To try to answer my own question, simply put ... yes. There are times when the melancholy, darker side of life holds greater appeal than the sunny side, tragedy is more engaging than comedy (BBM being a case in point), happy endings seem contrived and unrealistic, and music in a minor key is more compelling. IMO, great joy cannot be experienced without having known its counterpoint of deeply felt pain.
I have often wondered if this is just a quirk of my own personality or if it is a common way of being. I live a pretty rosy life these days, but the temptation to blow the serenity all to hell just to shake it up and feel alive has never completely left me. I know better than to go down that path because the road back to peace is hard won, but still the stray thoughts and momentary desires remain.
I know this is pretty vague, but what defines the darkness is different for everyone, and I don't want to limit with my suppositions.
All of what you said rings so true for me, Susie.
By nature, I am a mostly up-beat, positive kinda guy. And I don't have to work at it. It's just the way I am by nature.
However, having said that, I admire and look up to the tragic figures in history who died young, and I love sad music, "in a minor key" (Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto in C-Minor always has been my favourite piece of music - it was the first LP I ever purchased as a teenager and I still love it to this day). From a very young age, I have been drawn to the likes of Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Caravaggio, Proust, Van Gogh, Alexander the Great, Beardsley, etc., etc., etc. Tragic figures, all.
I think a lot of this is to do with my being gay. For example, 5 of the 7 people cited above were gay. I gain comfort and inspiration from inspirational gay personages, especially when there's an element of the tragic attached to their cult.
Regarding being personally drawn to the Dark Side on an intimate level, this has happened to me. Some years ago, when I broke-up with my partner and soul mate of many years standing, I found myself in a relationship with a very charismatic, handsome man. He was gorgeous in every sense of the word. He literally swept me off my feet, at a time in my life when I was very vulnerable. Everything about him was wonderful, including the sex, which was wild and imaginative. One of the things he liked to do, sexually, was to engage in dirty talk. I didn't have much experience of this and felt somewhat embarrassed about it (I was more comfortable doing it in the dark, so he couldn't see me blushing). But that wasn't the half of it. As our relationship progressed and he became more comfortable with me, he started to tell me more openly about his most intimate sexual fantasies, one of which shocked me to the core. I am not proud to confess that I not only participated in his sick fantasizing but also encouraged him. I've looked back and wondered why I did so. The only answer I can come up with is that I was vulnerable at the time and on the rebound from the break-up with my beloved soul mate. And I was also clearly seduced by his charm and physical beauty. I willingly played along with him for a while, as his fantasies became more and more intense and lurid. It came to a point where he wanted to make his fantasies reality and it was then that a little bell went off in my psyche and I put an end to the relationship. I was actually beginning to think that I shared his unusual sexual preference. Now I know I never did. I came close to being seduced by the Dark Side, but my inner moral compass directed me away from where he was trying to lead me.
I personally believe there are elements of the sinner and the saint in all of us. Wasn't it the Lord Buddha who preached the doctrine of the Middle Path? Moderation in all things is probably the most sound, attainable policy for we mere mortals.