Another perspective on "nice guys" and the women who won't date them

In My Humble Opinion
141

ArrMatey!, the way you’re talking about this it sounds as though you think these women owe it to you to make you a better, more dateable person. In particular, there’s this:

Why should this random girl care whether you fix your problems? She’s been on two dates with you and doesn’t want to go on any more, so it’s not like she has a vested interest in you or your life. She’s just trying to be polite and let you save face. Most people aren’t going to be comfortable listing the undesireable qualities of a near-stranger. That’s from either side of the conversation.

The people who are supposed to help you out are your friends. So after you get dumped for being “too nice” you go and decompress with your friends and they can be the ones who analyze you. Telling you that you’re a loud chewer who talks to much* is a job for your friend, not a random chick you met at a bar.

142
  • Faults drawn at random. You are obviously a close talker. That’s why women reject you. You should carry a yardstick tucked under your arm at all times. If you’re poking the object of your affection with your stick, you’re either too close or… well, just keep on doing whatever you’re doing. She obviously digs you. :wink:
143

Here’s my take on this based on my own personal experience. I think there is a sampling bias here. Let me explain.

Lots of guys get frustrated by the dating process (of course lots of women do to, but I can only talk from the guy’s perspective). The guy approaches a woman, or maybe is friends with her for a long time, and makes his feelings known, and he gets turned down. And that is no fun. And then he looks around and he sees real genuine a-holes that seem to have lots of dates. And he concludes, well, it must be that women like a-holes. For what it’s worth, I think that is 99% false. Yes I know you hear about somebody’s cousin’s friend from high school who think it’s cool if a guy hits her because that just shows how passionate the guy is. But, ime anyway, this is a tiny minority of women. And they are like airplane crashes: they attract a lot of attention because they make a good story.

So what is going on then? Here’s what I think is going on. I think it’s better to think of dating as a “search” process rather than a “persuasion” process. There are a million variables in deciding whether two people are compatible. Let’s take two guys, Fonzie and Potsie. For Fonzie, dating is not a big deal. He approaches women all the time, because he knows there are lots of women out there. He asks women out all the time. Sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no. Either way it is just not a big deal. He just moves on to the next one if she’s not into it.

Potsie meanwhile has this friend, or coworker, or something, and he has decided that the two of them are meant for each other. She is great. Everything about her is great. Well, it turns out that she is really into hiking, and she likes really skinny guys. Don’t know why, it’s just kind of how she is. Well, Potsie isn’t into hiking, and he’s a pretty muscular guy. Just not really her type. But Potsie freaks out when she’s not into him. How can that be? They have so much in common! They laugh at the same jokes. They like the same movies. Everyone of his friends says they’d be great together.

Ok, now back to Fonzie. He is not a super nice guy. He’s not a complete jerk. But he’s not always rushing over to some girls house to comfort her when a guy dumps her. He’s not driving across town to drive her somewhere when her car is in the shop. Why? Because he’s BUSY! He’s asking a lot of girls out. If you’re out with him, it’s because he wants to be there and you want to be there, and you are having fun. This whole things is not a big deal. And if a girl stops returning his calls, well, too bad, she seemed cool. But, ok, on to the next one.

The opposite of nice guy is not a-hole. The opposite of nice guy is fun, playful, adventurous, mysterious, unpredictable in a low key cool way, interesting, interested (as in listens and tries to make a genuine connection), confident guy WHO IS NOT AFRAID TO SAY OR HEAR THE WORD NO.

144

I can’t believe I’m actually agreeing with you, but yes, I think this works even better than the panhandler metaphor. Same thing goes for storefront shopping or choosing a restaurant – you go to the place where the waiters are having fun with their large, regular crowd (but will still have time to wait on you), not the place where the chef’s standing in the doorway and is going to lean over your shoulder while you order. It’s just too much pressure.

145

Okay, this was pretty much what I was looking for. I honestly was curious; I don’t have a lot of dating experience, and I didn’t know what drew the response. This makes sense to me. I don’t particularly like it, but I can now understand where it comes from, certainly.

146

I’m not quite sure what having dating experience has to do with it, though. There is NO purely social context in which it’s appropriate to turn to someone you barely know and say, “You know what your problem is? It’s that…” None. It’s just. not. done. EVER. It’s something your average 5th-grader can tell you isn’t a nice way to treat people. So for someone to ask why oh why don’t women do that…well, it doesn’t imply anything good about the person doing the asking and their suitability as a partner. If they truly honestly don’t know why you don’t say things like that, they were either raised by wolves and were never exposed to such subjects as tact and consideration for other people’s feelings, or they were indeed taught such things but are stunted in some way that prevented these lessons from sinking in. Either way, they’re not really great relationship material, if you see what I mean. The other option is that they were not raised by wolves, they do indeed know good and damned well why you don’t say things like that, but they’re being disingenuous and manipulative. Frankly, I’d rather take my chances with Wolf-boy.

