# To all the girls: Why don't you like nice guys? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 3, 2008, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282 "2008-10-03T07:12:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/401 "2008-10-08T03:11:04Z")
> [@scarbrow](#): > > I can summarize the difference I think. A nice guy like me looks around and wonders why so many women date jerks when there’s so many nice guys around. A “Nice Guy” whines why don’t they aren’t getting dates themselves. Yeah, that about sums it up. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/402 "2008-10-08T03:23:54Z")
Most of the genuinely nice guys I know are happily married or in stable, long term relationships. We don’t hear about them much because they’re _not complaining_. Most of the genuinely nice \*single \*guys (and girls) I’ve known have lacked confidence. They’d dress dull because they didn’t want to stand out. They wouldn’t approach te hawt gurls (guyz), because ‘they’d only get turned down’. Or they’d spend all night talking themselves into making the move while their intended was getting to know the men (women) who _actually talked to her(him)_. They didn’t think their carefully rehearsed lines would work so they stumbled and looked silly. Self confidence is an aphrodisiac. It won’t work on all women (or men) since there are other things they’ll find attractive too, but it works better than standing in the corner at a party wondering why Miss (or Mr) Perfect hasn’t come looking for you. Confident =/= jerk. Lack of confidence =/= nice. **A Shameful Cracka’s** story of his makeover didn’t prove that better looking men get more dates, it proves that women are attracted to men with a bit of pride in themselves - **Cracka’s** looks were the same, but he cared enough _about himself_ to make the best of them. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/403 "2008-10-08T04:09:07Z")
> [@scarbrow](#): > > I suspect this gets at the difference. I might complain to my friends, or in a anonymous setting, but I would never say it to a woman I hoped to date. And I gather there are a number of guys who use that as a pickup tool. That does sound sleazy, and has little to do with any nice guys I would know. I don’t think it’s really any better for a man to say it to people other than women he hopes to date. Well, it’s less likely to blow his chances with those particular women, but the “Nice Guy’s Lament” is still obnoxious even when the guy isn’t hoping to score with me personally. The first “Nice Guy” to ever come to my attention was dating one of my best friends in high school. He started in on the “Nice Guy’s Lament” in front of me and several other people. That’s right, _while he was dating my friend_ he publicly complained about how “nice guys” like him always finish last in the dating game\*. I don’t think any better of him for saying this when my friend wasn’t around rather than to her face. The problem with this guy was that this was the way he thought – that he had no flaws, that girls didn’t know what they wanted or what was good for them (him, apparently), and that if there was any justice in the world a supremely nice guy like him would be getting tons of chicks (rather than the single one he had, I guess) while other guys he perceived as jerks would be all alone. A man who is actually nice would do well not to indulge himself in this sort of thinking, no matter how tempting it is. It’s one thing to complain about being unlucky in love, and quite another to blame this lack of success on being too nice while all those crazy women out there only like jerks. \*For the record, this guy was a creep in other ways. I remember he would get all upset if my friend wasn’t at home whenever he called (this was before cellphones were common), and on at least one occasion lied about there being some big emergency so my friend’s mother would tell him where she was. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/404 "2008-10-08T04:16:17Z")
How about I let a Nice Guy tell it himself, in his own words Background: I met this guy online. We talked online for two weeks, played WoW together once and met in person once. Nothing happened between us because I didn’t have romantic feelings for him; he clearly showed he had intense feelings for me but it was too much, too soon and it unsettled me. After our one and only meeting he asked me outright, online, if there was a chance for us and I told him “No”. I didn’t want to kick the guy while he was down so I blamed myself saying that it must have been too soon after my previous relationship ended (which was probably true) and told him that I thought everything about him was wonderful and I valued his friendship but I didn’t feel a “spark” between us and didn’t want to pursue a romantic relationship with him (also true). He seemed to take it well, then a couple of hours later sent me this email. I’ll quote it in it’s entirety so you can tell me if I was wrong to be blown away to get this from someone I’d met exactly one time in my life. > [@Nice Guy](#): > > Dear Cazzle, > > I’m sorry that our conversation today took the path that it did. I feel as though I should apologise, and perhaps explain, why I’m feeling the way that I am, and hopefully it may put things in some sort of perspective. > > I’ve let my hopes and expectations exceed the realities of the situation, and I’ve perhaps jumped to a conclusion that was not there, which has been ultimately unfair on you. Love, or at least, strong feelings, make people do crazy things. I’m living proof of this. I’m sorry that it complicates our friendship, but I see you as a friend and the potential for so much more. > > I so desperately wanted you to feel towards me the way that I felt about you. I’ve fallen hard for you, harder than I ever fell for \ or \ … and you could probably tell this by how anxious I got when I was sitting on the couch, wondering if I should kiss you or not. I was in unfamiliar territory. By this stage I realised that I was in too deep and that there was no way back, I had to admit to myself that these feelings were real and I had to act on them. I should probably have been more careful and guarded with my feelings, perhaps tried to take things slower, but that’s just not me. You see I tend to think with my heart and not my head, hence my reactions tend to be real and genuinely based