I know, I’ve been reading the classics. Phaedra, and all that jazz.
But I’ve also met actual men and actual women.
As a former “nice guy” who was hopeless with girls, I feel obliged to post in every thread like this. Even if I arrive 7 pages in, and can’t be bothered to read everything that went before. 
It’s like this: it’s a comforting fiction that some guys tell themselves that they would already be a great boyfriend if only women would give them a chance.
And when you think about it, “I don’t do some of the jerkish things I see other guys do” is just about the lamest justification for feeling like that.
The reality is of course is that not kicking puppies doesn’t in itself make you good company. It doesn’t make you interesting, and good at conversation, and doesn’t mean you’re a good listener. The good news is anyone can be all those things, with practice.
I don’t want to come down too hard on the “nice guys” though. They’re stuck in a rut because of the normal kind of subconscious self-delusion that we all have in various ways.
OTOH the kind of “nice guy” who thinks he’s owed sex and constantly insults women because he’s not getting it, is a rare creature IME compared to how much he gets talked about on the Dope.
Excellent idea. That means whatever point you’re making isn’t guaranteed to have been combed over and chewed to bits already more than 100 times. 200 would be too much.
(I’m joking, I’m joking. Come on in. The more the merrier.)
You’re an honorable person, one who has participated in this discussion with an intention of getting to the truth of the matter, not just trying to win an argument. Apology totally accepted, and thank you. You also recognize in the Nice Guy™ archetype some strands that you find within yourself, and have said so, and I recognize and respect that honesty and self-evaluation too.
Rightly or wrongly, I have tended to feel that same way about male sexuality when it was expressed as a frontal sexual aggression, pushing girls/women for sex (however smoothly and charmingly). I honestly don’t know if that attitude originally came from seeing some guys doing it in a repulsive way or if it’s just a kind of xenophobia — a sense of “doing that would not feel right for me, therefore that guy over there who is doing that is doing things all wrong”. Where I’ve ended up at is what I hope is a more even-handed attitude, and one without “culprits”— that it isn’t socially healthy for either of the sexes to take a generalization about male versus female sexual behavior and exaggerate the differences and deny the overlap to the point of polarization. And if we dropped the prescriptive attitudes towards people based on what sex they are, it would be OK for some of the male people to be sexually aggressive by nature, even for the majority thereof, insofar as their way of being male would not define “proper masculine behavior” for the rest of us.
For what it’s worth I’ve had this before too - the “definitely being checked out by her” looks, the conversations which are clearly more than Friends Just Talking About Stuff, the obvious flirting/flirty touching, her friends basically saying “She’s into you”; onnly to be met with “Sorry, I have a boyfriend/am just too busy with university” when it’s suggested that hey, maybe we can Go And Do Something Together.
I’m not a Nice Guy™ so I take it all in my stride, but I agree it’s definitely confusing and would be even more confusing for someone who’s got the Nice Guy™ mindset, or is well on the way to developing it.
I actually don’t consider any of these “traits.” They are activities which point to particular traits but do not define them.
Well I keep moving on and keep dating. It’s just a thing. But it’s like being eternally told of a promised land if you just keep going a bit further. At some point you wonder if the message and messengers are flawed. Keep doing the same thing and get the same result right? So I’ve given many shits less in the past five months.
Fair enough:
Traits resulting from the above:
Compassionate
Disciplined
Sensitive
Fun
etc
There’s not really a lot of objective anything when it comes to relationships. Certain traits will tend to be more successful than others, sure. A sense of humor is generally going to be good. A tolerant, forgiving personality tends to be good. Disciplined? That might be good, or might be ghastly. Fun? No idea what that really means. Compassionate? That sounds good.
But I don’t think any of us is a great judge of our own traits, nor do any of these traits result from any of the activities you participate in.
These are not questions I’m asking you to answer for me, not questions we can always have definitive answers to, but they are important, I think. What is it like spending time with you? How do other people feel when they are around you? Do people like you? Do you like them?
I can rattle off all sorts of positive traits my husband has. But I don’t think they are the determining factor. I think the biggest determinant of success in any relationship is how you feel about yourself when you’re around that person and how that person feels about herself when she’s around you.
I have bad traits. Too many bad traits! But for the most part I like who I am when I’m with my husband. He brings out many good things in me.
Person 1 says or does X and you want to strangle them. Person 2 says or does X and you think it’s funny or charming. You are probably Person 1 for some people and Person 2 for others. It’s not going to be some objective standard that you look at and say “I’m fun and compassionate and disciplined, therefore when I do X that person will like/love me!”
They’re not necessarily mixed. Maybe she does like you and find you hot. But she actually does have a boyfriend. She doesn’t have to be lying when she says that.
Here’s another thing that has been confusing to me: For me, flirting is instrumental. A (flirting) is interesting to me only because it can lead to be B (relationship). If I could skip A, and go directly to B, I would.
