Astorian, keep in mind if you were in your thirties at the time you may have been mature enough not to sink into some of the creepy nice guy habits. But your tone does subtly imply a sense of entitlement- you’re not a stalker, creep, bum, etc but even you have to understand that is not enough.
The baseball analogy shows you are self aware enough to distinguish “assholes” from actual assholes. Which is good, a lot of men never learn to accept this.
If you’re in love with a woman that’s into mach guys, either be more macho or find women that like your personality. I think what’s happening to a lot of these “harmless” men is that they aren’t making themselves appealing to women. Often its meekness- failing to take initiative in subtle but critical situations. It takes confidence and trial and error to get the hang of it for guys.
Some guys are so afraid to come off as some kind of creepy rapist they overcompensate by emphasizing their harmlessness. In my experience the best middle ground is to find Windows of opportunity to ask her out/make physical contact/kiss her on a date. If it seems appropriate, you try, and she turns you down, don’t overreact. (If she reacts like you’re a crazy rapist, consider bullet dodged since you probably wouldn’t have chemistry anyway).
I had some pretty douchey, passive-aggressive “nice-guy” traits when I was younger. Not to the extreme in the OP, but it was pathetic. I grew out of it, but I was pretty annoying for a lot of my early 20s, I’m embarrased to say.
Xizor, some women will keep guys in the stable just to feel good about themselves. My sister is one of these. At least she was when she was young and cute enough to pull it off. There was this guy, Matt. He bought her stuff, fixed her cars, would drop anything at any time if she snapped her fingers. AFAIK, she never dated him or anything. If his attention lagged, she would call him with some need. He was a fool, and she was a user. They were kind of suited to each other.
I think I never bought the “Nice Guy” ideals because nearly every guy I knew who was good with women and dating was a genuinely nice guy. And the few that weren’t at least acted like nice guys around women. It just seemed to me that they were better at hiding their jerkiness.
That said, I did gravitate towards the ideas that being overly complimentary and raising women up on a pedestal was not really that good of an idea. That a more laid back approach works better than a needy one. And I learned this from the proto-PUA websites.
That’s why I say that this current PUA movement seems to be different from the one I found in high school. There was a much bigger focus on being a better person. There were little tricks, sure, but they weren’t all that different from the tips in women’s magazines. I noticed some people who became rather misogynistic, but they weren’t even a majority.
Heck, I learned to actually try to make jokes and otherwise come off as humorous from those websites. I’d always just assumed I wasn’t a funny person and that it didn’t matter, yet a good, compatible sense of humor is high on almost everyone’s list for a partner. And I leaned from my new-found confidence that, while I wasn’t the most desirable guy in the world, there were a handful of women who liked me in that way. And this remained true even when I was ashamed of how “Big” I’d gotten.
I guess this misogyny was probably lurking under the surface, but it didn’t explode until they became popular. And I think it hurts anyone who genuinely wants to learn better social skills for dating purposes. Not everyone is the type of person who learns best by experience alone. If so, there wouldn’t be these awkward people who want to be less awkward.
Get started by reading the No More Mr Nice Guy book. It may not describe your exact situation, but it will cover the Nice Guy traits and how to change them. Read over some of the stories in the forums on that site and see if you relate to them.
I’m not sure I ever learned the social skills, but I was lucky enough to meet a woman who saw past my lack of them. I can work a room when the situation calls for it, can speak to a crowd, and can sing in front of an audience without getting nervous. Asking someone out, however, filled me with terror. I was lucky to be approached; we hit it off immediately. She asked for a ride on my motorcycle, we started dating, and were married a little less than a year later. If I were to go back in time to, say, age 25, I still would be inept at getting dates. I don’t think I learned anything by meeting someone who fell for me. I’m very fortunate that my lack of success with girls as a teenager (I didn’t go on my first date until I was 20) didn’t render me undatable. Funny thing is, my wife and the woman I dated before we met were better looking than almost all the women/girls who turned me down for dates.
I don’t see it either, and I’m on the lunatic fringe of entitlement-intolerance so it’s a pretty high bar. I think you just got swept up in the sermon.
The reason they’re called “Nice Guys” is because they call themselves that, if that’s what you mean. They think that because they’re not automatically a jerk, that makes you a “nice guy”, or that being “nice” in and of itself, is somehow a major virtue. It’s not, it’s like Chris Rock said, you shouldn’t get brownie points for stuff you’re supposed to do.
I was a nice guy for years, and I guess the only reason I didn’t become a Nice Guy was because a) I didn’t think I was “entitled” to any particular girl and b) I actually had platonic girl friends.
I haven’t been in the dating pool for years, but when I was a teenager, we guys constantly had it drilled into us to be “nice” to girls. To be solicitous, do things for them, not be too pushy, take an interest in their interests, etc.
Now, if you’re shy, or just naturally passive, you’re going to wait for good things to happen to you, and since you’ve followed the “rules” you expect to be rewarded for it. Instead, you see the guys who push to get the girl’s attention, who boldly walk right up to them and ask them out to an action film rather than meekly thinking maybe if they were going to see that romantic comedy you could maybe bump into them at the theater and maybe you’ll end up getting coffee together. . . and instead of getting what you think you’ve earned, you’re invisible.
Of course, this isn’t unique to male-female relationships. There are plenty of people (of both sexes) who think they should get promoted because they work hard and don’t make trouble, only to see the pushy salesperson get ahead. There are plenty of people who fly into a rage because they keep their yards tidy while the trashy neighbor lets weeds grow. There are plenty of people who feel cheated because their parents’ wills divided everything equally among the kids, even that spoiled sibling who lives across the country, never visited and only even called once or twice a year. We just don’t give those categories a name.
Like I said, I was a “nice guy” when I was younger and I take full ownership of it and how passive agressive I was, but in threads like these, I always feel the urge to point out that there are women who knowingly (at some level) string nice guys along. Basically, a lot of people in their 20s don’t have their lives together and engage in a lot of messed up behaviors in their dating lives. Most people seem to figure it out.
You’re absolutely right. I’ve known a few of the women who do this. Some of them do it because that’s how they were socialized, and every single one of them had serious boundary issues. Some of them do it because they are opportunistic, self-centered, entitled asshats. Their behavior should be pointed out whenever possible, and they should be held accountable just like so-called nice guys are.
Nice guy behaviors attract users. That’s the funny thing. The absolute dregs of womanhood can play Nice Guy like a fiddle. Good women run like hell from pedestals, users will be like, lemme have some of that, nom nom.
Extreme passivity and spinelessness also provokes user behavior in people who aren’t ordinarily inclined to it.
On the friend zone specifically, it boils down to 3 things:
Put some distance first. Don’t act like her boyfriend until you are her boyfriend.
Generally become more proficient at socializing and dating. This is something that will take work, and will never end – so no magic fixes – but it’s worth it.
If you feel like her life is more interesting than yours that’s a good sign you don’t have enough going on in your life and you need to acquire hobbies / passions.
And I hesitate to add; while I consider myself a reformed friend zone guy (though I was never a Nice Guy), I continue to have to work at these myself.
I’m not claiming to be a jedi, just offering the kind of advice I wish I’d had (and listened to) when I was in my teens and twenties.