on emotion rather than on cold hard logic. It’s always difficult to know how to act in these situations, and unfortunately in this case I really felt a connection and I hoped that you did too, and it’s unfortunate for us both that you didn’t feel the same way. However I appreciate your discretion and understanding in how you handled it that night. > > I was pretty emotional today after our conversation. I still feel a bit numb, but in time I know this will pass and that things will work out for the best, in whatever form that will be. > > Like yourself, I’m at a loss as to why you didn’t feel any spark. We got along almost perfectly on an intellectual level, and I can’t recall desiring someone so much purely based on their intellect and personality! I felt that we connected on an emotional level and physically I think we wouldn’t even have been spending time together had there not been some sort of connection there to begin with, as evidenced by all the photos we swapped, so I can only assume we found each other physically attractive. To me, all the boxes had been checked except for the one labelled ‘spark’. Which is one that I’ve never been able to quantify. What is spark exactly? Is it thinking about the other person 24/7? Is it wanting to be next to them, wanting to kiss them and be intimate? Or is it lust? Is spark a ‘now’ concept or a long-term thing? Do you still feel the spark months down the track? Do you equate spark with happiness, or with desire? > > Does a lack of spark mean that you feel nothing for me? Does it mean that you want to feel something for me, but just can’t right now for some reason? Does it mean that if we wait a while, things might be different? Or does it mean that we just weren’t meant to be? Did we give the spark enough time to develop? > I felt something, I know that much, as sure as I know that I breathe. > > You’re coming from a broken marriage and a brief fling. Now you’re in a situation where you’re getting to know a guy who thinks you are absolutely incredible on all levels … so although I can see that it would be a strange situation for you to find yourself in, I can’t see why it doesn’t count for anything. It would be such a buzz for me to know that someone out there felt that way about me. More to the point, I think that it’s hard to discount the presence of a spark until you’ve at least kissed, just as the song says, “it’s in his kiss”. For me, it’s the tingle you feel at the back of your neck when you look into their eyes, the chemical reactions that you feel when you pull someone close and kiss them, becoming lost in their embrace, the physical contact. Unfortunately we never got to put this to the test, so we’ll never know if it was there or not. > > Please don’t think that I feel any animosity or negativity towards you, nor to I blame or think badly of you. I respect and appreciate that you’ve been genuinely honest to me in what must have been a very difficult situation that I put you in, and I know that that’s the sort of person you are. You’re a wonderful person and I still hold this opinion of you. Ultimately, if you’re not attracted to me, then there’s little that can be done about it, and I understand and respect that. I think I reacted the way I did purely because of the strength of feelings I have for you, and how out of left field and illogical this lack of spark seemed to be. I’m sure that when the dust settles that I’ll want nothing more but to be your friend, and WoW buddy, but right now I feel pretty raw still and I can’t help feeling sorry for you that you might be missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity to start afresh with a guy who wants the same things out of life that you do, but more importantly, wants to explore sharing it with you. > > I really hope that in the next few days you have a chance to reflect and re-analyse your feelings. Maybe you might see that the lack of spark may have been not so much due to a lack of chemistry between us, but perhaps due to other factors? Do you think that you may have been apprehensive because of how quickly our situation developed? Was it too soon to get involved with someone, so close to your separation and fling? Or perhaps it was just the strangeness of being in a romantic situation with someone new, feeling like you want to fall in love all over again? Perhaps we didn’t give the spark enough time to develop? > > All I can say Cazzle is that you might only imagine how sad it is that you didn’t feel any connection. There are guys out there who have good intentions, but will ultimately treat you badly and leave you hanging out to dry, just as your husband has done. But there are also guys, like me, who will always treat and respect you as you deserve … as an equal, a partner, a soulmate and a companion. I’ve been treated badly in past relationships so I know how it can be, and I know how not to treat my partner. All you have to do is look at the dynamic you’re in at the moment, and see that I’m offering you a chance to detach yourself from that. Don’t be afraid to take a leap of faith … I did by pursuing you in the first place. Guys like me don’t come around very often. Don’t miss out. Don’t wait for \ or \ to get themselves sorted out. There’s too much baggage there for it to be healthy. Take the now for what it is. Spark or no, you can’t deny that the chances of meeting someone like me in > the future are pretty slim. That should count for something. > > So I just humbly ask you to reconsider, and at least, to be 100% sure that there is no possibility of anything romantic happening between us before you give me the big thumbs down. If it’s a case of not now, but in the future, then tell me that. If it’s a case of never, then that’s fine also. Whatever the case, please be sure and let me know accordingly. > > You may never find anyone else quite like me. And I don’t say that out of arrogance or harsh intent, but based on the knowledge of how I feel and the qualities that I have to offer. Please don’t miss out on an opportunity for happiness … I did that once in a past life, and am determined never again to live my life with regret. Hence this email and the plea contained within. > > So, my spiel aside, I’m sure that if you consider your feelings and find that there exist none for me above just ‘fondness’, then I’ll accept that reality and in time I’ll adjust to the