I’m trying to decide in what situation or context that comment would be funny or even acceptable. So far the answer is none.
I’m leaning towards the girls in question are stupid.
Don’t mind them. It’s not you. It’s them. Just keep on walking, keep your head low, and maybe people won’t think you’re together. Make sure your head’s on straight, and soon, you’ll find some normal people.
First of all, forgive me if I’m duplicating efforts - I tried to post this yesterday, but it didn’t work (or at least I didn’t think it did).
Brife Hijack: I think you could turn around the statement that nice guys finish last to nice girls finish last. While it is a gross generalization, many men I know love women who are bitchy. A prime example is our administrative assistant. She’s not nice. She’s cute, but not beautiful. She smokes and has a borderline alcohol problem. (Disclaimer: I have no problem with smoking, but this girl always reeks of tobacco because she’s usually in the same clothes that she used to go clubbing the previous night, which she does on week days and weekends. She really stinks of it.) She’s got a terrible attitude which manifests itself to everybody - to me, to her manager, to the attorneys she works for. Yet these guys seem to love her. They crowd aroung her desk, or around her barstool during happy hours, and can’t seem to stop themselves from drooling over her and offering to fix her open container and speeding tickets. And we work in a corporate law firm, so we don’t really do that kind of stuff (though I will admit it’s really easy to do, and that’s probably why they offer). They offer to drive her home, buy her drinks and food. She never thanks them. Also, most of the men are married. Still they all vie for her attention. Why is that?
The only thing I’ve been able to figure out is that she openly claims before all and sundry that she doesn’t want a long-term relationship and she wants to date as many guys as possible. So maybe she exudes this trashy vibe that makes men flock to her.
Back on Topic: As for asshole guys attracting otherwise “nice” girls, in my experience, whenever I’ve been attracted to such a guy, it was all popularity. This guy thought he was popular, therefore he became popular, and everyone else wanted this guy’s attention, including girls who otherwise wouldn’t have given him the time of day. but that was in high school. Maybe in adults it’s a reversion to high school, or it’s just as many other people have said - take a look at the girls he’s attracting. There may be things about them that make them vulnerable to such a man.
I agree in large part with the “confidence” analysis:
Nice guys: How often do you see a girl you find attractive, walk right up to her immediately and start talking? How often do you simply say “I’d like to spend some time with you . . . when can we get together?”
Or as msmith says, do you just stare longingly from afar? Do you work up your courage for hours, weeks, or months, and finally stammer something out?
The reality is that a confident, assertive man will get girls, whether he’s nice or he’s a jerk, whether he’s handsome or ugly.
In this and other similar threads, there’s been a lot of talk about nice guys, bad boys, confidence, arrogance and clinginess. While these concepts all apply, they are many and varied and can mean different things in different contexts, and as such can be confusing to someone who’s looking for basic concepts in trying to break out of the Nice Guy syndrome.
I myself suffered from this syndrome for a good deal of time, but have finally managed (I should hope) to break out of it. The key, for me, wasn’t in concentrating on developing confidence, or training myself to act like an asshole to women, or anything like that. The trick lay in a very basic shift in the way I looked at things, after which confidence and a certain cheekiness naturally followed.
The big problem in my case, and the root of the Nice Guy Syndrome as it was manifested in me, was that I simply invested too much emotion in other people without their really doing anything to earn it. I was always scrambling for approval, always placing too much stock in what others said and thought about me. Thus, true to Nice Guy form, whenever I met a girl I liked I would immediately, almost like I was trying to beat the clock, yank all the aces out of my sleeves and lay them on the table. I’d dote, do favors, give gifts, allow her unconditional access to my time, be the great confidante, etc., all in the hope that she’d see how much I loved her and would fall for me. This generally went on for a few months, with the utterly predictable result that when things came to a head my big box o’ misplaced affection was air-dropped into the Friend Zone and blasted to so much rubble by the rejection cannons. (I think I spotted Manda Jo in the brush somewhere, taking notes.)
