I haven’t read the thread yet, so I hope this won’t be too redundant.
Part A: Flower(s) on a first date, good or bad? Too pushy. Can we hold off on that stuff for a while?
Holding doors for her, good or bad? Good.
Insisting on buying dinner, good or bad? Offer, don’t insist.
Making the first move (i.e. contacting for a date), good or bad? Very good (I admit that I probably have some old-fashioned ideas about dating and I’d be unlikely to make the first move.)
Listening to her problems, likely to end any possibility of a romantic relationship? No, but don’t let that become your “role”. And by all means tell me I’m wrong whenever you think I am, don’t just give me free sympathy.
Part B: Ladies, what good (genuinely nice guy) behaviors endear a man to you while not excluding him from romantic consideration? Good treatment of all people and animals. Have backbone and respect for yourself.
BTW, on the “making the first move part”, if your intention from the beginning is leaning more towards a romantic/sexual thing than towards pure friendship… please state so somehow (body signal, something said) quickly. And don’t use any comments about “just being friends” or “friendship”.
I’ve had a couple of dates that I thought were friendly with different guys. Then the guys made some moves, all the while saying how much they wanted to keep knowing me “as a friend”. I turned them down on the romantic part, I didn’t want to lead them on. But I assured them that as friends, I would like to see them, since I was new in town and wanted to meet people.
Well, both of them have ignored me. One has not returned calls I made, while the other one obviously ignores me when he sees me. All the while, his friends, who were genuinely interested in me as friends, have stepped up and become closer to me.
How is that behavior any better than the guy who knowing he wants romance/sex not friendship, is direct and to the point and if I turn him down, politely goes away (and doesn’t treat me bad)?
Ehm, I know I’m projecting and stuff, but I’ve noticed that people who said more than a “good” to that question specified something along the lines of “as long as he does it for others too.” As my Dad explained when he was teaching me to open doors (and yes, I’m female): “it’s not about opening the door for your lady so you can look at her ass, it’s about making it easier for everybody to go through the door.” This is a guy who got called “the last Spanish knight” at his funeral, hence why the “ass” mention is something I’ll never forget. It may have been the only time I heard him utter that word referring to someone old enough to walk.
Re flowers: This hasn’t been mentioned yet, and I may be the only one with the problem. If you do give her flowers, please don’t make her account for the well-being of the flowers like my husband does. He asks me if I’ve changed the water recently or if I don’t agree that the stems need to be trimmed again. Babysitting flowers takes all the pleasure out of getting them.
Haven’t read the whole thread, but my two cent’s worth anyway from a guy’s perspective: there is no real point to putting together a “laundry list”, because either the “spark” is there or it is not. You can’t make a “spark” be there by gifts of flowers, holding doors, etc. - you simply want to avoid the twin evils of appearing too needy and demanding on the one hand, and being callous and impolite on the other.
If there is a real “spark”, you end up doing stuff with each other that would definitely be deep in creepy territory if there was no “spark” - only instead of being creepy, it is cute and romantic. Conversely, attempting to do stuff that is cute and romantic when there is no “spark” is creepy.
Flower(s) on a first date, good or bad?
Not good. Seems a little…I don’t know, presumptuous or cliched. After the first couple of dates, it would be a sweet gesture, especially if you’ve sussed out her taste. Holding doors for her, good or bad?
Good, as long as you’re smooth about it. Insisting on buying dinner, good or bad?
Offering is good, insisting is bad. Making the first move (i.e. contacting for a date), good or bad?
Very good. Listening to her problems, likely to end any possibility of a romantic relationship?
If I’m romantically interested in you, I’m not going to lay out my problems on a first or second date.
Part B: Ladies, what good (genuinely nice guy) behaviors endear a man to you while not excluding him from romantic consideration?
Being thoughtful and considerate to everyone, especially waitstaff and retail folks that we might encounter on our date
Being genuinely interested in my thoughts, experiences, work–me as a person, not just as a potential girlfriend
Not bitching about your family or your ex-girlfriends
Being good with kids and animals
Doing something worthwhile and interesting with your life, either professionally or hobby-wise. Two of the big things that attracted me to my husband at first were that he volunteered with kids and that he was working for a non-profit.
Not a girl, and I´m still a Little Kid, but even though all this information is interesting, and useful to some extent ( I didn´t know the flower thing would be leaning negative on a poll like this), at the same time it reinforces some of the doubts some guys may already have about going on out on a date.
I understand most of you are looking for a balance. A guy that´s not too out going, nor too shy, a guy who shows respect but allows himself to be heard, etc.
The thing is, this “balance” issue walks a thin line, if guys read too much into this, which you gals´ well know you´re capable of making a guy go crazy , then how is he to be himself without giving off the impression that he is either trying too hard, or is not being himself?
I´m not suggesting that a guy shouldn´t modify his behavior in a date, of course he should, as is expected of all people in specific situations. But this makes the whole (inevetable) “am I doing the right thing?” question a problem.