new dynamic, and might hopefully return to being friends, maybe even getting back into WoW. But I just want you to appreciate that it won’t happen immediately, and that I know you won’t expect me not to want to move on if you decide that we don’t have any potential for a future. I’m as surprised as anyone by how quickly and strongly these feelings developed, and judging by my reactions today and after our conversation, how genuine and real they are. But they are real. But I also know that I can’t hold them forever, especially if they aren’t reciprocated. > > I hope you won’t think badly of me for reacting and feeling this way. I too am just being honest with you. > > It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Don’t let me go unless you are completely sure. That’s all I can ask, and the very reason I wrote this email. You now how I feel. It’s up to you to decide if there is potential for spark or not. > > Hopefully I will be in touch with you in the future. Please remember that you can contact me whenever you want to. If we don’t correspond beforehand, I wish for you to have a fantastic Christmas and a prosperous and enjoyable new year. I hope that (the new year) brings you all that you hope and dream for, and also that which you never imagined would be possible. > > Never forget that you are an amazing woman Cazzle , moreso than I have been able to convey with my simple and humble words. Thank you for the past two incredible weeks, I will never forget them, and you will always hold a dear place in my heart regardless of the paths we take. > > Yours always, > Nice Guy He kept chatting online after that though, and took every opportunity that came his way to pitch himself as the perfect boyfriend for me until one day I had enough and I just got snappy and said > [@Cazzle to Nice Guy](#): > > Please stop trying to sell yourself to me. I’m sorry, but my mind isn’t going to change. and his response: > [@](#): > > Now, we’re finally making progress! This is the red light that I would have appreciated you to show me a bit earlier in the piece. It would have saved me a lot of heartbreak and confusion. > > Message has been received loud and clear now though. > > So many green lights and positives, and then a massive red light. Obviously I’m going to be a bit confused about how things are. I thought you were serious about dating, but obviously that just isn’t the case. So you need to understand, this situation is partly your fault also. I’m just a confused guy trying to make sense of how illogical the whole situation is, the whole go to whoa thing you’ve done, as simple as that. > > But don’t worry, I won’t annoy you any further with my ‘sales pitch’. I won’t be selling myself to you or to anyone else, as surprisingly enough after all I’ve been through I still have a little self respect and dignity left. You’ll work out what’s best for you in the long run, that much is clear. > > Anyway, good luck Cazzle with whatever it is that you end up doing, and whoever you end up doing it with. > > Nice Guy I couldn’t believe he was accusing me of leading him on! I mean, I’d said things to him like > [@](#): > > _Cazzle_ It’s not a nice feeling to hurt someone you like and respect so much. > _Cazzle_ but it would be worse to string you along and give you false hope. > _Nice Guy_ TRUE So I just wrote him off as a passive-aggressive jerk and blocked him on chat, and I’ve never heard from him again. I was going through some old files the other day and I found the log - I’d kept it in case he caused trouble - and I thought of it when I saw this thread. I think of him as a typical Nice Guy - the guy who thinks he was a victim because I didn’t want a romantic relationship with him. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/405 "2008-10-08T04:35:49Z")
Wow **Cazzle** , that beats everything. It beats the guy who kept ringing me for a month, “dumped” me even though we weren’t dating and then got upset that I \*still \*didn’t know what I was missing. That even beats the guy who, after failing in his one pick-up line at the bar, said in tones of high dudgeon, “Well, I’ll just go home to my \*wife \*then!” It beats the guy who left a valentine’s card under my bedroom door (:eek:) the morning after our one and only five-minute conversation. It wasn’t even February! That even beats the guy who made friends with my neighbours, then asked them to tell me how wonderful he was so I would dump my boyfriend. They didn’t. I didn’t. Eventually he decided I was a lesbian bitch instead - we worked together, so that went well. Just think how lucky we are that there’s enough decent guys about that we don’t have to date these idiots! ---
**Author:** ![Leah\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/57b2e6/32.png) [@Leah\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leah_M)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/406 "2008-10-08T04:58:45Z")
**Cazzle** , holy crap. I wouldn’t expect something like that from someone I knew for two months, maybe not even two years (because someone who knew me for two years should know better than that…). I dated someone like that one time, and it was extremely uncomfortable. After repeatedly telling him to please stop bombarding me, he actually accused me of ‘stalking’ him. 😕 **Autolycus** , I hope things shape up for you. Apart from the frustration and such in _this_ thread, you seem like a decent guy. Sometimes it’s just REALLY hard finding the right person to click with, and there are days you want to scream, “ARRRRRRRRGH! