Of all of summer’s traditions — watermelon-eating, picnics, Fourth of July fireworks — one of my favorites is watching free and excellent performances of Shakespeare in Central Park. (And we New Yorkers aren’t the only ones privy to such high-brow no-cost entertainment. Theater companies across the country perform outdoor productions of the Bard’s work, and many of them don’t charge an admission fee either.) 

The plays being performed in Manhattan this summer are All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. They are two of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” — ones with characters whose motivations can be hard to understand, with plots that don’t resolve quite as satisfyingly as his others. More to the point of this blog, they’re two plays in which good women love bad men — and accept and forgive them, even after they’ve proven themselves to be lousy womanizers. 

In All’s Well, the humble daughter of a physician falls in love with a wealthy man from an elite family — and she is so besotted with him that she overlooks all his failings, even his cruel rejection of her. Part of the reason this play is a “problem” is because the typical audience member asks herself constantly what’s wrong with the girl. Can’t she see the dude is a good-for-nothing schmuck? Who cares if he’s rich and hot and he has fancy friends — he’s also a huge jackass who treats her terribly! 

Measure for Measure depicts a man who might seem familiar to anyone who’s been keeping up with the headlines of recent months — a government figure so drunk with power that he sexually assaults a woman and thinks he can get away with it. Watching the play on Tuesday night, it was hard for me not to think about politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And yet after the bad guy, Angelo, is publicly disgraced by the woman, who happens to be a nun, a loving woman is willing to take him back. 

In neither play does Shakespeare give us much psychological insight into either of the female characters I describe.

So, I wonder if you have any thoughts about why they continue to love men who are so abhorrent — or about why women like Silda Spitzer and Catherine Greig stand by their fallen men. It’s one thing to stick with a guy who is going through a hard time, or who has been unfairly fired or otherwise maligned by society, but it’s quite another to support someone who has, say, hired a prostitute to cheat on you, or has been accused of murder. Some people are saints, sure, but not that many of us are. Do women like these have a domestic form of Stockholm Syndrome? Does starting over simply seem too hard for them?

After 16 years on the run, big-time Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, 81, and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, 60, were arrested on Wednesday at an apartment in Santa Monica, California. The FBI, who had Bulger on their Most Wanted List, had recently launched a campaign to find him, and the idea was to try to find someone who’d encountered Grieg, a dental hygienist who reportedly had a number of appearance-enhancing surgeries. The FBI placed ads in a national dentists’ journal last year, and in a plastic surgery one this year. Mere days ago, the FBI took things up a notch, running public service announcements on daytime TV in 14 cities — and the new effort paid off.

The story just fascinates me. I’m especially curious about the dynamic between Greig and Bulger. It’s gotten me thinking about the world’s most famous “gun molls”: a term for the female companion of a male professional criminal. The best-known of them all, by far, has got to be Bonnie Parker (pictured), who helped to put her partner-in-crime, Clyde Barrow, on the map. 

Which gun molls are the ones that you find most interesting? Who comes to mind first? A character from a Quentin Tarantino movie? Or someone from the headlines of days gone by? 

Incoming search terms:

• famous gun pictures
• famous mobsters and molls

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When I first met Luke, he wore big, bulky T-shirts, baggy jeans, and baseball caps. He was an ambitious lawyer, and I was so turned on by his job that I didn’t care about his juvenile wardrobe — until we had sex for the first time.

Afterward, as we basked in the afterglow, I noticed that I was fully naked and he was fully clothed from the waist up, wearing an oversize Met’s T-shirt.

I brushed it off, but when we hooked up the next night and I tugged at his shirt, he slapped my hand away. “What?” I asked, confused.

“I just don’t like to take it off,” he said.

One might ask why I didn’t insist that he get naked, but I was rebounding from a three-year relationship and, hey, I liked him. So I ignored it. But the T-shirt was a turnoff. He emerged from the shower wearing the shirt with a towel wrapped around his waist. If I yanked it off during foreplay, he would pull it back on. During sex, lights had to be off. And he even wore the T-shirt to the beach. I became obsessed with the shirt — it was all I could think about — and complained incessantly to my girlfriends.

