Crazy, Crazy Love: Is Your New Crush a Closet Psychopath?

How many psychopaths have made their way into your relationship history? You know, the crazy fling or the weird ex-boyfriend – all of us have at least one former flame that we regularly question the sanity of.

“Why do I always attract the crazies?!” we hear you yell. Well maybe, just maybe, you’re one of the many women who are drawn to psychopaths. But in your defence, some new research has just revealed that men with a “dark personality” are more attractive than normal, nice guys.

The Huffington Post reports that a study led by Nicholas Holtzman and Michael Strube at Washington University has revealed that people with personality traits known as the “Dark Triad” (namely narcissim, Machiavellianism and psychopathy) are actually better than regular people at using clothing, make-up and hairstyles to make themselves look more attractive.

The research involved a study of 111 college students who were photographed in their everyday clothing. Researchers then had each volunteer take off their make-up and change out of their clothes into a plan t-shirt and sweatpants. They were then photographed in the sweats.

The volunteers were asked to take a personality test that measured the traits included in the Dark Triad.

When all of this was done and over with, a separate group of volunteers rated both sets of pictures in terms of physical attractiveness.

Is the object of your affections hiding a dark, scary secret?

The researchers revealed that in the first group of photos, subjects who scored high marks for the Dark Triad were rated as more attractive than subjects who didn’t have any of these traits. Subjects who scored highly for psychopathy alone were also rated as being more attractive.

The findings concluded that crazy, psychopathic people may be incredibly ugly on the inside, but they do a better job at fooling everyone around them into thinking that they’re attractive instead of strange.

So what we’re trying to say, basically, is that if you have a hot ex who’s a bit weird, there’s a good chance he’s an actual psychopath.