# Do women ever complain about being "Nice Girls"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 17, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809 "2009-03-17T22:39:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/81 "2009-03-19T16:34:07Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Anyone who thinks the problem is “everyone else” is a sad, delusional person who has no real sense of either themselves OR anyone else. Like [this guy](http://www.laddertheory.com/ladderconstruction.htm)? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![gurujulp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba9def/32.png) [@gurujulp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gurujulp)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/82 "2009-03-19T16:42:45Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > -snip > > Women don’t reject Nice Guys because of some character flaw. It makes total sense from an evolutionary perspective. > > Let’s compare men to songs for a second. Imagine your favorite rock song, something with a real edge. Now take out the offensive lyrics, because we wouldn’t want to offend anyone. And remove the distortion from the guitars, because geez, distortion sounds so messy. And don’t make the drums so loud, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s ears. And take out the syncopation, because we don’t want to offend little old ladies. > > What are we left with? Elevator music. A nice guy is the dating equivelent to Muzak. There’s nothing there to offend, but there’s nothing there to get excited about, either. > > Now let’s take this guy back to the stone age. Can you really depend on a guy like that to protect his family from a sabertooth tiger? What do you suppose happened to women that were attracted to guys like that? Do you think that they survived long enough to pass on their genes? > > “Yeah, but we’re not in the stone age anymore!” No, but our attraction mechanisms are. Our attraction mechanisms are finely tuned systems that evolved long before there was anything resembling humanity, and are not subject to any sort of higher logic. Blaming women for making poor choices is like blaming them for being the products of a billion years of evolution. Whining about it isn’t going to undo even a bit of it. > > So why do women like jerks? They don’t really. They like emotional strength. Jerks just so happen to display some of the same characteristics. > > I hope that makes sense. I’m still not fully awake yet. This is the best description of ‘niceguy’ syndrome that I have ever heard- thank you. > [@DianaG](#): > > Good lord. This is a whole lot o’thinkin’ (not that that’s a bad thing), but doesn’t it really come down to the fact that anyone who insists that they can’t get a date not because of any defect of _theirs_, but because of the warped standards and emotional inadequacies of _the entirety of 50% of the human race_, is not someone you wanna hang with? > > Anyone who thinks the problem is “everyone else” is a sad, delusional person who has no real sense of either themselves OR anyone else. This is still correct. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/83 "2009-03-19T16:50:36Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I think I’m in broad agreement with **tdn** , though, based on my observations of my own life. The biggest issue is that the label of “Nice Guy” tends to alienate guys in the middle to trending-emotionally-stronger ranges of the spectrum described. > > – Zer, former “Nice Guy”, now just a guy who happens to be nice I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. As a guy, if the choice is between treating every girl you meet like like a piece of meat who’s one purpose is to fuck you, or being a “nice guy.” Its far better off to be the former, because some percentage of girls are morons with daddy issues and will be attracted to the jerk. The nice guy, on the other hand, will be luck to get noticed at all. Not that I’m saying that its good to be the jerk. Just that a guy would have more success with women being one than he would a nice guy. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/84 "2009-03-19T16:52:58Z")
> [@gurujulp](#): > > This is the best description of ‘niceguy’ syndrome that I have ever heard- thank you. Happy to help. 🙂 Now bring me my beer, bitch. > [@](#): > > This is still correct. Anyone – not just men – who are bitter enough to blame half the species for their own shortcomings are annoying twits. I suppose that we could shoehorn that into the evolutionary attraction model, but who really cares? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/85 "2009-03-19T16:54:22Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > Not that I’m saying that its good to be the jerk. Just that a guy would have more success with women being one than he would a nice guy. We should all be glad that those aren’t the only choices. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/86 "2009-03-19T17:16:35Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > We should all be glad that those aren’t the only choices. Absolutely. But if someone was stuck in the rut of being a nice guy and was afraid to break out for fear of being a jerk, the irony is they would be much better off by being a jerk ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/87 "2009-03-19T17:17:14Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. As a guy, if the choice is between treating every girl you meet like like a piece of meat who’s one purpose is to fuck you, or being a “nice guy.” Its far better off to be the former, because some percentage of girls are morons with daddy issues and will be attracted to the jerk. The nice guy, on the other hand, will be luck to get noticed at all. > > Not that I’m saying that its good to be the jerk. Just that a guy would have more success with women being one than he would a nice guy. I will take some small issue with this, if only because the “Nice Guy” types ARE jerks, just jerks who couch their sense of entitlement/arrogance in pseudovirtue rather than bad-boy behavior. Having been all three, I got the most different girls when I was an arrogant jerk, but I have/had a much more satisfying sex life overall when I was just a decent goddamn human being. Naturally, I didn’t get laid very often at all when I was a “Nice Guy”, and when I did I sabotaged my own relationships by being too clingy. