This isn’t how a single one of my courtships or sexual encounters have gone down. Not even in high school!
What does the OP mean by “nice guy”?
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The kind of “nice guy” who makes no effort to meet people or be attractive and is just a misogynist who blames women for not liking him?
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The kind of “nice guy” who resents that women who are far more attractive than he is doesn’t go for him and ignores the women who are more his equal in attractiveness?
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“Nice” as in “not an asshole.” The thing is, not being an asshole is really not enough to make you attractive to someone.
This article by Cracked’s David Wong is something every “nice guy” should read — http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/
To sum up, if you want to attract someone, you have to do or become something that makes you attractive—what are your skills? What can you do to give another person something she needs in life?
Are you handsome? Are you rich? Do you dress stylishly? Can you play music or make art? Do you cook? Are you good at fixing things? Are you entertaining? Are you charming? Are you smart? Do you have a future? Are you fun to be around?
You don’t need to be all these things, or any specific one of these things, but, as David Wong says in that article, you need to bring something to the table. And you need to be aware of what kind of girl will be attracted to what you bring to the table. If you want a fashion model, you have to be able to compete with the kind of men that fashion models have access to.
Also, as he says, a person who does little more than consume what other people produce—whether it’s video games or movies or TV—isn’t bringing much to the table.
[QUOTE=AHunter3]
The observed phenomenon exists because the sexual dating and courting script calls for the boy-person to make an overt sexual advance, to which the girl-person replies “I’m not that kind of girl, I’d have to get to know you better first”, and so the two of them date some, they fool around some, and perhaps proximity and time cause them to become emotionally involved and they become boyfriend and girlfriend, or perhaps proximity and time cause them to get horny enough to overcome reluctances and concerns about reputation and, to express it in the sexist vernacular, he scores.
The observed phenomenon exists because that script is a sexist script and doesn’t fit very well for male-bodied people who aren’t really very boyish, whose priorities aren’t typical boy-priorities, whose personality isn’t right for the role of boy in that little pageant.
[/QUOTE]
Here’s how all my “sexual dating and courting” has gone. I meet a woman. I ask her on date. We have a good time. Usually on date 2 - 4 we mutually decide to have sex with each other. Neither of us act like it’s the 1950s. Nor do we describe each other as boys and girls because we’re both adults.
Sometimes one of us call it off at any point we decide that’s the right call. It sucks for the other person but we get over it.
Right. So you’re not interested in “sex by itself, sex for its own sake”.
You’re interested in sex as a way to achieve a deeper emotional and spiritual connection. As a path to love and understanding.
I am, too. Sex for its own sake does nothing for me. It’s not about tab A into slot B. I don’t want to have sex with just anyone. It has to be someone who does it for me on a mental, emotional or spiritual level. Or at least someone with a good sense of humor.
But so fucking what? Is the difference really that important? We’re still interested in sex.
Right. You wouldn’t think this would be rocket science. But to some people it apparently is.
Newsflash: You catch fish with bait. Stop dangling your empty hooks, fellas.
I’ll join the choir and say that not a single relationship I’ve had, pursued or sniffed at follows this pattern.
AHunter3, you seem to believe that you live in a world where women are all shy wallflowers who sit around and wait for a prince to sweep them off their feet, and who, when he does, still have to do a coy song and dance of “hard to get”.
Now, I don’t know where you live, but I’ll assume for the sake of discussion that it’s in a modern Western society.
If that is the case, then your assumptions on this matter constitute just about the biggest and smelliest pile of total deluded bullcrap that I have ever seen. You’re so wrong that “wrong” doesn’t begin to describe it. I think I’ll have to go fetch my dictionary before I can begin telling you how wrong you are.
BTW, I should add to this, because it’s important:
*
And there’s nothing wrong with that! *It’s just a matter of how one goes about it.
I have always felt the best match for a nice shy clueless guy would be a nice shy clueless girl, so do nice shy clueless girls exist?
Most absolutely yes.
The “shy” and the “clueless” parts often interfere with search and engagement on both sides.
That has kind of been the advice in this thread, though, hasn’t it; be bold, make your intentions clear, don’t wait around and expect her to read your mind?
But then, if I took all the advice in these sorts of threads it would add up to: Be bold, I met my wife when she came on to me, you’ll find someone when you stop looking, don’t judge women on their looks, you’re not handsome enough, just be yourself, and fake it until you make it. What could be simpler than that?
And people wonder why some of us don’t figure it out.
It may sound strange and illogical, but it actually makes a lot more sense in the practical context that is called “outside”. The reason some people aren’t figuring it is because they’re treating it like reading a manual on bicycle repair without ever having ridden a bicycle, seen a bicycle, or heard of a thing called a “wheel”.
Look, just go interact with people. It’ll make more sense with some hands-on experience. It’s not actually contradictory, it just seems like it.
Strangely enough, I have read some articles suggesting that online dating is actually making it harder for people to get together because it creates the impression that if you hold out for a little bit longer, you really can find someone that fits every single one of your likes in every minute way.
But yes the key really is to really interact with people. Be interested in them, genuinely interested, not just learning to fake interest.
Have things you are interested in and be able to do things that make you interesting.
Learn to care about other people beyond their most superficial characteristics.
Also, even you do somehow manage to conjure up someone who checks all the boxes, and fits all the preferences and requirements that you punched into the form… it may turn out that you don’t really like them all that much.
Then, instead, you end up hooking up with someone who only fits a very small percentage of your stated preferences. And it’s fine, because they happen to be pretty awesome.
