The Curse of the Nice Guy
A friend recently forwarded me this link with the subject: “This totally explains your problem”. I’m always frightened by the thought that Yahoo may hold the answer to any of my difficulties so I cautiously took a look at the article pleasantly titled “Why Nice Guys Finish Last” written by the botox enhanced “Dating Expert” April Masini. Check it out for yourself.
Now as a sufferer of “nice guy syndrome” this subject is very close to my heart. Not only have I heard “I only like you as a friend” I’ve also gotten “You’re not the type of guy I want to date. You’re the type of guy I want to marry” and “You are naturally the nicest guy I’ve ever met. However, when you actually try to be nice you freak me out to the point that I want to call the cops.” Now this sets up a very awkward scenario as I have always been given the advice to “be myself”, which is being a nice, considerate guy, but as this article proposes that is the worst thing imaginable.
Let’s run through April’s arguments (ignoring the fact that a dating expert should not look like someone prowling the edge of a divorcee bar). First, apparently nice equates to boring. Really? So women prefer the excitement of being treated like crap and ignored over being treated with respect? Or purposefully being ignored so that when the guy pays attention to them they get to feel as though they have earned it and changed him even though he was just following the rules laid out to him on a VH1 reality show?
I hate this argument because it assumes that one cannot be both nice and confident. Since when have those states been mutually exclusive? True, it is one thing if a guy is nice to the point of letting a girl walk all over him. For example, if you drive the girl of your dreams to another guy’s house because her car is in the shop you probably do fall into the category of being too nice. But as a guy I feel I can be damn confident of myself and go “You know what, I like you and I want to treat you the way you deserve” and not play any stupid games around the way that I am feeling. I never understood why two people who like each other will spend months avoiding each other’s company just to prove that they do, in fact, like each other. A simple questionnaire would solve that issue in minutes. If in grade school we could use a note with “Do you like me, check yes or no” as the basis of courtship I don’t think that we need to make it much more difficult as adults.
Now the second (and to be honest, only) point of the article is about how relationships work in terms of a negotiation. Admittedly, this could be the whole reason for my lack of a girlfriend because I suck at negotiations. I’ve been beaten at negotiations by people who are more fluent in Klingon than English. On some level I can even agree with this argument. In dating we are all trying to judge whether we are dating within our league, testing the power dynamic, and running the counterparty past a set of impartial judges in order to determine their true mating value. In such a situation it is best to place yourself in a position that indicates just how worthy you are in terms of breeding stock. Anything that indicates that you realize that you are way out of your league, and trying to do everything right is one of those things, does place the relationship at risk.
But just read the way I phrased that and you can tell how ludicrous the entire thing is. The guy is being punished for trying to do things right. In fact, the nice guy does absolutely nothing wrong in the entire scenario and yet he still doesn’t get the girl. He doesn’t insult her, he doesn’t leave her waiting by the phone sobbing, and he doesn’t sleep with her sister giving the excuse “it was late and I got confused.” That guy gets second and third chances because of his long hair and motorcycle. The nice guy just sits at the bar drowning his sorrows until the relationship shatters into a million pieces and he is left to put her back together hoping that maybe this time she’ll notice before the next guy with a tattoo walks through the door.
What is missing from April’s piece, and what I would love to see written just once when they discuss why nice guys don’t get the girl, is the simple statement: “Women are completely irrational. Nothing that they do or say can be viewed in any sort of logical construct.” Nowhere in that article does is state that women are doing anything wrong with ignoring the nice guy even though by definition they are. They talk about showing yourself as having value when by being considerate you are showing that you have value. Hell, it shows that you have values! But that apparently doesn’t matter.
As much as people talk about relationships in terms of negotiations it isn’t as though the woman is sitting there performing a net present value calculation as to the benefit of dating the other party. If so, I’d have a full social calendar just do to the sheer fact that I am willing to pay for dinner. Yet that is what all of this advice is meant to portray. Show value by being a jerk. Don’t pay attention. Let her walk away. God help you if you are actually honest about your feelings for once in your life. That is romantic suicide. Act like your twelve and pull on her hair to indicate your desire.
What gets me most about this is that it assumes that there are no women out there looking for nice guys. There has to be even if I seem to have a hell of a time finding them apparently. If the world’s fattest man can get married even though he needed a flatbed truck to get to the church you would think that I could get a woman to not break up with me just because I like opening a door for her occasionally. So instead of trying to change who I am into someone I clearly am not I want to pose the question this way. Where does one find a woman who is looking for a nice guy? Where are the women who are looking for a guy who will pay attention and be there when they need support? Because trust me, if you let me know where they are hiding I’ll be out there handing out resumes complete with references as to just how nice of a guy I actually am.
1 comment:
Well put. This has to be one of the great mysteries of the world.
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