Can you turn a bad girl to girlfriend material?

It used to be women who tried to change men. Even the ‘baddest’ boys have been felled in the past, or at least tamed by a woman. Men rarely date a bad girl with the intentions of settling down with them or a relationship. There are some bad girls who grow out of their promiscuous days and settle in marriage, but they do so by changing themselves, not by any persuasion or coercion of a man.

But now your latest catch is a bad girl who is genuinely a good person. She has a certain candour and maturity you will take any day over a beautiful, proud 20-something. Cindy does at least six cigarettes in the course of a night out. She has graduated to the driest, hardest whisky on the menu without as much as wincing at the burning sensation that the first sip of whisky brings. She liberally drops her f-bomb and ready to call on anyone’s, and especially male bullsh*t.

For the month you have known her, there has been some chemistry brewing, but both of you are maturely cautious. She has been hurt before by life and circumstances and she is in that state of an uncertain future about her status. You are in your last days of bachelorhood and you are squeezing every minute out of it.

Dating a woman like Cindy can slow you down. Naturally, no relative of yours will accept her. Her dark lips, her hairstyle, smoking and drinking will be a hard sell. To you, she has the dark chocolate complexion, is beautiful and curvaceous, and on top of that, is her intellect which is as rare as her character. At the moment, your relationship status is not defined. But you are having good times. There seems to be an unwritten rule that nobody should be hurt in the event of anything. Both of you are open to a break-up as soon as it will be convenient for either of you.

Yet you have entertained the idea of taking her in. You can sense she has that sense of benign optimism that you may date or even marry her, much as she is trying to act like she does not want it. Your biggest task is to establish if her smoking and drinking are out of her life’s frustration, or if she is truly addicted. If she is truly addicted, then hers is a complicated case. But if alcohol and smoking are her escape routes from what life has thrown at her while relatively younger, you can easily dissuade her back into normalcy.

Better, despite being opinionated, often to the chagrin of your male friends, she had retained her feminine submission where it matters most. She is not exactly what you wanted in a woman. But it promises a better and richer life, than marrying or dating a woman so that you can merely conform but regret permanently.

So Cindy it is.