Single and Ready to Eat Pringles: The Honey Badger Syndrome

I've noticed a trend lately in my life. It has come to my attention that over the past year or so, I've been attracting men who can best be described as Honey Badgers.

In the beginning, I'm attracted to their honest personality. They're the kind of person who will say what's on their mind, and it's refreshing. They might be cynical and slightly judgmental, but, truth be told, they say what I'm probably thinking anyway but would never verbalize, and it makes me laugh.

There comes a point, however, when their demeanor takes a turn, and they say something like this:

I don't care what other people think of me. I say what I want, and if people don't like it, screw them. They can quit hanging out with me if they don't like me.

I'm not lying, about four guys have expressed this exact sentiment to me over the past year or so. The first time I heard someone say it, I thought, "Wow. How cool. I wish I had that kind of confidence." By now, however, the novelty has worn off, and I realize the fine line between honesty and tact.

The last time a guy said this to me was a couple of weeks ago, and his face morphed into a Honey Badger's as he said, "... I don't care anymore. I don't give a shit..."

It was awesome.

So I've been thinking about it a lot lately, asking myself some questions like:

If they don't care what other people think, am I foolish to believe they care what I think?  
How am I attracting these men when I actually do care deeply about what others think? 
Did something happen to them that made them this way?  
Were they born Honey Badgers? 

I like psychoanalyzing people, and men with the Honey Badger Syndrome have proved to be the most intriguing. You know what my research in the field has found? Do you know what they all have in common?

Each had something traumatic happen to them- a heart-wrenching break-up with a girl they were madly in love with, the death of a close family member, abuse.

I'm no psychiatrist, but if I had to put two and two together, I'd say their not giving a shit was all a ruse. Instead of showing grief or sorrow, they decided to become apathetic in order to cope with something they couldn't control- abandonment, love lost, whether romantic or familial. Their "revenge" for what they could not change became not caring.

To prove this theory even further, it makes sense for me personally because I've always been one of those dumb girls who likes to take care of broken men. I've never understood how, but nurturing females will always find the wounded male, and vice versa. It's as if we have a magnetic pull that draws us to one other. It's a catastrophic recipe, but for a time, the Honey Badger finds someone to love him, to take his mind off his hurt. It doesn't take long, however, for him to become restless, to remind himself that he doesn't give a shit, and off he wanders to lick his wounds or find someone else to love him for a little while. 

Whether my theory is correct or not, it's helped me deal with the fact that the Honey Badger can't be mine. I still give a shit for him, I hope the best for him (always), but it's easier to let him go.

Hopefully the next time one saunters across my path, I'll have the gumption to resist him all together, no matter how much watching him tear the head off of a cobra makes me (devilishly) laugh.

This is the second post in the series Single and Ready to Eat Pringles.