A couple of weeks ago, a university friend of mine offered to set me up with some of his guy friends except that his friends were "bastards." He paused for a while here and then said, "Do you prefer bastards? Quite a lot of girls do."

The truth is... yes, I do prefer guys with a bastardly streak in them. I don't mean that I like my men to be beer-swilling, vulgarity-spewing, b****-smacking a**holes, just that I don't want them to be nice, sweet and romantic all the time. I want them to have some (hidden) streak of rebelliousness, of political incorrectness. I want a guy who I can be naughty with and who reacts to my naughtiness with a 'right back at you, babe!' kind of attitude rather than a guy who giggles nervously at my flirting and behaves like an inexperienced 16-year-old.

My ex was precisely that kind of guy. Yes, we clicked on a friend level. We clicked very well. On the physical chemistry side, we smouldered.

But I'm Catholic. Isn't the kind of guy I want to be with massive incompatible with my religious beliefs?

Well... the answer to that question is obviously: Yes. But there's nothing that says that I'm intending to go beyond the verbal flirtation that I normally go through with the guys I like. I just wish for once that one of the local guys, when confronted with my brand of naughty flirting, responded in kind rather than go all schoolboy on me. Be coy, be direct, be anything! Just stop acting so shyly innocent when we both know that you're not!

I guess... females do indeed prefer jerks over nice guys - not because of the whole "maybe I can change him" issue, but rather more because the jerk exudes greater sexual appeal. He's comfortable with his sexuality. And so, we're comfortable with ours and we aren't afraid to reveal ourselves as sexual beings. Nice guys, on the other hand, seem so repressed that we're afraid that we'll have to teach you everything - even if we ourselves don't have any such experience.

While it's true that sex isn't and shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of a relationship, I'm finding that at my current stage in life when I don't intend to get married within the next five years, I'd prefer relationships without commitment, relationships with people who know how to make me feel good - not in the cerebral, intellectual, emotional sense (since I can get that with ordinary friends), but in the physical sense.

I'm sorry. Am I a bad person?