Page 2 of F*ckboys

“Now, we’ve all had our own interactions with one of them, and that’s why we’re here, right?”

People nod and murmurs of affirmation are heard around the room.

“I can’t hear you. We’ve all had our own interactions with at least one fuckboy. Am I right?”

Someone calls out ‘you can say that again!’ And another yells ‘Lying cheating asshole!’

I smile and let out a small laugh that creates a husky effect in the microphone.

“That’s the spirit. Well, welcome to my course. I’m so glad all of you have made the decision to be here today. I can promise you, it’s going to change your life like it has for the many thousands who have passed through these doors before you. Now, are you ready to be transformed?”

The room erupts with applause. The crowd nods and smiles and there’s the odd ‘hell yeah!’ and ‘let’s go!’

I scan the room again, navigating my way to the front of the podium.

“To begin with, what do we know about fuckboys? First of all, they’re not a one-size-fits-all, cookie cutter model. They span a wide range of backgrounds. However…” I punctuate the air with my finger, “they share a number of key traits which enable us tospot them a mile away. If…” I pause for effect, "we know what we're looking for."

I gaze down at the floor. “Unfortunately, more often than not, this tends to happen in hindsight. But today, we’re going to bring these commonalities to light so we can be proactive when we see these signs.”

I click my remote, and bullet points appear on the oversized projector screen that illuminates the wall to my left.

“Fuckboys first and foremost are pretenders. Illusionists. Many of them will go so far as to embellish key aspects of their lives. For many, the first deception will be about their career. When claiming a career, they will often gravitate toward occupations involving what they believe to be impressive job titles associated with significant income. Think engineers, medical students, businessmen.

Where do they hang out? They’re often, but not always, found at the gym or at least talking about it. But you could just as easily find them in your local cafe or bookstore pretending to be the artistic, sensitive type, or at a club or bar with their friends.

What do they look like? Now, this is a trickier one. They’re typically, but not always, very physically attractive. However, in some cases, they may not be physically attractive at all, but instead they’re exceptionally charismatic and confident. A big dick syndrome, if you will. In any case, they’re almost guaranteed to be prettier on the outside than the inside.

As I mentioned before, fuckboys come from all shapes and sizes and backgrounds. This extends to intelligence. They span all intelligence levels, although from TV it would be easy to assume they’re usually dumb as a box of rocks. This simply isn’t true. The less intelligent ones are just easier to pick out.”

The audience nods and murmurs in agreement, and I catch a few people glance at each other with knowing looks.

“Let’s talk about their behavior now. They’re of course prone to lying and cheating. They’re quick to block you on social media, and ghosting is one of their special skills. If social media trickery was a subject in school, your average fuckboy would have a Ph.D.

Now, some people ask me, are fuckboys just sex-positive people who are open about having many partners?" I shake my head vehemently. "The answer is no, absolutely not. This is not ethical non-monogamy. This is not polyandry or polygamy. This is lying-to-your-face, narcissistic bullshit where one person is manipulated and deceived so the other person can get whatever gratification they are seeking. This is not sexual empowerment or freedom. It is a complete and total power imbalance designed to destabilize and destroy the innocent party."

A dark-haired woman in the third row raises her hand. I gesture toward her. “You have a question? Welcome! Introduce yourself with your name and why you’re here, and then please go ahead with your question.”

“Thank you! Hi everyone, I’m Cindy.” She smiles nervously and waves around the room, but then her smile turns into a frown and she looks at the floor. “I’m here because I just found out my boyfriend of two years has been cheating on me with countless other women throughout our entire relationship. He recently told me he wants to end things, but he keeps popping back up and I keep letting him back in. I know I need to get out of it but I don’t know how.”

The crowd murmurs with sympathy and several people shake their heads. This seems to spur Cindy on and she returns her gaze to me. “Why do they engage in these behaviors? What’s their motivation? How could he hurt me like this and not just be honest from the start about what he wanted, and why would he choose now to break things off? I guess that's my main question, why now?”

“An excellent question, Cindy," I nod, smiling at her in a gesture of empathy. "First of all, I’m sorry you’ve had to endure that, but thankfully you’re here and we’re here to help. To answer your main question, typically a fuckboy will end things for one of two reasons. The first is that he will often ghost once he gets what he wants. This can range from a one-night stand or general sexual gratification to full-blown financial exploitation, gold-digging, theft and even extortion. So while for many, an interaction with a fuckboy might only last a matter of hours or days, it sounds like you're one of the not so lucky people who's secured yourself a long-hauler."

Cindy puts her face in her palm and shakes her head, her cheeks reddening under the sympathetic gazes of her fellow attendees.

"Whatever you've been able to provide for the last two years has been enough for him to keep stringing you along—be it financial support, emotional security—hell, even sex even when he's also getting it from somewhere else."

I write 'GHOSTING' in large capital letters on the whiteboard with a dark blue marker. By the embarrassed look on Cindy's face, I'm almost certain she's been covering some loser's living expenses and providing whatever emotional support he's been lacking elsewhere in his life for the past two years.

"And the second reason may be that he believes you’re close to blowing his cover. That you’re onto him. No matter how slick he thinks he is, a fuckboy’s ultimate fear is of being caught in his lies before he gets to be the one to run. So the fact you've discovered his cheating and have either confronted him about it, or he can sense you are about to, is enough to make him run."

I add 'BLOWN COVER' to the whiteboard. "Does that answer your question?”

Cindy nods with enthusiasm. “Yes, yes it does. Thank you!” She takes a seat once again.

I glance back over the crowd. “Okay, so what are some of the other common behaviors we see in these individuals? Let’s go over a few common attributes."

On cue, Mia pulls up the next slide in the presentation featuring a series of bullet points outlining the most common fuckboy behaviors.

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