Carmen Electra: 'I'm Very Happy' with New Mystery Boyfriend – and 'I Still Like Bad Boys'!

No matter how she’s feeling about her dating life, Carmen Electra understands one key thing about her taste in men: “I still like the bad boys. That’s not going to change.”

“I’m very happy with my current situation” in her love life, she told PEOPLE at the 23rd Annual Race to Erase MS gala fundraiser in Beverly Hills on Friday. And while she didn’t offer up the name of her romantic partner, she said the relationship’s been underway “for a little bit. Taking things slowly – very slowly. Yeah, I’ve been single now for a while, and that was really fun. I met someone that I’m really interested in, so we’re taking it slow. We’ll see.”

The actress also notes that the man in her life fits the bad-boy mold – but that he’s “a bad boy that’s in a good place.” (Electra’s former flames include ex-husbands NBA player Dennis Rodman and Jane’s Addiction rocker Dave Navarro; Korn guitarist Rob Patterson, to whom she was once engaged; and ex-boyfriends Prince and Cypress Hill rapper B-Real.)

“This is what I’ve learned over the years: my attraction to bad boys has to do with their life experiences,” Electra says. “They’ve had lows, and they’ve gone through hard times, so in order to get past that, they’ve had to do a lot of work. So usually there’s a different kind of intelligence that goes along with that, and awareness – spirituality. And I have to be with someone that’s very intelligent, someone that I’m going to learn from.”

That said, over the years, the star, 43, has rewritten her relationship guidelines.

“One of the most important things to me is to be honest [and] communication,” she says. “I have to have honesty, and I have to be able to be myself completely. I’m usually a good ice breaker. I just laugh at myself. I don’t take myself too seriously. That breaks the ice usually. I can’t be with someone that’s too uptight because it just doesn’t work. I have to laugh a lot.”

She’s also grown more confident in her own skin with each year. “You have to be yourself,” she adds. “I’m not going to change because of anybody else. That’s another thing I’ve learned over the years: People want you for who you are, especially in this business. Don’t change. Be you. And if people don’t like you for you, it’s okay. It’s fine.”

As for who she is, she concedes that part of her will always have her own “bad girl” streak. “Oh yeah, absolutely!” she adds with a laugh. “I don’t think that’s ever going to change. I’m going to be 90 years old still dancing on tables, probably.”