But the assumption for other people seems to be that A can be only A, for its own sake. They do it because they enjoy A. There’s doesn’t have to be any B on the table. And when someone says A, they’re not promising B. Or even offering B, if you just do A right. It’s just about the A.
I just had to learn that. It’s odd to me, but it seems to be what is going on at times.
I tend to be a flirty woman. I’ve had flirty relationships with co-workers, female friends (I’m not completely straight, but have a preference for men), gay male friends, straight male friends, married male friends. Flirting is part of friendship and people who aren’t comfortable with suggestive comments and insider smiles probably aren’t going to be comfortable being friends. I’ve been monogamously married 21 years and I still flirt.
At work I avoid flirty until a point of friendship has been reached. I will also make sure to mention my husband with affection at some point early on to establish this is flirting for fun - not flirting towards an end.
I’m not at all a touchy woman though.
I almost said that it’s funny how we can have such opposite perspectives. But they’re not really opposite, it’s the same thing. Because it’s really the aggressive, pushy and frontal thing that I dislike, too. It just scares me the most when it comes hidden in a package of “fake nice”, or “fake passive”.
Stay with me for a second here, I need to think out loud for a bit. This may turn into a slightly TL;DR post, but I’ll try to keep it compact.
Here’s my experience from my own life: At times, I’ve been very passive when approaching women. I’ve done the thing you talked about earlier: “Flirting” so subtly, so invisibly, that it “wouldn’t be picked up by anyone not looking”. You know, that thing? That, or not “flirting” at all, but faking. Faking safe. Faking compassionate. Faking friendly. Being a “good listener”, but the whole time I’m sitting there I’m actually thinking about her earlobes. Because, see, those are some very cute earlobes. (Sorry, yeah, I have a thing for earlobes. Attached earlobes, especially. Anyway, where was I? …)
Then, when not getting the desired response, a few times - well, twice, to be precise - I’ve had the frustration build up, and then flipped. Suddenly I’ve turned very pushy. And very unpleasant. A bit like **monstro **describes here;
There was this one girl who was always talking. She was wonderful, but her mouth was constantly going. She could talk a hole in your head. And she was aware of this. So, she told me: “I like you, because you let me blabber on endlessly. Other people just shut me up after a while.”
Well, of course I let her blabber on. I got to sit there and think about her earlobes, while I was pretending to listen. And when she said that, I of course thought: “Score! This is going great.”
Instead, it turned into one of those episodes, like the one from monstro’s post.
The worst part is that I can be a good listener. I can be safe. I can be compassionate. I can be friendly. It doesn’t have to be about earlobes. The problem is when it is about the earlobes, but I act like it isn’t. Then I’m having a very hard time actually seeing or caring about the other person. Because all I see is earlobe.
So, that has happened with me twice. Then, a third time, it was well on the way to happening. I caught myself being that way. I could see where it was going, and stopped the process. Three strikes. Or, well, two and a half. Pattern recognition.
Those are the three main episodes I consider my “nice guy career”.
That, as I said, plus what I called some low level stuff. So, let’s look at that a bit. A lot of the time, I get what **Quasimodal **describes here:
And that’s because they notice that I’m doing it. Or, well, they’re suspecting it. Or suspecting something. And they don’t know what is lurking in the depths.
You see, this is really about Bruce Banner, the Hulk, and the Avengers. But that’s enough for one post. More on this in the next post.
You know, I think this is solid gold we have here. I’m very happy that this particular subject came up. The explanatory power of it is just enormous, I think. It potentially clears up a ton.
I just didn’t want to leave this hanging out there. This is, of course, false. For a significant portion of the population no amount of practice will improve their ability to interact socially to a significant degree. Some people can learn these things later in life, but if you have reached adulthood with these things completely escaping you then chances are “trying harder” is not the answer.
To follow up my point above I have no idea what either of you are talking about. I found Dangerosa’s post completely baffling and your response doubly so.
Well, you’re wrong about that. End of story. In the same way that someone saying “the sky is green” is wrong.
Anyway, we’re not just trying harder. We’re trying smarter.
More interesting. How so?
The one prejudice that most everyone has and is completely blind to is that if you can perceive something then you take it for granted that everyone around you perceives the same thing. I am very aware of this from both perspectives. I am blind to most non-verbal communication and I see the interconnectedness of things in a way that most people don’t.
As a result I am regularly baffled by peoples interactions and also often assume everyone else is seeing the references that I am seeing all around me.
Dangerosa’s post about finding amusement in making some sort of suggestive remarks to people she is gained a certain familiarity with left me staring blankly. I have no way to relate to that. Don’t misunderstand I don’t feel positively or negatively about the behavior. I’m not judging it in any way. I just don’t have any clue why anyone would do this or why it would be “fun”.
For you to then come in an describe the same post as “solid gold” . . .
Can you define this significant portion? I don’t know what population you are talking about and don’t want to assume anything.
So the problem is on your end, ok.
Why do you need to relate to for it to be useful? It’s not like **Martian Bigfoot **or Dangerosa were suggesting you start doing it too. You just need to be aware that it’s a normal thing people do.