I’ll second CrazyCatLady and say that good manners are as appreciated by women now as they ever were, and that includes holding the door if you get to it first. If you want to date someone as extreme as women who won’t let a man hold a door for them, that’s up to you, but they are not representative of most women. Good manners are a matter of respect, not of power or control.
ETA: You know what a real woman says when a guy holds the door for her? Thank you.
And that’s what a real man says when a woman holds the door for him.
Though doors are not worth making a point over. If you take the door from my hand and usher me through, I’ll walk through gracefully and say thank you. Your intent is good - even if I think the chivalry misplaced.
One thing I notice is that when I ask women about women, they often take a kind of default attitude like, “I’m sure the woman is right on this, so I’ll listen to the man and then explain what she was saying because I, as a woman, will understand it and explain why he was off-base.”
So, thanks. A lot of us suspect we’re “dumb guys” with regard to a lot of finer points that the fairer sex could explain to us. When something like the incident with the riots in LA happens. I’m likely to internalize it as something I’m just too thick to understand and it will make me trigger shy. It’s good to know that she was full of shit on that one.
Now, don’t get me started on some of the other batshit insane ideas she had
I’ve noticed some text that maybe my asking about what women like that doesn’t damage a relationship could be construed as inappropriate etc. Let me weigh in on that. With regard to the “nice guy” or “Nice Guy” issue, in the other thread I mentioned the book “Iron John” by Robert Bly.
I came to that book REALLY late. It was published in 1990 and I found it on a discount book shelf in probably 2003. I’d heard about the men’s movement, associated it with men beating drums in the forest, etc. I read a bit and was fascinated. Hey, it was only a dollar, what was the question? I bought it.
I’d estimate I’ve read it 3-4 times, primarily because although I don’t understand it completely (not by a long shot), what I do understand I find highly compelling. Where to begin…?
I think fairy tales serve to illustrate life lessons, a kind of passing down wisdom from one generation to the next. “Hansel and Gretel,” for example, is probably a cautionary tale about the dangers of running away from home, associating with strangers, and so on. I have heard, too, that many many fairy tales did not originally end the way we know them today. Hansel and Gretel were eaten, Sleeping Beauty was raped, the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood, and so on. So it would seem these were designed to “scare straight” children who might think they knew better than their parents.
“Iron John” looks at how boys/men are raised; it encapsulates the many steps a boy has to take in order to become a man, boiling them down to myth and symbolism, according to Bly. First of course boys are children, and mom takes care of them. Society needs men who are under control, and that process starts early. The parallel story: Iron John, perhaps the embodiment of the id or survival instinct or alpha-maleness, is submerged under the water, i.e. in the boy’s unconscious. He’s there, but silent and ready at some point to be awakened.
The fable says a bunch of hunters went looking for him and never returned…he’s dangerous to civilization. A search party is sent out; they go missing as well. After repeated efforts with no success and dire results, they leave him alone until finally, someone has the guts to capture him, haul him to the village, and lock him up.
The king (father) gives the queen (mother) the key to Iron John’s cage (the boy’s subconscious) for safe keeping. Metaphorically, he’s entrusting her to instill values like cooperation and compassion into the boy and suppress that dangerous side. Essentially she’s getting his baser instincts under control, teaching him not to be selfish or greedy or cruel or any of the “uncivilized” things we associate with the survival instinct, hedonism, and so on.
Well later, a problem arises. It’s great for boys to be thoughtful, decent, fair, compassionate, and so on AS SONS. The disconnect is that as he matures eligible women—his peers, those looking for husbands etc.—are not looking for sons: they’re looking for something more along the lines of an alpha male. E.g. in a dispute with a neighbor, the woman wants the guy to go over there and assert himself if the situation warrants it and that whole “go along to get along” mode taught by mom won’t endear him to his woman or carry the day.
So the boys have to differentiate from her, and this is where “stealing the key” is at issue. The boy has a golden ball, which represents that supreme happiness of childhood. Probably we’re happy because we’re pre-pubescent and don’t know anything about sex, death, or a lot of things which will complicate the rest of our lives. When he loses the ball, Iron John takes it and won’t give it back unless the boy unlocks the gate and releases him, and to do this he has to steal the key.
In other words, he has to disobey his mother. He has to go against her orders, decide that he’s not going to be a “nice boy,” and start acting like a man. Captains of industry probably heard their mothers say, “You better watch out…that new business could ruin you financially.” Astronauts probably heard their mothers say, “Sounds too dangerous. You better stay here with me.” Again, women have their place in all this, but men are the daring ones, the young turks that push the envelope. If it were up to some mothers, their sons would never have sex.
Anyway the boy has to release Iron John (again, the alpha maleness) to get that golden ball . Once he does that, Iron John is going to haul ass out of there, but the boy says he’ll be beaten because he has disobeyed. So Iron John takes him along into the woods.
