IIRC, Miss Manners said that the proper response when an undesirable suitor buys one a drink is to immediately buy him one too, to communicate “OK, we’re even. Now go away.”
Yes, but woe be to those who talk about it.
When I was younger, I got to the point where I interpreted “you’re a really nice person” as “you’re ok to be around, but you’re not boyfriend material.” I’ve never heard “nice guy” used the way it’s been used in this post; is it a new usage, or has it been around for a while? I’ve been with my wife since 1995, so if it was in use before then maybe I was being insulted and didn’t know it. I’m certainly “socially challenged” and did not read signals well at all. I also had a crushing fear of being rejected, which I’m sure wasn’t attractive. It probably made me much more likely to be rejected, so it was sort of a vicious circle. I do remember hearing that a girl way back in high school said I was a creep, but I hadn’t even had any interactions with her or anyone she was friends with. I grew up in the boonies and didn’t have as much opportunity to interact with other kids as most of my peers, so that no doubt stunted my social development a bit.
Nome of this affects me now, but it does raise a little concern since I have two sons who are 13 and 16. I do worry sometimes that one or both of them will have the same extreme insecurity and inability to pick up on social cues that I had. Like me, they are both comfortable interacting with adults. Hopefully they take after their mother more when it comes to dating, and this isn’t genetic.
The pejorative sense has been around for a few years, at least. It has come up in threads before this. I certainly hadn’t heard of it in 1995, but it may have been in use somewhere and then caught on with the 'net’s ability to spread such things.
In my experience, the average guy matures past this behavior in his early 20s. Some people wake up sooner, some cling to until their 30s and longer (and imo a woman should write them off).
To me, the defining characteristics of this sort of nice guy are fixation and hypocrisy. Fixation because they don’t just want a woman, they want their ideal, and feel entitled to her - shades of what the guy in Isla Vista was on about. And hypocrisy because while they can go on and on about the injustice of unrequited love, pointing out to them that someone they aren’t fixated on likes them is met with a dismissive “So? They aren’t my type.” The same behavior they decry.
In high school, a buddy of mine had a thing he called the Like List. Just his casual observations about who was interested in who. If anyone ever went on about how no one liked them, he’d break out the list and rattle off names (almost always more than one) of people that were clearly interested in them. It was stunning how many teens were uninterested in a relationship with someone that actually liked them, choosing to scheme, grovel and beg to convince someone that wasn’t interested to change their mind.
Ok, I don’t think I qualified. I would have had to be really not attracted to someone who liked me to not want to go out and see what happened. I would have been flattered; I can count on one hand the number of times I was aware someone was interested in me between high school and meeting my wife. Not saying there weren’t any, just that I wasn’t aware. I think the women who said I was a nice guy probably meant it as “ok to be around, but not my type.” Could have been living in a small, conservative southern town (although I didn’t have a single date during grad school, which wasn’t in a small town); when I moved to New York at 29 I dated more the first two years than I had my entire life up until that time. I was married within 3 years, and remain so today. I don’t think my sons are that kind of “nice guy” either, but I have the nagging worry that they’ll have the same kind of challenges socially that I did.
The term “Nice Guy” came about because they refer to themselves that way. As in, “I’m a Nice Guy, and that’s why girls don’t like me – they only like jerks.” These guys actually aren’t “nice” at all, as in genuinely good people, they’re just self-entitled, insecure jackasses. (And no, Jragon, I definitely wouldn’t say you counted as a Nice Guy. That girl just wasn’t a good friend.)
I didn’t like it when someone I considered a jerk had no trouble getting dates, but I knew plenty of guys I considered stand-up guys who didn’t have any trouble either. Until my early twenties I thought it was because I didn’t have the looks to attract anyone, but realized later it was mostly due to an extreme lack of social skills. The insecure fits the younger me, but I never had the idea that girls should like me; I just figured I didn’t have what anyone was looking for in a boyfriend.
I think the term “nice guy” has gotten subverted from it’s original meaning. It use to mean a guy who was polite and respected women. The opposite would be the “bad boy” who treated woman like sex objects.
From that context I’ve seen a number of youthful marriages where the woman chose a “bad boy” the first time out and replaced him when reality set in.