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?” or “WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM? I AM NOT SOME FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER, WHY CAN I NOT FIND SOMEBODY?!” I personally don’t think you’re a jackass for venting on a messageboard. I mean, that’s what it’s here for, yes? You seem like you’re taking some advice to heart after thinking about it, so I’ll cross my fingers for you. I don’t post very much, but I’ve been reading here for ages – and I do recall you being one of the few to say hello to me in my silly ‘introductory’ post. I used to feel somewhat similarly, except instead of thinking something was wrong with other people for not wanting to date me, I always felt like something must be wrong with me. After all, all those people not dating me couldn’t possibly be wrong, could they? I spent a lot of time (the last five years!) avoiding the silly bad relationships that reinforced my feelings of inadequacy and concentrated on getting myself sorted out, getting my own personal identity settled instead of trying to force myself to suit whatever partner type my current significant other wanted me to be. Once I got a personality and a backbone, and stopped simply saying, “Hey, I’ll do/be anything you want! Just date me!” (I had failed miserably with both men and women, and they weren’t fundamentally all that different, in my dating experience) things really shaped up. I used to take my friends for granted, also, because I was so focused on trying to get a date. I felt much better when I realized the importance of friendship in my life and the importance of doing things _I_ enjoyed, without constantly worrying about whether it would affect potential relationships. Putting someone else’s needs and wants ahead of your own is one thing, but letting them tromp all over you is another. One is considerate, one is either passive or passive-aggressive (I hate that term, but it suits sometimes), and the former is really the only one that ‘works’, unless you’re dating someone that enjoys tromping all over the person they love. Where you look for potential dates is pretty important, too. If you’re looking for the type of person that goes to bars, then looking for dates in bars will work. If you’re looking for something else, though, you’re probably not going to find it there. I think someone else mentioned that. The kind of people I wanted to date were quiet, nerdy, and liked staying home playing videogames or watching TV. It’s hard to find one, because they’re all home playing games and watching TV! The internet helped, but I’m not good with long distances, so those relationships all flopped (and generally I would only find the ones that were depressed or antisocial, so things were really doomed from the start), and I finally ended up recently reuniting with someone I met in college, but it took a long time before we reconnected. Ten years! I just turned 27 and am only just now finding some kind of decent relationship, and a lot of women are waiting until later in their lives to settle down, I think, because of careers and such. So, don’t give up. It’s really frustrating and sometimes it seems like it will never happen, but if you give up, then it surely never will. And don’t let your frustration make you into a spiteful person. I’m sure you are better than that. Apart from that, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t already been said, so good luck. Really. Apologies for anything silly, convoluted, or offtopic. I tend to get flustered when posting on the SDMB, but I wanted to wish you well. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/407 "2008-10-08T05:11:22Z")
> [@](#): > > If you’re looking for something else, though, you’re probably not going to find it there. I think someone else mentioned that. The kind of people I wanted to date were quiet, nerdy, and liked staying home playing videogames or watching TV. It’s hard to find one, because they’re all home playing games and watching TV! Truer words have yet to spoken in this thread. Every time I have been out of a relationship this has been the largest hurdle. It’s hard to meet others with your interests when many of your interests are something you do from your living room. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/408 "2008-10-08T07:53:11Z")
The women in this thread have hijacked the original question in the OP “Why don’t girls like nice guys?” and turned it into a discussion about “Nice Guys”, and how horrible they are and “how could anyone want them?” These sorts of assholes seem to exist, but this is not the phenomenon that the OP was alluding to. Also, there were a lot of claims that only a tiny fraction of women are attracted to “bad boys”, and they were the wrong women to be going after anyway. So, I got curious and did some web searching to see if I could find any studies on women and attraction to “bad boys” A simple “women bad boys” search on Google turned up a lot of hits. From the top results, two were from women: [this](http://www.sideroad.com/Relationships/why-women-like-bad-boy.html)and [this](http://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-relationships/stop-dating-bad-boys). Some choice excerpts [QUOTE=link1] “Bad Boys”. If you’re a woman, you may be saying “hmmm” as you hear these words. You know you shouldn’t, but you just can’t help yourself. There is just SOMETHING about these guys that draws you in, even as your head tells you to “beware”! So, what exactly is the attraction? … “It’s never BORING with him. He’s unpredictable and exciting.” … [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=link2] how do you beat your bad boy addiction? I’ll admit it’s not always an easy fix: bad guys keep you guessing—they take risks and they take you along for the ride. And it can be a lot of fun. The nice guys make it too easy, right? They like you and, well, you know it. [/QUOTE] So, we have two women (one a relationship coach and the other writing in WomensHealth magazine) writing articles and talking about womens’ attraction to bad boys, and disinterest in nice guys, in a very matter-of-fact way, as if it is well understood that this is a well-known phenomenon, and not something confined to a small subset of women, as the responses in this thread would have us believe. How do we explain these articles? Are these women authors simply mistaken or lying? Is this issue not as widespread? It seems to me that this is a widespread phenomenon (at least the attraction if not the dating) and the discrepancy between the view (of girls being attracted to bad boys) out in the real world vs here on the SDMB is that the types of women who log on to the SDMB are not your typical women (just as the guys who log on to the SDMB are not your typical men) So, we have women logging on and reading in this thread about womens’ behavior that seems nothing like their own and assuming that the men posting their experiences are making stuff up. And then they turn it around and start venting their own complaints about “Nice Guys”. Notice that neither of the above articles mentions “Nice Guys”. In fact, the second article specifically mentions that nice guys (lower case n and g) are