Basically, I was too focused on other people. What was required for me was to take a step back and literally wrench my focus back to myself, to realize that other people – wonderful as they often are – aren’t the point of your existence, and shouldn’t generally be more important to you than, well, you.
So I took the step back. I thought long and hard, and I came to the realization that I was a pretty decent guy and I didn’t have to ingratiate myself to people for their approval. Of course, applying this realization is a process, and I still find myself occasionally slipping back into the weaselly ways of yore, but on the whole this shift in focus has had one primary effect: it has turned me from a wishy-washy nervepile into a pretty laid-back guy. Now that heaven and earth don’t shift with the fickle tides of other people’s opinion, I can act like myself, and not worry about the outcome. I can make cheeky comments. I can goof around. I can engage in debates, and I can say what I want to say without compromising myself to ingratiate someone. Which leads me to my main point:
Whether you’re a nerd or an athlete or a scholar, short, tall, fat, bald – whatever – doesn’t mean diddly on a stick. It’s how comfortable you are with yourself that rubs off on other people. Believe you me; nothing on this earth has the potential to make you more attractive than a certain laissez-faire attitude towards others’ response to you. When people sense that you’re absolutely comfortable with being who you are, when you’re not afraid to let your personality show and that their condemnation or approval just isn’t on your Big List of Things To Worry About, then you are very much more than halfway there.
So to the Nice Guys I say, much like others have: Back off a bit. Don’t let her own you. Try to see her shortcomings (and believe me, no matter how in lurrrve you are, they ARE there) and get a better picture of her as a balanced person. And don’t be afraid to get a bit cheeky with her – a bit of antagonism is often needed to give a spark.
To sum up, I’ll let Happy Scrappy Hero Pup’s astute comment enjoy the glory of Boldface once more – it deserves it.
** I think you could turn around the statement that nice guys finish last to nice girls finish last. While it is a gross generalization, many men I know love women who are bitchy. A prime example is our administrative assistant. She’s not nice. She’s cute, but not beautiful. She smokes and has a borderline alcohol problem. (Disclaimer: I have no problem with smoking, but this girl always reeks of tobacco because she’s usually in the same clothes that she used to go clubbing the previous night, which she does on week days and weekends. She really stinks of it.) She’s got a terrible attitude which manifests itself to everybody - to me, to her manager, to the attorneys she works for. Yet these guys seem to love her. They crowd aroung her desk, or around her barstool during happy hours, and can’t seem to stop themselves from drooling over her and offering to fix her open container and speeding tickets. And we work in a corporate law firm, so we don’t really do that kind of stuff (though I will admit it’s really easy to do, and that’s probably why they offer). They offer to drive her home, buy her drinks and food. She never thanks them. Also, most of the men are married. Still they all vie for her attention. Why is that?
The only thing I’ve been able to figure out is that she openly claims before all and sundry that she doesn’t want a long-term relationship and she wants to date as many guys as possible. So maybe she exudes this trashy vibe that makes men flock to her.
[ **
To recap:
she is cute
she parties hard
doesnt give a shit about work
and wants to have fun
And you’re in Texas. Grr.
/hijack
I think that there are a lot of grey areas. Yes, some “nice guys” need more conifdence, or to actually be nice guys. Yes, some girls could use a few clues as well. In general, I think it all shakes itself out and that things turn out okay.
Be the person who your ideal love would desire. Be someone you respect, who has a life full of wonder, and joy, and beauty. Be someone worth sharing. A life full of worthy activity cannot be lived in isolation, and meeting people will develop sparks. People are social animals, its how it works.
Yeah, I know, I’m no help what so ever.
Example of “nice guys” at work:
In college, some sorrority girls parked their car in our lot to go visit their boyfriends in a neighboring fraternity. The snowplow came by and they got plowed in.
