and my isolation had become stifling. Lone wolves live in an emotional vacuum, and my bubble had enough oxygen to allow me to survive, but not enough to flourish. I had let my lack of confidence and fear of men dictate the quality of my life for far too long. While I didn’t trust men enough to venture into the friendship arena, I doubted other men would see me as particularly good friend material. I was desperate to join the pack, and I was tired of constantly burning my bad boy credentials, which at forty felt forced since he was an entrepreneur making money legally.
I desperately wanted to find a woman who wasn’t interested in me for the wrong reasons, but that turned out to be a lot harder to achieve than I imagined. I was going to have to change first. I will explain that metamorphosis in my next article.
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