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/88 "2009-03-19T17:30:16Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I suppose that we could shoehorn that into the evolutionary attraction model, but who really cares? On the contrary, I find the evolutionary attraction model silly and irrelevant and tiresome. I have no interest in trying to categorize the behavior of half of the human race based on their chromosomes, because even if I accepted that it’s possible (which I emphatically don’t), I’m not interested in dating ALL men or ALL women. Once you decide that it’s much simpler and more productive to accept that some people are assholes, and that assholes are best avoided, who gives a shit about WHY they’re assholes? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/89 "2009-03-19T17:36:23Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Once you decide that it’s much simpler and more productive to accept that some people are assholes, and that assholes are best avoided, who gives a shit about WHY they’re assholes? Perhaps the best reason to give a shit is to avoid being an asshole oneself, if one is predisposed to asshole behaviors or simply ignorant of what might be asshole behavior. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/90 "2009-03-19T17:39:40Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I will take some small issue with this, if only because the “Nice Guy” types ARE jerks, just jerks who couch their sense of entitlement/arrogance in pseudovirtue rather than bad-boy behavior. > . Yes, exactly. We’re not talking about men who happen to be nice - we’re talking about the guys who CALL themselves “nice”, repeatedly, and say that women don’t like them because they’re “too nice”, but in reality this guy is a passive-aggressive jerk. This is a guy who PRETENDS to be nice, but he’s clingy and needy, and all his supposed niceness isn’t because he’s actually a good guy, it’s because he thinks he’ll get women that way. And then they think their behavior entitles them to dates, sex, etc. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/91 "2009-03-19T17:43:45Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Perhaps the best reason to give a shit is to avoid being an asshole oneself, if one is predisposed to asshole behaviors or simply ignorant of what might be asshole behavior. Well yeah, exploring why YOU are an asshole is an excellent use of your time, because you can change that. Exploring why OTHER people are assholes? Not so much. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/92 "2009-03-19T17:45:59Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I’ve observed that people who frolic in the label of “telling it like it is” are rarely particularly nice people. There are ways to “tell it like it is” without being particularly mean or cruel about it. It also helps if someone actually asked you to tell it. OTOH, ignoring reality doesn’t help either. > [@melodyharmonius](#): > > Anyway, to me, the equivalent of “Nice Girl” is the one who suddenly becomes the convenience store girlfriend. Y’know, the one where the guy can stop by for a quick bite, some supplies, maybe some laundry, and a roll in the hay. Then he’s up and on his way to his real life, not taking her with him. She’s his 7-11, always open and available, no matter what the hour. That’s a booty call, not a ‘nice girl’. The ‘nice girl’ is basically the buddy. The tomboy. The plain friend. The bridesmaid who is never the bride. Think Mary Stuart Masterson from ‘Some Kind of Wonderful’ or Janine Garafolo from ‘The Truth About Cats & Dogs’. Basically there is something about them that prevents the guys they are into from seeing them in a sexual context. They might just be a bit overweight or a bit too plain or they just don’t present themselves in a sexual way. Same thing with ‘nice guys’. Picture dumbass Clark Kent stammaring and stumbling around the Daily Planet. They lack a particular spark or aggressiveness that prevents them from attracting women or making their feelings known. They may also have a particular cluelessness about when a woman actually is interested in them. How long does it take to work up the courage to go up to a girl you like at the office and say “want to grab a drink after work?” ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/93 "2009-03-19T17:48:09Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Well yeah, exploring why YOU are an asshole is an excellent use of your time, because you can change that. > > Exploring why OTHER people are assholes? Not so much. Having known guys with minor emotional or social disorders, or for that matter just poor socialization, there’s a benefit to being able to define a category (not a gender-wide one, mind you, but rooted in specific model behaviors) so one can say “that thing right there is why you aren’t getting any dates. It is that thing which makes you an asshole.” ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/94 "2009-03-19T18:04:02Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Like [this guy](http://www.laddertheory.com/ladderconstruction.htm)? > > Stranger :: makes sign of the cross :: Not the dreaded ladder theory! Nooooooo! I had a self described “Nice Guy” who liked me who thought the ladder theory was up there with the wheel and fire. He practically had diagrams and examples printed out to whip out on you at any moment. Eventually we couldn’t be friends anymore because I didn’t want to go out with him. I told him over and over that we were just going to be friends. I told him that his flirting and double-entendres made me uncomfortable and he’d stop for a while only to start up later. Later his flirting would contain aggressive pokes. “Anytime you need a man you let me know. Oh wait, you don’t like me like that” After I finally told him that it was best we just both go our separate way as friends I found out that he has labeled me a stupid girl who only dates jerks, not nice guys like him. Forget that I haven’t dated a JERK since I was about 20, it was just that I wasn’t interested in HIM. At all. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/95 "2009-03-19T18:05:10Z")