Anyhow, I come home to find a couple of the “nice” guys from our house volunteering to shovel their car out. I am horrified by this display. “Hey you want to give us a hand?” they say. “Why don’t you saps eat shit?” says I. “Don’t you guys have better things to do than break your back like a sucker helping a couple of hos, who probably wouldn’t give you the time of day otherwise, to extract their car from OUR lot, that they shouldn’t be parked in in the first place, while they’re off doing coke and sucking their boyfriends cocks or whatever it is they do in there?”
Moral - don’t be a chump.
nicky
“They offer to drive her home, buy her drinks and food. She never thanks them. Also, most of the men are married. Still they all vie for her attention. Why is that?”
Because in my experience most lawyer, bankers, consultants and the like are big tools, not strong confident dashing types you see on TV. These are people who are smart, study hard, have a high tolerance for tedium, work long hours and are usually workaholics as well as alchoholics. The only thing they have going for them is that they make money. It’s kind of ironic that many of these people believe that money is the only thing that attracts women so they neglect anything else that would make them more attractive - staying in shape, spending time with friends, pursuing interests that other people could relate to, etc. If I had a nickle for the number of times one of our middle-aged partners or senior manager would gawk at a 20-something associate at my old firm, I wouldn’t need to work. And more often than not, these girls weren’t much to look at anyway.
Instead of being a nice guy or a bad guy, why not try and be yourself around someone you like instead of just posing as something your not???
Maybe even something as rude as “You’re just a big slut, aren’t you?” can be understood, if you’ve been on the receiving end of forty-two banal pick up lines. I’m not going to agree with a guy saying that to me, but I’d rather get into a spirited debate than exchange niceties. IMO, just saying that doesn’t qualify Justin for jerkdom, persisting in saying that would, but using it to challenge me is okay.
Why are we always supposed to feel guilty about not appreciating the “nice” guys? Sorry, I’m tired of initiating all interesting conversation, I’m tired of being the one to make plans, I’m tired of having to grant permission for every damn thing…guys who’re too afraid of doing anything wrong often end up doing nothing.
Oh, and everything that Malkavia and Duderdude2 and murky and Urban Ranger and especially Happy Scrappy Hero Pup said, too.
Sk8rixtx,
34-year-old married male, former “nice” guy checking in …
If you’re spending time noticing what other guys are doing, you’re probably more of a “people watcher” than an “action man.” And you’re probably a friend to a lot of women who would never consider you boyfriend material. That was my story.
I thought I was a nice guy. I was actually an asshole who put on a pretty good show for any woman who would interest me. The woman who is now my wife of almost 13 years pointed this out to me. I figured “Well, I was nice to April, why didn’t she notice?” Because what April really noticed was how I treated everybody else around me. Not so nice. I think most women are smart enough to recognize chameleons and keep their distance. The ones who don’t usually have so many issues of their own that you wouldn’t want them anyhoo.
If you’re a more introspective person, a people-watcher, and you’re under age 25, then you’re probably going to be lacking women for now. But as you age, you’ll probably become more attractive to women. My solution? Date older women. Seriously. I figured that one out in college. When I started dating mature, independent women who didn’t want to party and had been through the jerk mill, I found my niche. 
And Mrs. Walton!
Zeb
Fuck.
Exactly. You must love yourself first before somebody else will love you. Wallowing in self-pity is, uh, pretty much on the opposite end of things.
Not necessarily.
If you excel in something (I was the top computer geek back in HS), you will get girls noticing you.
Hmm…things have certainly changed a lot since I was in high school
First, I gotta say I’m glad I happened across this thread. It has some of the best posts I’ve read in weeks. Happy Scrappy Hero Pup gets my vote for most well thought out, well written post of the month, followed closely by his second post, plus those from CanvasShoes and Kizarvexius.
Second, I heartily agree that you need to be YOU, not somebody else. It sounds like you really need to step outside yourself and take a good long look at who you are. Would YOU hang out with yourself (if you didn’t know you already)? Are you boring? A wallflower? Invisible? These questions shouldn’t be too hard to answer as long as you’re really honest with yourself. Pick out what you don’t like about yourself and make a plan to change them.