Bly claims out that the most damaged relationship since the Industrial Revolution is that of the father and son. My father was blue collar; I went to college. He didn’t much involve himself in my life unless it was to put a smackdown on me when mom said I was out of line. He didn’t teach me to shave; he didn’t teach me how to tie a necktie.
Learning isn’t always “Sit down and let me explain this to you.” It’s vicarious, learning from what you see and internalizing it without even realizing what’s going on. It’s a slow process, too, accumulating. Back in the day, your dad was a farmer and you went into the field with him—Bly says that learning is “shoulder-to-shoulder.” As you grew, you became stronger and you reached a point where you could match him at the work. Mutual respect came from that, and wisdom and values could be transferred. Being given adult responsibilities and privileges made the boy into a man.
In contrast, I knew a kid whose father was pretty much a waste of skin. He tried every get-rich-quick scheme there was…had his wife not pulled in some money from low-paying jobs, I don’t know how they would have gotten by. The father was undeterred by failure, unmoved by the family’s plight, quick to smack the kids, cheated on her regularly…just a real piece of work. He never ever stopped believing that next time, he was going to hit it big but he died penniless.
His kid, as an adult, got one thing from his father: swagger. Never mind that he’s not very successful, he would always strut, bullshit, whatever. And the women love it. But I digress.
Bly said something to the effect that men undergo two births: first from the mother, second from the men. In many cultures (as the book points out) the transition to manhood is ritualized. Men don’t just leave the boys to the women and wait till the timer dings at age 18. No, they need warriors to protect the tribe and they have to train them.
In one culture, the men all cut themselves, add their blood to a communal cup or bowl, and have the boy drink from it. “You’re one of us now.” In others, they scar the body, knock out a tooth, do all kinds of things but the message is always: you’re not a boy any more. There’s often a physical/psychological test or challenge or whatever that symbolizes the change. And the rest of the group stops treating him like a boy. Now he can marry, hunt, whatever like the oldest man in the group.
My conclusion is that there are some genuinely nice guys who are so because they were raised without a father. The father may have been right there on the premises, but if they didn’t participate in the upbringing, it’s like they weren’t there at all. So the boy grows physically into a man, but his wild man lies dormant, right where mommy suppressed him. This man’s ideas of how to please women is based on what mommy wanted.
There are probably some Nice Guys who had a similar upbringing. In the fable, Iron John is scary. He could be a psychopath. And if no men are around to control the boy’s wild side when it’s unleashed—while keeping the good parts of the wild man inside us—you could get a nasty mofo as an adult.
The book is just fascinating as hell. To give an example, at one point in the boy’s development he’s puts his injured finger in the water and it comes out golden. IIRC this is supposed to symbolize that he has the power to turn situations to his advantage.
In the example of boys who join gangs, Bly says something to the effect, “They put the wound in the water and pull out to reveal that they have no hand at all.”
Dayum, I wish someone would dumb this down for me!:smack: Eating ashes and katabasis? References to stories I haven’t read? Symbolism out the wazoo?
To recap: I said I was raised by she-wolves; I suspect my father just didn’t “teach” me a lot of things I needed to know, and I didn’t even know I needed to know them. Bly points out that men can’t pass along what they themselves didn’t acquire in their upbringing. Maybe the better question for me to ask myself is, “What would women like? Women who aren’t my mom, I mean.”
BTW I just sent my mom a birthday present. It, uh, rhymes with “powers.”:smack:
A few years ago, I posted a quasai-rant that I found it annoying when women who weren’t interested in me simply wouldn’t call/return my calls. I didn’t like it because I considered it cowardly and felt a little humiliated after leaving 1 or 2 unanswered voicemails before getting the hint. My belief at the time was if I knew what it did ‘wrong’ I could somehow ‘learn’ from it- similar to the opinions sought in this thread i.e. maybe I held the door for her too much/not enough, etc.
Life experience taught me even if each blind date was willing to give me a checklist on why I didn’t measure up it wouldn’t teach me anything, because everybody’s standards are different and there is no ‘rubric’ even though ‘nice guys’ often think there may be. The best learning experience has been myself, the ability to be aware of what I know I could be doing better.
Didn’t you read the thread title? The “Nice Guy” has this expectation, the genuine nice guy does not.
This thread is full of conflicting opinions about flowers on a first date because there is no rule that ‘works’ for all women.
While we’re at it - a strawman is something that tries to deflect attention from the argument at hand, not something that addresses it directly. Your post was a much better example of it than mine.
When my father died about five years ago, I didn’t feel that much about his passing. I still don’t. I don’t mean that in a tit-for-tat way; I just mean that when someone isn’t really involved in your life, a strong connection doesn’t develop and when he’s gone, what did you lose exactly?
, then how is he to be himself without giving off the impression that he is either trying too hard, or is not being himself?