Women report feeling bad about their bodies after viewing images of scantily clad models. But there’s mounting evidence to suggest that guys are just as susceptible to developing severe body anxiety. Roughly 15 percent of men suffer from what psychologists have dubbed “The Adonis Complex,” debilitating insecurity about their bodies. Clearly, Luke had major issues, but I didn’t want to embarrass him by bringing them up, so I didn’t.

But after a few months of this, a strange thing happened. His insecurity made me hyper-focus on my own flaws, and I became shy about my body. Men get frustrated with women who cover up in bed, and now I know why. Without that raw and wild abandon that sex requires in order to be satisfying, I found it impossible to relax so I could focus on what really counts during sex.

After a year, I ended it. And I won’t lie: The T-shirt was a catalyst, though I never told him that. I learned that women aren’t the only ones with body issues, and that insecurity is contagious and ultimately damaging to your sex life. A few years later, I married a guy who has no qualms about stripping down, and now, neither do I.

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In an interesting new novel, Enough About Love — about two married women in their forties who fall into affairs — Herve Le Tellier describes the compulsive vanity of one of his characters.

Anna, he writes, “follows fashion closely, knows how to work it, mix trends… Anna likes being attractive, and does not want to give that up now or later, when age catches up to her. She admires those women who fight every step of the way, and still want to resist the injustices of time in their sixties. She sees nothing ridiculous about wanting to appear twenty years old right to the end.” 

She smears on hydrating creams at every opportunity, keeps her mouth carefully lipsticked at all moments, and is willing to pay 200 euros for the perfect wool sweater.

Not surprisingly, she is obsessed with mirrors. There are three in her lover’s apartment: “the big one … in the living room, the small one in the bathroom, … and the last one, a tall full-length … in the bedroom. When Anna has to go home, each of them plays its part. First, in the bathroom, she checks the small details, then looks at the bigger picture in the bedroom, and finally proceeds to a general inspection in the living room.”

Yves, her paramour, “wonders whether this preoccupation with appearance could come between them one day.” But then he reminds himself that he agrees with something Anna’s father once said: “You fall in love with the flaw.”

What’s your take — do we fall in love with flaws? If so, what are some of the flaws you have fallen in love with? And do you think such obsessive vanity is the kind of flaw only a man could fall for?

After a wonderful Memorial Day trip to the beach, I came up with this list of things I love and hate about summer and dating:

The Pros:
Happy Women
When women are happy, it’s easier to get a date. Fall and winter seem to sap the female spirit. By April, the ladies are pining for sun and warmth. Summer is prime time for guys to make their moves.

Lots of Light
I’m energized by the extra summer light. That energy helps me get motivated to date. It’s easier to meet people because they stay out of their homes, and they stay out later.

Legs
All guys know to grease the swivels on their necks for the first few weeks of summer. During those weeks, women dust off their sundresses and short skirts. After a long cold winter, legs are everywhere.

Outdoor Dates
After months stuck indoors, we can hit the beach, dine al fresco, and take long walks. Whether it’s a bike ride or a glass of wine on a rooftop deck, we can go on more creative dates.

The Cons:
Sweat
Heat and humidity turn me in to a walking swamp. When I’m outside, sweat stains appear in weird places on my shirt like the lower back area — not attractive.

My Farmer’s Tan
Every year I promise myself I won’t let it happen: farmer’s tan. At least I don’t wear wife beaters in the sun.

My Beach Body
Like my farmer’s tan, my beach body (or lack of body) represents a promise unfulfilled. Every year I hit the off season with the goal of shedding that beer gut. But by the time beach season rolls around, that beer gut is still there — yet another reason to keep my shirt on at the beach.

How Women Can Sit On the Beach For Eons
How do women sit on the beach so long? I understand the beach is relaxing and more time means more tan. But after flopping around in the water and tossing a football for an hour, I’m over it. During my annual boys’ only trip with my college buddies, we don’t set foot on the beach. When I am at the beach with a girlfriend, I dread the fact that I will have to put in time on the actual beach.

What do you think of my list? What are your favorite and least favorite things about summer dating?