Let me take you for a short walk down memory lane: I was 16 in my junior year in HS. I played D&D with my friends, hung out at the video arcade, dinked around with my computer at home and read books all the time at home. Girls barely noticed me. One day I looked around and thought “Is this what it will be like when I grow up? Will I always be an introverted, shy person? Will I always be afraid to talk to someone new or try something new because I don’t want to fail?” I was already a “nice guy”, but nobody knew it. I didn’t want to be like this for the rest of my life, so I decided to look at myself from the outside like I mentioned above.
First I realized that introverts by definition don’t socialize much. I finally resolved that if I didn’t at least try something, I’d never succeed in the first place. I joined a computer club (which, to my surprise, was about 50% girls), joined Junior Achievement, got active in my church youth group (where I met my first girlfriend, btw), was invited to a few parties, and all of a sudden I wasn’t invisible any more! People said “hi” in the hallways at school. Sure, the first few months of screwing up the courage to try these things was nerve-wracking, and I always expected to fail, but I was continually and pleasantly surprised that it usually went well. I wound up having five girlfriends that year and the next. (I suppose it didn’t hurt that I was considered “cute” back then, but I had no clue. If only I’d known!)
Then I began to wonder “Is this really me? Am I just doing this so people will notice me? Am I just playing a part?” After stepping outside again I concluded that sometimes I was just acting it out, and just pretending to enjoy myself. I then resolved to continue with those things that I truly enjoyed and find and try out more new things. Over the next few years I found some things that I enjoyed but sucked at, and a few that I was really good at. I enoyed myself, and I found that many times I didn’t need anybody else to have fun. I knew what I liked. I also found that now I didn’t put much weight with what people thought of me. My confidence in myself had grown exponentially.
I soon found out that this was the key. If you’re out someplace and truly look like you’re having fun at whatever it is you’re doing, people of both genders WILL notice you. Hey, everybody wants to have fun, don’t they? Why not gravitate to somebody that’s already having it? Sponteneity also helps out a lot. If I was hanging out with a group of friends, sometimes I’d say “Hey, I know a fun place to go, or something fun to do,” and generally I’d get an agreement to at least give it a shot. Or if I was by myself in a bar and some chick caught my eye, I’d make up someting on the spot. Like I’d notice what she was drinking, buy one of the same, walk up to her and say “My friend bet me that I wouldn’t buy the most beautiful girl in here a drink. Ha! I showed him,” set her drink down and then walk away to play darts or pool, or get out on the dance floor. Believe me, I got her attention. I never used the same approach twice. Didn’t always work, but I was having fun anyway so what did it matter? If nothing else, at least I gave her a chuckle and maybe made her night.
I’m not saying that this formula will work for everyone; in fact I can only provide one cite where it did work. A personality change is not an easy thing to effect, but sometimes you need a kickstart to get things going. Throwing caution to the wind does not always mean it will blow back into your face. After that your confidence will grow and inertia will generally keep it going.
Anything else I can offer has pretty much been said already:
Respect yourself first and foremost. Nobody else is required to. You are the only person that has to live with yourself every second until you die. Always be yourself, but make small changes when there’s something about you that doesn’t seem to ring true. Don’t lie to yourself and don’t lie to others.
Be polite to everyone. Not just women that catch your fancy, but everyone. People will notice this. It’s part of being a “nice guy”. Read Manda Jo’s Teemings article linked earlier.
Love life. It’s yours to enjoy. Realize that a good portion of your life is spent making memories to relive when you’re in a rocking chair on the front porch trying to decide which Golden Girl was the sexiest. Make good memories. Make fun memories.
There’s nothing wrong with taking pointers from other people about how to interact and socialize. Even from your friend Justin. While I wouldn’t recommend using the phrases you claim he says to women, at least he’s talking to them. Just replace his phrases with something witty or interesting.
Before you know it, people will be clamoring aboard the sk8rixtx Rollercoaster of Fun. Welcome them all and tell them to hang on.