not as attractive (are not as fun as the bad boys, they make it too easy, they like you and you know it). Which was the original contention and question in the OP. Anyway, of course, no man thinks that simply being “nice” should be enough to have women falling at your feet. No one has claimed that, except the women trying to discredit the notion that women are, in general, more attracted to the “bad boy” persona than to the safe, nice guy persona (and this is in a sexual sense, and not in a who’s-better-relationship-material sense. Also, this may be more prevalent among younger women) And, of course, in real life a lot of nice guys end up getting into relationships and getting married to wonderful women. No one is disputing that. But “girls are attracted to the bad boy persona” is a widespread meme and, from experience, others’ experiences, and some Googling, it seems to hold. I will agree that it could be a myth that is self-perpetuating and has been around so long that even women (like the two authors linked above) have bought into it, without having any hard evidence that it is true. Is there any data on this? (FWIW, [here](http://seductiongirl.com/bad-boy.htm)is a link to an article that tries to bust the “bad boy” myth) ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/409 "2008-10-08T09:03:05Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > Priceguy, I’m trying to PM you but it’s not allowing me to. I have it turned off. I dislike the interface, never notice when I get messages anyway, and keep my email available. I turned it on now. > [@scarbrow](#): > > As a confirmed former “nice guy” myself, I’m really surprised to read this thread. I just figured the OP was a guy like me. I’m the one who every one’s mother wishes they would date, who has a bunch of female friends, but never got any sexual interest from women. For a “nice guy” like me, part of the anger that finally builds up is as much from watching women friends destroy themselves in bad relationships, as from the constant sexual disinterest. Exactly. You can only see assholes abuse their way to relationship after relationship so many times before you start wondering what the hell is wrong with the world if guys like that succeed time and time again and sometimes twice before lunch while you remain alone. > [@](#): > > I’ve never done any of the things the women in this thread accuse “Nice Guys” of. And my nice actions were genuine. I never expected anything for them except to be acknowledged. And when they weren’t, I just went away without any awful confrontation. Same, same, same and same. No-one is disputing that there are psycho assholes in the world. **niblet\_head** and **Cazzle** have their stories, which are about psycho assholes, not about actual nice guys who wonder why they can’t get a date. > [@Dangerosa](#): > > This is an EXTRAORDINARILY COMMON perception among women. True or not, this is what women hear when a guy says “I’m a nice guy. Why can’t I get a date? Why do women only like bad boys?” It may be a completely unfair perception, but - for anyone trying to get a date - its a common enough perception that it really doesn’t matter if its unfair or not. That’s what you are dealing with. I’m well aware, and like I’ve said several times I don’t have a problem with the statement “saying that makes you sound like this”. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/410 "2008-10-08T09:19:37Z")
**Polerius**. Oh, for Og’s sake - we haven’t hijacked the thread. The OP displayed classic symptoms of Nice Guy Syndrome including labelling himself as a nice guy while lamenting that his adored one did not leave her boyfriend to attend to his ‘needs’. You keep hijacking the thread into why women really want to be with bad boys. We’ve said (repeatedly) that while some do, it’s not pervasive. You’ve said that women say they want Woody Allen, but really go for Antonio Banderas, then backed away from that when it was pointed out that Woody Allen is a horrid little man and Antonio Banderas seems like a good person. You’ve said that women put out for bikers, without even attempting to qualify the very small percentage of women that fall into that demographic. That’s just insulting. The fact that you think the “Bad Boy” syndrome is more widespread than women are prepared to admit is just as valid as any woman who feels that the “Nice Guy” syndrome is more widespread than men admit. Nice Girls falling for Bad Boys happens - in a recognised _minority_. Just like jerks pretending to be “Nice Guys” is a recognised _minority_. They are not mutually exclusive and the OP’s description of his behaviour was very much in the latter category - as he has admitted and is hopefully addressing. Someone claiming to be the disputed [del]throphy[/del] girlfriend has joined the thread to admit it was all her fault really and Auto’s a great guy. What more do you want? We are fighting ignorance here. You yourself have gone from rebutting the very existence of the “Nice Guy” syndrome to admitting it actually exists outside of our feminine imaginations. In Auto’s case he’s apparently thanking us for the help. The OP’s story was about a girl he had two dates with, he admitted much later that they weren’t even real dates in the accepted “we are going out, just the two of us, with the intent of getting to know each other”. They were a whole different category, since she told him up front that she was in a relationship of five years standing. She told him that her boyfriend wasn’t attentive and Auto went into ‘Knight in Shining Armor’ mode, being the kind of NICE, ATTENTIVE, FRIEND that he thought she would fuck. He posted here because she didn’t fuck him after he put so much effort into being nice. He didn’t think he could pretend to be nice for much longer if she didn’t fuck him like she was supposed to. She didn’t, saying she liked him more than she thought she should (and going way overboard at that point), but ultimately choosing to stay and work on her \*existing \*relationship. Possibly (we’ll never know for certain) she was just using him to make her boyfriend jealous, or pay attention. Auto played along, deciding she could waffle between the two of them for as long as he was prepared to believe she’d ultimately choose him. Not ‘Nice’ of either of them. He doesn’t know anything about the boyfriend, except that the guy has left off