Obsessed with the bad boys?--please vote (Lauren Bjorkman)

One day, I was eavesdropping in the courtyard of a little hotel in Bangkok where I stayed for a month while my sexy-geek husband studied parasites at a local hospital.

girl 1: He's not too nice if you know what I mean.

girl 2: That's the way I like them. Bad boys. Ha ha.

me: ????

Which brings me to confession--as usual, I feel out of step with popular culture. I actually like nice guys. And I'd rather not save my man from himself.

Sure, like Stephanie Kuehnert, I found Jordan in My-So-Called Life swoon-worthy. But his behavior eventually wore on my one last nerve. In the last episode, I got furious with Angela for jumping in his car after Brian admitted writing the love letter, the most beautiful love letter of all time, imo.

But I can't write a love interest that doesn't appeal to me, leaving me only one option. Roll with it. That's why Roz's love interest in My Invented Life has bangs half covering his face, stammers, and flirts by throwing pillows. But he also cut a picture of Roz from the newspaper and tacked it up in his room. Romantic? I think so.

I adore geeks, and one of the two love interests in my latest novel Miss Fortune Cookie (fall 2012) totally fits into the category. When I describe him as a Filipino-American Legolas, the copy-editor wrote a note in the margin, "Is he supposed to be attractive?"

Um. Yes?

In my current WIP, I am experimenting with a bad boy love interest. He shop-lifts, cuts school, and has a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas because of his dead-beat dad. But guess what? he's turning out to be NICE underneath. Arrrgh!

So I need to know if there is a fervent minority like me.

Him?

Or him?

Please vote in the comments.