A lifestyle piece making the rounds argues that the pull is not the bad behaviour itself but the fantasy of being the one who changes him.
A lifestyle column published by The Ghana Report has revived one of the oldest arguments in dating conversation: why do some women repeatedly choose partners they already know are trouble, while the so-called nice guys are left waiting?
The writer's answer is blunt. No woman actually sets out to date a badly behaved man, the column argues. What she wants is to be the exception, the one who finally gets him to settle down.
The "project" theory
The piece frames modern dating in your twenties as a kind of game, and the difficult partner as a challenge worth taking on. The writer compares it to taming a wild horse: you meet, you build trust, you put in work, and if it succeeds the transformation feels like yours.
A partner who is already kind, steady and available, the column says, offers none of that. It uses the image of an old golden retriever to describe the reliable man who will always be there, and argues that reliability, on its own, can read as boring to someone who wants to feel needed.
That is the core of the argument: some women are drawn to relationships where they feel useful, where there is something to fix. A good-morning text means more, the writer suggests, if you believe you are the reason he started sending it.
Two fears meeting in the middle
The column also describes the dynamic as a loop that both sides feed. In the writer's telling, the difficult man is afraid of feeling too much, while the woman is afraid of being hurt. Each keeps the other at a distance, and the tension itself becomes part of the attraction.
The writer does not present this as a happy ending. The column accepts that most of these relationships do not last, and that the nice guy who gets passed over is often the one left hurt. It closes on the idea that the whole cycle is a heartbreaking circle, with the occasional success story held up as proof that it can work.
What to make of it
Readers should note what this piece is and is not. It is a personal opinion column written in a light, joking register. It quotes no psychologist, cites no study and presents no data from Ghana or anywhere else. The "psychology" in the title is the writer's own reading of her experience and her friends' experiences.
That does not make the conversation worthless. Anyone who has sat through a relationship debate in a Ghanaian sitting room, a WhatsApp group or a diaspora hall in Virginia or the Bronx will recognise the argument. But it is a talking point, not research.
Reported first by The Ghana Report on 2026-09-18. This article was written for our readers based on that report. Follow the link for the original coverage.