building a house for his parents to rush to his girlfriend’s side when she said she wasn’t happy. He’s accepted that Auto was important to his girlfriend and told Auto he doesn’t think he should hang around any more. He didn’t threaten violence or wave his willy about, he just told Auto to stop pestering his girlfriend. Where in hell do you see this as Auto being the victim of the “girls like bad boys” meme. \*Auto \*was the ‘bad boy’ trying to make her be unfaithful. By your reasoning she should have laid down and spread her legs in the carpark rather then telling him to cool off while she thought about things. The only one I feel any sympathy for is the boyfriend - he is the one who seems to be a halfway decent (and restrained) guy. Auto and the girlfriend both acted like asses. ---
**Author:** ![Brandon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f08c70/32.png) [@Brandon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brandon)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/411 "2008-10-08T09:22:13Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > The women in this thread have hijacked the original question in the OP “Why don’t girls like nice guys?” and turned it into a discussion about “Nice Guys”, and how horrible they are and “how could anyone want them?” > > These sorts of assholes seem to exist, but this is not the phenomenon that the OP was alluding to. It is not just the women. There have been a few men in here who have “hijacked” this discussion by disagreeing with the sentiment that women don’t like nice guys, and stating that the misconception occurs due to Nice Guys contorting the meaning of nice guy. It is hard to distinguish between a genuinely nice guy and a Nice Guy, but one telling point where they often differ is this - genuinely nice guys don’t usually bitch that girls dislike them because they aren’t jerky enough. Hence the responses in this thread. Surely you can understand people taking offense to the notion that women are so weak-willed they just can’t help but fall for assholes. Yes, there are damaged people out there who like being treated shitty, and have trouble comprehending kindness; but they should not be used as a measuring stick for the general population. I also have to ask how you know what phenomenon the OP was alluding to, and why you feel that matters? Perhaps the OP itself is at the core of what the “hijackers” are discussing? > [@Polerius](#): > > Anyway, of course, no man thinks that simply being “nice” should be enough to have women falling at your feet. No one has claimed that, except the women trying to discredit the notion that women are, in general, more attracted to the “bad boy” persona than to the safe, nice guy persona (and this is in a sexual sense, and not in a who’s-better-relationship-material sense. Also, this may be more prevalent among younger women) Really? No man thinks that simply being nice should be enough? Did your read **Cazzle** ’s letter? That shows a man trying way too hard to be nice, and he obviously thinks she should be at his feet. Additionally, if people are complaining that “nice” is a determining factor for not being liked, aren’t they by extension arguing that “nice” should be a determining factor in being liked? Regarding the rest of your post, if its purely attraction you want to cultivate you can get all the benefits of the bad boy persona while still being a nice guy. Nice does not automatically mean boring, in fact some of the least boring people I know are extremely nice; while some of the jerkiest cats I’ve hung out with have been mind-numbingly boring. You can play up a mysterious aura, keep people on their toes, be daring, take risks, stand on your own, and still be nice all at the same time. The problem is nice guys often adopt personality traits that are self-detrimental such as constantly trying to please people, niceness to the point of being a doormat, or not acting with a sense of purpose. Perhaps one of the more common mistakes a nice guy can make is to shy away from ever making things a little more sexual in nature. Guys in the “friend zone” are often guys that never behaved in a way where women would think of them as anything but a friend. It’s not nice right? Surely a gal will appreciate it when I don’t make any advances, she’ll know I don’t think of her as a piece of meat; and once she realizes how much I respect her, _then_ comes the sex. It may make sense logically, but humans don’t always work by logic. Sometimes people want to get animalistic, and assholes who almost always behave as animals come out ahead of the guy who is paralyzed by niceness in that regard. Also, you may want to reconsider the way you have phrased your post (especially regarding women). It comes off as sort of Nice Guyish. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/412 "2008-10-08T09:44:10Z")
> [@Brandon](#): > > Also, you may want to reconsider the way you have phrased your post (especially regarding women). It comes off as sort of Nice Guyish. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/413 "2008-10-08T10:05:54Z")
> [@Brandon](#): > > It is hard to distinguish between a genuinely nice guy and a Nice Guy Actually, from the examples given in this thread, it’s pretty easy to distinguish them: “Nice Guys” are jerks. > [@](#): > > Surely you can understand people taking offense to the notion that women are so weak-willed they just can’t help but fall for assholes. Who said anything about “weak-willed” and “can’t help but fall for”? When people claim that men are attracted to young women with big breasts, does anyone complain that men are portrayed as “weak-willed” and “can’t help but fall for” these women? It’s a physical attraction. This has nothing to do with how strong or weak the will is. When people claim that women are attracted to men with a specific set of traits, it has nothing to do with the strength of their will. It’s just physical attraction. Why the need to get all defensive about it? > [@](#): > > Really? No man thinks that simply being nice should be enough? Did your read **Cazzle** ’s letter? That shows a man trying way too hard to be nice, and he obviously thinks she should be at his feet. I didn’t read his entire letter. He was being annoyingly long-winded and I didn’t finish it, so I’m not sure if he claimed that she should be at his feet simply because he is so