147

This. I got in a friendly debate with a female friend of mine over who had it ‘harder’ when it came to dating, men or women. Of course she threw out the strawman of ‘women have to deal with the danger of date rape, etc etc’ but ruling out physical danger and just looking at emotional risk, I tried to point out guys have it pretty tough.

I’m not going to be all bitter and say men have it harder, but its a different set of challenges. I would argue men get rejected by women a lot more than women get rejected by men. This is probably because men are more likely to try to initiate things, and a lot of women simply assume/expect the guy to take the lead. Just as women get frustrated by guys who don’t get it.

Through the trainwreck-ness of this thread, people mentioned a guy isn’t entitled to know why he’s getting rejected. I learned this the hard way. It was frustrating for me, because if I was doing something ‘wrong’ I really wanted to know what it was and learn from the experience. One of the many reasons I dated a lot of people online was because even if the other person didn’t care for me, I could probably get something positive from the encounter- a friend, maybe, or picking up on a pattern of behavior on my end. Sometimes the lack of feedback on the woman’s end was frustrating for me because I didn’t know what I was doing wrong, and felt like I was going in circles.

After a while, getting rejected over and over gets frustrating and depressing. If you got rejected after ten consecutive dates with people you were interested in, it probably would tug on your ego to some degree. I know it did for me, but I really tried to perservere and not be bitter or a ‘Nice Guy’. The ‘too eager’ thing I already learned on my own when I read this article, and its shaped the protocol I have for dating currently:

Advice I have for other guys

-Downplay your impression of someone you meet. Doesn’t mean you have to be rude, but if they are ‘OMGHAWT’ and whatnot seriously don’t let it make you do stupid things like get too mushy/clingy/etc too soon.

-Err on the side of caution. I think most guys don’t want to risk passing up a ‘good opportunity’ so they over do it. In my experience its better to take this risk since at the worst you’ll come off as ‘uninterested’ instead of ‘creepy’ which is a million times better in my opinion. So if you’re wondering if you might be ‘calling too soon/frequently’ ‘flattering too much’ ‘revealing too much about yourself’, DONT. If the other person asks stuff like, “Do you think X looks good on me?” “Call me anytime” “Tell me about X” feel free to answer as much as you’re comfortable. I think a lot of guys can salvage quite a few dates by keeping the ball in the woman’s court once in a while. Sure they might still not be interested, but you’re not going to turn her off by suffocating her with unsolicited compliments (risky) frequent phone calls (creepy) or Too Much Info! (also creepy)

-I think some guys treat a date the same way they’d like to be treated. Maybe they’re insecure/have a negative self-image and really like the idea of getting showered with compliments. They might compliment the other person to try to set an example of how they would like to get treated. But people aren’t mirror images of each other.

-I agree on the ‘too available’ thing. If you meet a woman, REALLY like her and want to see her as soon/as much as possible, don’t convey that you don’t have anything better with your time. If you don’t have much going on in your life, exaggerate. Talk about non-dating activities sometimes to at least convey you have somewhat of a life. Don’t talk about doing nothing.

Dating is going much better for me. I used to think I was hopeless, but came around. I did solicit advice here, but the best education was simply experience. I think most guys can be successful if they don’t come in with predjudices/assumptions of what women want/like and also don’t try too hard!

148

I agree with the general gist of the OP, and there’s nothing more frustrating than hearing people with their own patently obvious daring flaws pick apart what they find wrong with other people in excruciating detail, but allow me to suggest a sort of pricing model for dating: the relative attractiveness of the two members of a couple generally correlates. That is, “10’s” are most likely to date other 9’s and 10’s and 3’s are most likely to date in the 2-4 range.

If you were to reduce people on the dating scene to a single-dimension of attractiveness and the dating scene is a market matching up similarly attractive people, when someone approaches a potential relationship with you with too much enthusiasm, it’s like a price signal that says, “whoa, aim higher.” Now, if you pay too much attention to this little pang of questioning, then yeah, it’s easily possible to end up single at 50 even if you don’t want to be.

It’s like when you’ve just reached an agreement buy a car or sell your bike on Craigslist; there’s always a brief moment of panic when you wonder if you’ve overpaid for the car by $400 or asked for $100 too little for the bike. You have to have faith in your research on the market to have the confidence you’ve made the right decision, but at the moment you strike a deal there’s always that instantaneous temptation to kill that deal.