> [@badbadrubberpiggy](#): > > Yes, exactly. We’re not talking about men who happen to be nice - we’re talking about the guys who CALL themselves “nice”, repeatedly, and say that women don’t like them because they’re “too nice”, but in reality this guy is a passive-aggressive jerk. This is a guy who PRETENDS to be nice, but he’s clingy and needy, and all his supposed niceness isn’t because he’s actually a good guy, it’s because he thinks he’ll get women that way. And then they think their behavior entitles them to dates, sex, etc. I can’t speak for all Nice Guys, but as a recovering Nice Guy, I can speak for myself, and what you say is not really so. I rarely felt entitled in any way – in fact I felt just the opposite. And I wasn’t pretending anything. I wasn’t just nice to women that I desired, I was nice to everyone. I never had an agenda of being clingy, needy, and emotionally manipulative. It just came out that way. But my intentions were ALWAYS good. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/96 "2009-03-19T18:05:20Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > That’s because men are much more likely to admit that they place disproportionate emphasis on physical appearance, whereas women are more likely to deny that the whole “bad boy” mentality is attractive to their gender (or even to a significant portion of their gender). This misconception often comes up in these threads – the idea that a “bad boy” is the same thing as a bad man. When women say they are attracted to “bad boys” this is largely a description of the man’s _style_. It suggests a ruggedly handsome guy with a rebellious or unconventional attitude who plays the electric guitar, has a tattoo, wears a leather jacket, and rides a motorcycle. It doesn’t really have anything to do with his moral character. A “bad boy” could be a very nice person, or he could be a total jerk. The “bad girl” type popular with many men is quite similar. > [@Zeriel](#): > > I will take some small issue with this, if only because the “Nice Guy” types ARE jerks, just jerks who couch their sense of entitlement/arrogance in pseudovirtue rather than bad-boy behavior. Exactly. People who are truly nice don’t sit around whining about how their niceness has failed to get them what they want. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/97 "2009-03-19T18:13:40Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I can’t speak for all Nice Guys, but as a recovering Nice Guy, I can speak for myself, and what you say is not really so. I rarely felt entitled in any way – in fact I felt just the opposite. And I wasn’t pretending anything. I wasn’t just nice to women that I desired, I was nice to everyone. I never had an agenda of being clingy, needy, and emotionally manipulative. > > It just came out that way. > > But my intentions were ALWAYS good. Then you weren’t the type of guy I’m talking about! 😃 You sound more like you were just a bit clueless, rather than “the Nice Guy”. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/98 "2009-03-19T18:24:21Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > This misconception often comes up in these threads – the idea that a “bad boy” is the same thing as a bad man. When women say they are attracted to “bad boys” this is largely a description of the man’s _style_. It suggests a ruggedly handsome guy with a rebellious or unconventional attitude who plays the electric guitar, has a tattoo, wears a leather jacket, and rides a motorcycle. It doesn’t really have anything to do with his moral character. I could not disagree more. The bad boys I’ve known who were most successful with women did not wear leather jackets or play the electric guitar. Most of them didn’t wear tattoos and were not particularly handsome. What they did have in common was a certain cockiness (to use the exact phrasing of the one I knew best) and other “bad man” characteristics – embarassing other people in public, for example, or poking fun at them in ways that they knew would make the person angry. That’s not just by own observation, mind you. Two of the guys that I work with said that they became more successful with women when they started to act like a\*\*holes. One of them even told this one woman he was dating, “You know what? You think I’m okay, but I bet that If were to start treating you like crap, I wouldn’t be able to get rid of you.” He won that bet. Is being a “bad boy” all about attire and rugged good looks? For some, perhaps, but I think it’s foolish to say that it’s all about one’s wardrobe and physical appearance. ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/99 "2009-03-19T18:28:16Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > That’s a booty call, not a ‘nice girl’. Yes, and no. Have you seen the new TV series “Dollhouse” at all? There’s a perfect example of the 7-11 in there. She’s the neighbor across the hall that is always making him lasagne and accepting his packages and looking in on him. She’s not his booty call, yet, but you know she would be if he wanted her to be. But he’s too busy chasing leads on who “Caroline” is to notice her beyond thanking her as he turns and focuses back. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809/100 "2009-03-19T18:44:14Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > I could not disagree more. The bad boys I’ve known who were most successful with women did not wear leather jackets or play the electric guitar. Most of them didn’t wear tattoos and were not particularly handsome. What they did have in common was a certain cockiness (to use the exact phrasing of the one I knew best) and other “bad man” characteristics – embarassing other people in public, for example, or poking fun at them in ways that they knew would make the person angry. > > That’s not just by own observation, mind you. Two of the guys that I work with said that they became more successful with women when they started to act like a\*\*holes. One of them even told this one woman he was dating, “You know what? You think I’m okay, but I bet that If were to start treating you like crap, I wouldn’t be able to get rid of you.” He won that bet. You know, I’m sure that there are indeed women who respond to that sort of thing. But do you really want to date them anyway? Because I’m pretty sure the lesson to be taken from your examples is not “Women like assholes”, but “Fucked up people tend to find each other .” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-ever-complain-about-being-nice-girls/489809.md?page=6)