nice. > [@](#): > > Additionally, if people are complaining that “nice” is a determining factor for not being liked, aren’t they by extension arguing that “nice” should be a determining factor in being liked? Logically speaking, just because some people are saying “don’t hold my niceness against me” does not mean they are implying “you must hold my niceness in my favor”. It could mean they are saying “you must not consider my niceness in your evaluation of your attraction of me” That’s just logically speaking. In real life, if someone says “don’t hold my niceness against me”, that person is deluded and there is something wrong with them if they think women hold his niceness against him. > [@](#): > > Regarding the rest of your post, if its purely attraction you want to cultivate you can get all the benefits of the bad boy persona while still being a nice guy. Nice does not automatically mean boring, in fact some of the least boring people I know are extremely nice; while some of the jerkiest cats I’ve hung out with have been mind-numbingly boring. You can play up a mysterious aura, keep people on their toes, be daring, take risks, stand on your own, and still be nice all at the same time. The problem is nice guys often adopt personality traits that are self-detrimental such as constantly trying to please people, niceness to the point of being a doormat, or not acting with a sense of purpose. Perhaps one of the more common mistakes a nice guy can make is to shy away from ever making things a little more sexual in nature. Guys in the “friend zone” are often guys that never behaved in a way where women would think of them as anything but a friend. It’s not nice right? Surely a gal will appreciate it when I don’t make any advances, she’ll know I don’t think of her as a piece of meat; and once she realizes how much I respect her, _then_ comes the sex. It may make sense logically, but humans don’t always work by logic. Sometimes people want to get animalistic, and assholes who almost always behave as animals come out ahead of the guy who is paralyzed by niceness in that regard. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/414 "2008-10-08T12:03:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Originally Posted by Autolycus > A month ago, I met a girl…\ > > … we went on two dates, both of which went well. The day after our second, she broke up. At that time, she was uncomfortable dating me for various reasons. She didn’t feel it was right. Anyway, I still flirted with her but I was fine with waiting and being friends for a time, as I thought she needed time to be single…\ > > Well, after a week of being single, she went back to her ex-BF. Now she is forbidden from speaking to me and the last conversation we had was a 3way online chat with her BF. It’s been a week since I’ve heard from her. . > > I hope this doesn’t come across as harsh, but WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING AT? > > Why in the name of our merciful Savior are you playing attention to limits imposed by her ex-boyfriend? He does not have your best interests at heart. A perfect example of a Nice Guy from the movies was Dusty Dinkleman (Chris Klein) from Just Friends. His whole “sensitive nice guy” routine was just a well-crafted act to pick up girls. Um…the question is why is he still paying attention to a girl who doesn’t have her shit straightened out with her current/ex boyfriend? She dated this guy 5 years and she’s just going to break things off just like that and pick up with a new guy? I don’t think so. It has nothing to do with “nice” or “jerk”. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/415 "2008-10-08T13:06:05Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > The women in this thread have hijacked the original question in the OP “Why don’t girls like nice guys?” and turned it into a discussion about “Nice Guys”, and how horrible they are and “how could anyone want them?” > > These sorts of assholes seem to exist, but this is not the phenomenon that the OP was alluding to. > > Also, there were a lot of claims that only a tiny fraction of women are attracted to “bad boys”, and they were the wrong women to be going after anyway. Ok, to address the original topic, in my opinion and experience… There are women who chase the bad boys. Hell, there’s even a Simpsons episode about it, so it must be true! That doesn’t mean that those women are a majority of women. In my experience, they tend to be emotionally immature or damaged. The former may grow out of it, the latter tend to keep living the same self-destructive paths over and over and never change. YMMV. There are genuine nice guys who can’t seem to “catch” a girl. Odds are it’s not because of their niceness. In fact, there are very few things that are ever motivated by one thing. A girl who likes Bad Boys might still be put off by a Bad Boy with poor personal hygiene habits or nothing interesting to say about anything or yadda yadda yadda. No human is attracted to every human who fits their “type” because there are still so many shades of variation within a “type” that even your perfect match is probably only going to tick most of the boxes - as long as they are the important boxes, it doesn’t matter. That’s why relationships are about compromise. So a nice guy who can’t get a girl is a guy who probably ticks the disposition box but still doesn’t meet enough of the other criteria for most women. I have some wonderful friends who I love dearly, and we get each other and have such a great time when we hang out together, but I suspect we’d claw each other’s eyes out inside of a month if we tried to live together. We don’t have to be a perfect fit because we’re not in that kind of relationship… it doesn’t matter if we don’t find each other physically attractive or if we’re not prepared to put up with each other’s bad habits or if our sex drives are wildly different. Those things won’t ever be a factor in our friendship. A friendship can still work even though fewer boxes are ticked because it’s less intense than a relationship and so it can tolerate more areas of discord. This is what I think the nice guys are coming up against. They mistake friendship for the beginnings of a beautiful relationship but the girl doesn’t see it like that. She sees his flaws and doesn’t care because she likes who he is and those other things don’t matter to