Ladies, Beware This New Type of Cad

Traditional womanizers are easy to detect, but single girls have a new species of cad to watch out for—the Homme Fatale, writes Irina Aleksander in the Observer. They are smart, gentle, short of Hollywood good looks but confident in a self-deprecating way, "deceptively vulnerable," and conniving. Such ladykillers soon leave victims pining—to seek out another 3-month love affair once their conquest is complete.

Typical first date: a game of Scrabble, no physical advances, and a lingering question afterward of whether it was, in fact, a date. Homme Fatales have even have wormed into popular culture in the likeness of the Aaron Rose character on Gossip Girl. "People who do the most harm are people who don’t know what they want, and Hommes Fatales don’t know what they want," said one self-described "reformed Homme Fatale."

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