If this thread is pointed at the most recent whackadoo who went on a killing spree he wasn’t a “nice guy”. He was a psychopath who didn’t understand why his psychotic personality didn’t get him laid. He was obsessed with his perceived failures for his entire teenage life.
Well, yes it did get subverted. After many years and thousands of board/newsgroup/blog posts as to how come girls go for the “bad boys” over the “nice guys” – a worthwhile discussion by itself – a pattern began to be noticed that a segment of the self-proclaimed would-be nice boys most loudly complaining about…
… about this. The dudes referenced seemed to take offense at hearing that more than once, and as opposed to the heretofore traditional pattern of feeling sad about it until told to get over themselves or until someone else came around, began making a big deal about how it meant there was something wrong with the girls/women. They came across thus as not really “nice” but having a passive aggressive attitude that a romantic connection was their just “reward” for saying the right words and doing the right deeds.
…and as in the above example, at this Board it tends to be used as “Nice Guy” with scare quotes and/or ironic capitals (or even Nice Guy[sup]TM[/sup] if we’re feeling snarky about it) when referring to this phenomenon. In that form it refers to someone who affects pseudo- or faux- niceness.
I see what you’re saying. It’s the difference between someone self identify as a “nice guy” as the reason for rejection versus someone looking at the situation from the outside.
I personally find ‘nice’ to be a pretty crappy descriptor, anyway - not just for people, but anything. I mean, what useful information does it convey? Generally it’s agreeable, inoffensive, pleasant, mild … It’s not something you dislike at all, but it’s also not something you like like. It’s a term to use when you have no strong feelings one way or the other. Pleasantly agreeable in a bland way.
If someone I don’t know is described as ‘nice’ (sincerely, not like “nice”), that tells me NOTHING about their personality or who they are. It’s like if you ask how the lasagna is here and they say, “it’s not bad. You won’t hate it!” Does that make the lasagna sound appealing and make you want to order it?
It depends on the situation. If someone asks you what your new boyfriend is like, saying “he’s nice”, and only that, is indeed a red flag.
But say someone asks you what your friend’s new boyfriend is like.
Here, “He’s a nice guy” is still pretty bland, but it conveys something; that he appears socially “house-trained” and didn’t rub you up the wrong way. That is something you can say about many (most?) men but it’s still important to say it.
You may then elaborate, but even if you say nothing more than that, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have nothing positive to add. Maybe you just stop there and see if there’s any need to further describe him.
I was borderline like this when I was in my early 20’s and had low self esteem. But I got my act together and made something of myself.
After reading this thread, I think I may have fallen into a nice guy role without even realizing it. I knew someone through work who went through a divorce a few years before me, so she would always share her dating horror stories and we were good friends. Then after I got divorced and we were both single, I did confess that I found her attractive and that I was interested. Here reply was a very vague “you would make a great boyfriend”.
We continued to text and see each other during the day, but whenever I would suggest a night or weekend activity she would become silent for a few days or have an excuse, but never a direct “no”. I thought that was a hint and would stop contacting her only to have her asking me to lunch the next week.
Repeat this cycle for over a year and she is still holding me at arm’s length but not letting go. And just this week I learned that she had been keeping her boyfriends a secret from me to… I don’t know, make sure I didn’t write her off? to keep me in her friend zone for her own reasons?
My biased mind thinks I’ve given her plenty of exit routes, is it possible I am deluded? Or are some people so non-confrontational that they will string somebody along forever rather than say “get lost”?
The goal of the “nice guy” is not sex; it is TRUE LOVE (as in The Princess Bride).
I don’t think so xizor. You can only act on information you have, and give her information you have. You continued to be her friend - without ulterior motives. She, understandably, kept you at arms length because as a woman with some life experience, she’s probably been burned by “bitch, you were leading me on.”
There isn’t a way to put the genie back in the bottle and get back to just being good friends - at least there isn’t a quick, easy, surefire way. And if you value someone as a person and as a friend, about all you can do is let the uncomfortableness sort its way out (or not).
You’re not deluded, and yes, there are some people who are so non-confrontational, they will never say “I’m not interested”.
I think at this point, you are best off assuming that anything short of “YES!!!” is a no.
