Why Do I Pick Bad Guys?

If chaos was the emotional weather you grew up in, your nervous system tags calm as 'nothing happening' and volatility as 'aliveness.' Bad boys deliver intermittent rewards — the same mechanism slot machines use — and that unpredictability is what your brain has learned to call chemistry.

No — patterns aren't character flaws, they're old survival strategies still running. But once you can see the pattern clearly, it does become your job to interrupt it. That's the point of measuring it: you can't out-discipline a pattern you haven't mapped.

Three moves: identify your specific hook (rescuer? spark-chaser? fixer?), slow the funnel down so charm has to survive three dates of scrutiny, and pre-commit to deal-breakers in writing before the chemistry hits. Your result tells you which hook is yours.