149

Anyone ever watch “Daisy of Love” on VH1? Even after factoring in the fact that it is a reality show and thus 99% BS, there are still a lot of real life women out there like her who, after limiting themselves to a pool of emotionally imbalanced, unemployable, alchohol and drug abusing, violent, meatheads and weirdos, wonder why they are unable to find a quality man (like the host Rikki Rachman who is obviously secretly in love with her).

150

You cannot be serious. Oh my Lord, I am laughing out loud as I type this. Daisy of Fucking Love?

Have you ever watched Rock of Love, where an old man in eye-liner limits himself to a group of sociopaths in clear heels, and wonders why he’s still searching for The One?

It’s a frickin’ reality show. And moreover, some people (regardless of gender) are too mucked up about the brain in order to realize their unhealthy behaviors and priorities are what’s getting in the way. What the hell does Daisy of Love have to do with anything?

151

I’m not sure what you mean “strawman”. When a woman meets a strange man in the back of her mind (or maybe in the front of her mind) she is worried about physical harm. When a guy meets a strange woman the most he’s worried about is that she will laugh at him or tell him to f___ off. I’ve been beaten up and I’ve been told to f___ off. I would much rather deal with the latter than the former. I don’t know who “has it harder” and I’m not sure it much matters. But what does matter is that guys need to be aware that this issue is on a woman’s mind. Now you say to yourself, ok, but I would never hurt a woman, so it’s irrelevant. Yeah, well, see, she doesn’t know that. And IF a guy starts acting clingy too soon, or keeps up with the phone calls, or gets too emotionally involved in an interaction before the people even really know each other, that is going to set off alarm bells for a woman. And rightfully so.

152

Okay, jumping in and soliciting opinions about a certain situation…

What has been everyone’s experience when the two of you DO rush on madly ahead, a mutual “coming on too strong”, forgoing all the usual niceities and protocols, getting “too mushy/clingy/etc. too soon,” as Incubus put it? Because what I am hearing is attempting to go that route too soon will scare the other person off-but what if they aren’t scared off but return it in kind? What have been your experiences when all holds are unbarred?

[Raises hand] Yes, it happened to me. One glorious meeting of the souls one weekend, one night of clothed cuddling, caressing, and kissing, followed by a night (and day) of unclothed passion, followed by her gaining tons of distance, an afternoon date the following weekend, some more snugglebunnies (PG rated) in the parking lot, then her ending it all the following Tuesday, scared off by the passion/sudden intimacy/I dunno the fuck. We really did seem super-compatible (we both made jokes about it as it all happened), but it was over before it began really.

Next time I’ve promised myself I will take it slower (for my sake, for various related reasons), but Lord I hate all the artificial restraint, the Steps A/B/C/D which you violate at your own peril, etc. etc. If you both really dig each other, really, why do all the self-conscious holding back? Why not just let things go where they will, carefree and guileless?

153

I married the guy.

154

“Reader, I married him.”
I did too, but ours was a little different in that we’d known each other more than a decade before we got involved.

In previous relationships where we got involved quickly - well, they are previous relationships.

It CAN work long term, but I suspect that when there is that sort of chemistry, that long term compatibility is a matter of luck and long term compromise - because frankly you don’t know enough about them to know if they are truly compatible in that infatuation stage.

155

My forehead is now all bloody from all the banging my head on my desk that this thread has caused me.

156

Once, it was a disaster. The next, I married her, and we’re still together.

When that happens you may just be really lucky. Or maybe not.

157

Providing both parties are crazy about each other, rushing madly ahead sounds great.

158

I think this is a lot like asking “what is everyone’s experience when you take all of your money, and instead of investing it in a diversified portfolio, you just invest it in one stock because the company seems like it just can’t miss?” A few people are going to come in and talk about how it worked out unbelievably great. Most people are going to say, well, that didn’t turn out so well.
Why not just jump in? Because you do NOT know the person well enough at that stage. What you WANT to be true clouds your perception of what really is true. You are so excited to have finally met the person who is so great in every way, that you are not thinking clearly. So, better to take it slow. Because what the hell do you have to lose by taking it a little slower? In fact, you will likely find that overall it’s a more pleasurable experience.

159

Or maybe it’s b/c a lot of guys out there seem so out of it about social protecal.
Like they don’t understand that a good realtionship starts out as friendship and then evolves from there.
You have no idea how many times I’ve been IMd by guys who want an Instant Girlfriend. Oh gawd…even the first guy I dated knew me two weeks before he decided he liked me (and at the time I felt like I didn’t even know him)

160

Meh. I met my fiancee when I was drunk at a frat party and it was definitely more physical than anything else to begin with. The emotional stuff took five years to develop.