I disagree. While every person has their own individual goals, most of the instances of Nice Guy I’ve encountered personally or heard about through friends have been men who felt they were entitled to sex. A few of them were fixated on the idea of having a ‘relationship,’ but their definition was always about how having a girlfriend affected them - they weren’t a single loser anymore, they got to have sex, they had someone to spend time with. I can’t think of a single one of them who claimed that they should get to be with the woman in question because they loved her, or because they had earned her love, or because it was TWUE WUV.
Apparently, the “nice guy” meme has been around so long, it’s developed into several totally different concepts.
I’m 53 and have been married for 15 years. My lonely and (often) unsuccessful single days came before there were web pages for every imaginable demographic. I’m sure I WOULD have identified as a “Nice Guy Who Can’t Get a Date” at several points in my life. And in my less rational moments, I WOULD often fume to myself when I saw/read about/heard about women who weren’t interested in me dating or marrying guys who seemed like real jerks.
Apparently, I was a cliche even then; I just didn’t know it.
But it seems the cliche has mutated several times since I was single. The newly divorced Astorian of the early Nineties had MANY faults, but a sense of entitlement definitely was not one of them. I was (and still am, to a lesser degree) shy, lacking in confidence and social skills, and very bad at reading women’s cues- in BOTH directions!
That is, I guessed wrong a LOT about what women were interested in me and which ones weren’t. I asked out several women who never regarded me as anything but a harmless, asexual friend and never asked out women who told me much later that they never understood why I didn’t ask them out!
At the time, I considered myself (at worst) a completely harmless, possibly annoying sad sack. But the Guinistasias and Phoukas on this board would probably have viewed me as an Elliot Rodger prototype.
I can’t necessarily blame them- I don’t know the men they’ve met, dated, or been harrassed by. Maybe they have good reasons for being leery of “Nice guys.” I only know from experience that, while I definitely pursued some women who were totally uninterested in me as anything but a quirky buddy, I never felt entitled to anything. I just HOPED for something more than friendship. When it didn’t happen (as it often didn’t), I didn’t start sending threatening letters or making obscene phone calls.
I have been hopelessly, head over heels in love exactyl twice. Neither woman felt the same way about me. I made the stupid mistake of continuing to hang around with one, in the vain hope she’d change her mind. I learned fom that mistake, and broke things off immediately with the other, even though she’d have been delighted to hang with me occasionally.
I didn’t and don’t hate or resent either woman. Both eventually did marry jerks and got divorced. I took no pleasure or satisfaction in that. Honest! They were both genuinely wonderful women, and unfortunately, they didn’t stop being wonderful just because they wouldn’t or couldn’t love me back.
Here’s one of my many sports analogies. As a kid, I dreamed of playing for the Yankees. OBVIOUSLY, that didn’t happen. Now, by any sane standard, I’m a much, much nicer person than Alex Rodriguez, wh ois a true all-around jerk.
So, would it make ANY sense for me to watch a Yankee game and fume, “Why do the Yankees have that a-hole Rodriguez at third base when they COULD have a nice person like me? I think baseball teams just like jerks!”
Of course not! The reality is, when the Yankees look for a third basemen, being “nice” is pretty low on their list of requirements. The Yankees want and need certain things: speed, a strong throwing arm, the ability to hit 95 MPH fastballs, etc. Alex Rodriguez has always had those things. I never did. The Yankees would probably prefer a nice star to a jerky star, but signing an inept player like me just because he’s “nice” isn’t an option.
In the same way, women don’t want to date jerks. If women DO end up dating or marrying jerks, it’s because those guys have other qualities women want and need.
One of the women I was madly in love with was only interested in very macho guys, cowboy types. To put it mildly, that ain’t me. Some of the mmacho guys she chose over me turned out to be abusive creeps. But for her, if one cowboy turned out to be a bum, the solution was NOT to start dating nerds like me. It was to find a nicer cowboy.
I knew a lot of guys like myself. NONE of us were stalkers or brooders who felt entitled to nookie. All of us were pleasant, inelligent, gainfully employed males who wanted to fall in love, get married, buy a house with a white picket fence and have 2.1 kids. We just didn’t know how to make that happen.
Most of us were eventually lucky enough to find quality women (truthfully, we all did better for ourselves than we deserved). That’s partly because… look, I’m not what ANY woman dreamed of when she was 16, but it turned out I WAS what a lot of them would gladly take at 36.