If women had a loyalty card for falling for toxic, brooding male leads, most of us would’ve unlocked platinum status by now. Because no matter how loudly we scream 'red flag!' at the screen, something inside us still leans forward when the hero in Tere Ishk Mein self-destructs poetically, when Kabir Singh storms through the hospital corridor with volcanic rage, or when Animal’s alpha-mayhem Ranbir Kapoor pulls off yet another act that would send a real woman straight to court.

So why do women, smart, self-aware, emotionally evolved women, keep swooning over these walking therapy cases?

Psychologist Afrin Parveen, who has spent years studying human attraction, attachment, and the strange magnetic pull of problematic men (both fictional and, unfortunately, real).

Some people argue that wo

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