Again, makes no sense on paper, actually makes perfect sense if you try it in practice.
The advice is contradictory, but then so is the world, sometimes. I don’t doubt that all of those things have worked for somebody, somewhere. I’m sure they’ve all failed for someone, too.
As for interacting with people, I do, and have done for decades. It’s more complicated than that; it must be. Not everybody does the same things in the same way and gets the same results.
Well, no kidding? That’s sort of the point. The world is a complex place. We’re not writing a “guide to universal happiness in two easy steps” manual. We’re just talking, thinking, experimenting, and looking for patterns. And there are patterns.
Well… then I’m not really sure where your confusion is coming from. You should already know this.
Plus, if you hold out waiting for the perfect woman to come along, assuming you ever manage to meet her, you risk finding out she’s waiting for the perfect man. You’re better off dating someone you like who likes you back.
Do you expect everyone on the Straight Dope to get together privately and coordinate all our advice so that it’s internally consistent? If you want advice to follow, you can either pick one person whose advice makes sense and follow that, or you can take on the challenge of coalescing potentially contradictory advice from multiple people.
If you pick one person and the advice is still confusing and contradictory then you must’ve picked the wrong person. If you want to consider what everyone is saying then yeah, it’s not going to all make sense at once.
My take on it - waiting for an aggressive woman to come on to you can work but it’s risky and could involve a lot of waiting. You’ll also be inexperienced and run the risk of ruining things when the opportunity finally comes along. So, it’s great that it worked for some people but it strikes me as way too passive an approach to something as important as your romantic life.
Just being yourself and faking it are both too extreme for “Nice Guys”. You need to find a middle of the road path. Actually stop being timid, by asking real women out on dates. Don’t change nothing and don’t pretend you can fake it. Changing nothing is basically the “my wife picked me up and carried me across the threshold approach” which isn’t bad it’s just passive and risky, and faking it sounds more like the Pick Up Artist approach. Nobody wants to be a Pick Up Artist.
I don’t really understand what you’re getting at with the pair about being being ugly and not judging women by their looks. The advice I recall reading was about being realistic about the women you pursue, and although I concede that the post was primarily about looks, I think it applies to at least some men much more generally than only physical attractiveness.
Here’s how mine have gone: Weird shit happened. Then more weird shit happened. Then some other weird shit happened. Very little of it was exactly what I expected to happen.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a theoretical sort of guy, but I do have to get my hands dirty to understand any of it. I do notice patterns. Usually, three notable incidents of something weird constitutes a pattern that makes sense to me.
My career as a “nice guy”, since we’re on that subject, involved three major episodes, plus some amount of low-level stuff.
No, this is by no means the extent of my romantic history. Between these unfortunate episodes, I’ve had several relationships where “nice guy” behavior never became an issue at all. The circumstances were different. The “nice guy” stuff is just one thing I have to figure out, in a way that makes sense to me in particular. There’s lots of other stuff out there, too. Very different stuff, that is weird in different ways.
Ever so often, I think that I have life, the universe and everything all figured out. Then something happens, and I go “wait, it can be like that?” Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. I expect that to continue.
Then I go on the internet and talk to y’all about it.
I currently have a couple of main concerns: One is not hurting other people if I can avoid it. “Nice guy” behavior is an example of something that can hurt other people. If “nice guys” were just a danger to themselves, this kind of behavior in my own life and elsewhere wouldn’t get me so worked up.
But another concern is not being so afraid of hurting other people that I just sit whimpering in a corner. 'Cause that can’t be right, either. And, as it turns out, that can be harmful, too.
There’s a Churchill quote:
[QUOTE=Churchill]
You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.
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I get the generous part. I get the true part. Anyway, those are pretty blah. But “fierce” doesn’t seem to fit. That’s what makes the quote interesting.
I think it means something like: The world does stand up to, and will benefit from, some kicking around, as long as you kick it in the right way. I’m trying to figure out how to kick it in the right way.
Too late for edit:
Now, I understand that Churchill is talking about geopolitics, more than dating. But that quote still sticks with me.
You’re the one who said “just go interact with people”, as if that leads to some inevitable epiphany. It doesn’t, or at least it hasn’t so far.
No, I don’t expect all the advice to to be coordinated and consistent, but the fact that there are so many different approaches, each one sincerely offered and successful at one time or another, is, perhaps, one way of explaining the issue that some people face.
Agreed, and I’m not just waiting. Not that I’d turn down the right offer, either.
I do occasionally read in threads like these about someone who is told, after the fact, about someone who was blatantly flirting with them. There was a thread about being a “crushee” just a couple days ago. Either it’s never happened to me, or the people who’d notice and tell me are as blind as I am.
There’a story I’ve told here a time or two; apologies to those who’ve heard it before, but I think it’s relevant.
There was a woman I worked with some years ago; didn’t know her terribly well, but was developing a bit of a crush. I’d always felt a bit overlooked and ignored in romantic matters, so I decided that wasn’t going to happen again. I was going to ask her out, unmistakably, and whatever the answer was I’d deal with it. This being mid-February, I got her some flowers, gave them to her on Valentine’s Day, and invited her to a play the following week. She said yes, and I was quite happy. Two days later she sent me an e-mail asking if I could get another ticket to the play so she could bring a date.
I’ll admit that’s probably my most extreme example, but where do you go from that? What bit of wisdom was I supposed to pick up from that human interaction? Folks in this thread have talked about learning to put up with rejection, but it’s another thing to be dismissed, to be so far under the radar that you’re not even noticed.