1,000,000% this

Note that "insecure" is not incompatible with "nice" and "timid". Doesn't make them unlikable.

And it's not that women like assholes. Rather, people (not just women) like the traits that let an asshole get away with being an asshole.

Both the "nice guy" and the "asshole" are insecure. The latter is just better at masking their insecurities in such a way that others mistake it for confidence.

This is especially true when eveyone involved is young enough not to have a wide enough frame of reference to gauge what's an indication of actual confidence versus abuse and has a brain undergoing massive hormonal shifts that intensify emotions, encourage risk taking and make them seek out novelty. Let's remember that most of the "nice guy" stories people like to tell are about early adulthood or more often than not their late teens.

The non-wifebeating, non-drug-abusing, non-raping men and boring and unlikeable. It's actually their fault that women fall for the motorcycle riding drug dealers. Got it.

Anyone who thinks like this is absolutely the kind of awful, toxic person who has to make up stories to avoid coming to terms that they are the problem.