her in a friend, but they are deal breakers when it comes to boyfriends. He doesn’t get it because she says he’s such a nice guy and she’s happy to hang out with him, talk with him and laugh and cry and whatever but she rejects him when he expresses an interest in her. To further complicate things, she’s probably scared about the idea of losing her wonderful friend and tries not to hurt him so she’s not likely to say “I love you but if I had to live with that thing you do, I’d probably wind up stabbing you with a butter knife”. She’s going to try to soften the blow by mentioning his good points. “You’re a nice guy but…” doesn’t mean “You’re a nice guy and that’s the reason I’m going to go out with someone else”, it means “You’re a nice guy but that’s not enough to compensate for some other flaw(s) that I can’t deal with in a romantic partner”. Nice guys are, sadly, very often shy guys. This makes them hard to get to know. By the time a woman has learned enough about the shy guy to establish that he’s really very nice (and not airquote “Nice”), she may have stopped thinking about him as a potential partner and relegated him to permanent friend status because, in his shyness, he hasn’t displayed signs of interest in her. Chances are good that once she starts to think of him as just a friend, it’s not likely that she’ll change in a hurry. Shy nice guys probably could change their luck by overcoming their shyness and learning to flirt a little more to show they are interested before they give the impression that they aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/416 "2008-10-08T14:24:58Z")
**maggenpye** , your post is absolutely spot on. **Auto** , you’ve got people in this thread who are defending you and I’m sure with reason. But honestly, it was you who started this thread, and with all the classic signs of a Nice Guy. It was you who did not clarify until late in the thread. It was you who said you had two dates with this woman, yet we come to find out one was a friends thing and one was a talk thing. You don’t seem to know this woman very well, you have built up a level of expectaction in your mind and then you are angry with all women when it doesn’t go your way. Now, later you do take responsibility for your impetuousness, and that’s why I think this is a youth thing that you will outgrow. In the meantime, however, those who called you on your shit got fuck you’s and I don’t care’s and tough’s. We get to experience how women like to be dominated and have their hearts stolen, and that’s a fine line for you to walk. Looks like a Nice Guy, sounds like a Nice Guy, quacks like a Nice Guy. Moreover, you don’t even seem to fit the stereotype of the small-n, small-g nice guy! You’ve had three relationships of a serious nature? How does that make you unlucky in love? (You will suffer the pain for your beloved’s happiness, except, it seems, move, have kids, or get married.) I think it is completely understandable those of us who went down the Nice Guy path. I don’t think we would have if the evidence presented, circumstantial though it was, didn’t have the odour of … well… shit. I also find your responses to some of us to be patronizing. I also assume that’s a writing style, but good lord, don’t tell me young man, what you think I should know about women and dating. I outrank you by more than fifteen years of experience. That, and the uterus. I think you helped ignite a shit-storm and have now walked away from it. That makes me not like you very much right now. I hope I get to know you a bit better in the future and come to see that this is a one-off, and abnormality and not a trend. But if I only had this thread to go on, I’d think you were a pretty ucky person. As it is, I think you’re young. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/417 "2008-10-08T14:33:37Z")
BTW, I vow to never again use the words “I’m out” on The Dope ever again. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/418 "2008-10-08T14:36:15Z")
> [@Cazzle](#): > > By the time a woman has learned enough about the shy guy to establish that he’s really very nice (and not airquote “Nice”), she may have stopped thinking about him as a potential partner and relegated him to permanent friend status because, in his shyness, he hasn’t displayed signs of interest in her. Yeah, why do you do that? ---
**Author:** ![placebo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e274bd/32.png) [@placebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/placebo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/419 "2008-10-08T14:56:56Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > But “girls are attracted to the bad boy persona” is a widespread meme and, from experience, others’ experiences, and some Googling, it seems to hold. I will agree that it could be a myth that is self-perpetuating and has been around so long that even women (like the two authors linked above) have bought into it, without having any hard evidence that it is true. Is there any data on this? [Cite](http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19826614.100&print=true). ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282/420 "2008-10-08T14:58:54Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > Yeah, why do you do that? Because women don’t want to go out on a limb any more than men do. If he hasn’t shown any interest in me, my assumption is that I’m not his type - he is gay, he likes shorter women, he has a thing for redheads, my voice is annoying, my sense of humor annoys him, he doesn’t want a relationship, he hates my decorating style and is afraid he’ll end up living in a house decorated with Laura Ashley - whatever. At some point someone needs to show some interest - “I think you are great and I’d date you” is a fairly non-threatening way to show interest." “I have strong feelings for you that are not justifiable given the amount of intimacy we have mutually established” - i.e. Cazzle’s letter - is offputting unless the person on the other hand shares similar strong feelings. And I suspect that is the same for men and women - if men complaining about “it was two dates, then she brought over a week worth of clothes and started talking about how many kids and what their names were going to be” is any indication. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-girls-why-dont-you-like-nice-guys/466282.md?page=22)