My brother in law is dating a girl who would be delighted by that behavior (unfortunately, she thinks my brother in law should provide it - he doesn’t agree - so its a rocky romance). I’m not that girl, but they are out there and I hope you find her.
You may hold that opinion, but the majority of the women filling out that survey thought he was funny.
Also, they stated that funny was the #1 thing they look for.
And yet, when it was time to pick someone with whom to have sex with with wild abandon on a desert island, they picked the stud.
So, the point is that overall, people say one thing when they are asked what they are attracted to in the abstract, but when it comes time to choose between Guy#1 and Guy#2, other things come into play.
The “Nice Guy” angle that women here are referring to, I must admit I’m not too familiar with. If you gals see this too often, then I understand that it must be frustrating.
But, excluding the Nice Guys that you are referring to (whiny men who are not so nice and feel entitled to sex and/or companionship), you must admit that there are lots of guys out there that are good people (nice guys), who are caring and considerate, and yet, because of their physical appearance and/or their shyness and insecurities, are not attractive to women.
Do you disagree that a man who is well-built, has a lot of confidence and possibly a hint of arrogance and has a decent experience with women is much more attractive to women than a not-so-well-built shy guy who is a bit on the pale side, even if the former is a bit of an asshole and the latter is a very decent human being?
Well, there are a lot of the latter types of men, and they feel bad that they do not sexually interest women. It’s the same with overweight and/or unattractive women: they feel bad that they do not sexually interest men, even if these women are the nicest people on earth.
What I was trying to say was that these people exist, they are nice, they are not attractive, and they feel sad about it, and feel that life is unfair. Unfortunately, they are right. Life is unfair. People are attracted to whomever they are wired to be attracted to and nature doesn’t care if there is a large group of people who are left out of the “sexually exciting” group.
To be perfectly honest, somewhere in the evolution of discussion about Nice Guys it became less about you specifically and more about the perverse mentality that your OP was indicative of. And yeah, the virtues you extol strike me as exceedingly creepy. Sorry if that’s not what you were looking for. I wish you luck either way.
Yeah, we are talking about completely different subsets of people. Completely different. Like, re-read the last 2 pages of this thread knowing that we are talking about completely different types of people.
While I do not disagree that the confident, slightly arrogant, attractive, well dressed guy will get the attention of most women, and many women are attracted to the shy guy who looks like a nice guy in the corner…
However, these are facts of life that I think everyone here would agree with. But we’re not talking about the shy guy who doesn’t fall into the stereotypical whatever that men think women want…
Maybe review the nice guy vs. Nice Guy thing. You’ll find that they are totally different concepts. The guy you describe falls into the former.
Red flag, anyone else? Seriously?
Let’s say you’re her new squeeze. You would be OK with her going on dates with other people? More power to you if you are, but that’s almost guaranteed to happen again.
I think being called creepy is one of the most hurtful things a girl can say about a guy, but it’s your honest opinion and you wouldn’t tell me such a thing if you didn’t think it was for the best. You’re right, the thread isn’t about me specifically anymore, but if people think I’m creepy I certainly want to hear it. I will say that the girl involved didn’t find me creepy, so at the moment I’m going to chalk it up to a personal difference. Good luck to you as well.
And you think that we are just pulling “facts” out of thin air? Don’t you think that it is just slightly possible that, regarding what we describe, we have experienced it, we have discussed these situations with other men, we have seen it from friends and ex-girlfriends? Or do only your personal experiences matter?
Based on the input from the women in this thread there are two possibilities
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There is a large group of whiny men who describe themselves as Nice Guys, but in reality are not so nice, have lots of issues, and also feel entitled to be dated by women.
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When women date non-sexually-interesting guys, after a while they get sick of them, they find them boring and then find them totally annoying and thinking “what the hell I am doing with this guy”? The initial interest in those guys (probably based on them seeming like nice people) dissipates and is replaced by disgust, and they are promptly labeled “Nice Guys” as a convenient way to explain why they are not interested in them any more.
Anyway, it seems (1) is more likely, but I think there is a level of truth to (2) as well.
Well, to be fair to her, the first one was initially a friends night out, and the second one was a ‘we need to talk’ night. But yes, generally speaking that is a red flag.
Sounds like a lousy date.
Well considering that line was a response to Priceguy regarding my willingness to believe the anecdotal evidence of women, and the fact that you just got finished saying “The “Nice Guy” angle that women here are referring to, I must admit I’m not too familiar with.” then yeah, I think you’ve experienced situations where it appears that jerks get women. That happens, some girls do seek out behavior like that on a subconscious level. I’ve seen it too. What I’ve seen a lot too is the Nice Guy attitude, and idea that all women hate nice guys. It’s just not true, and maybe the women of the SDMB are not an accurate representation of female humanity as a whole, but I certainly don’t doubt your anecdotal evidence the same as I would hope you don’t discount mine.
If you believe nothing else in this thread, believe this: Nice Guys are the ones that label themselves as such. We do not give them this title, this title is intended to defray the negative characteristics that they really possess and shift blame for why they aren’t getting any action.
Auto, perhaps some of the problem is you are spending too much time in chat hunting for Japanese women. I think you might have a script running in your head of how things should be.
Lose the script, go out and socialize, expand your horizons.
It seems too obvious to state but…
There are two issues with us humans.
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Survival of the fittest. Women are going to go for strong males so that their offspring will be strong. Many species “peacock” or have feats of strength or whatever for the privilege to mate. Men? We make sperm our entire lives and theoretically could impregnate hundreds of women.
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The long-term relationship. Emotional maturity, a willingness to compromise, an ability to empathize, yadda yadda yadda.
These are often incompatible.
There’s no doubt that there are nice (decent, caring, good-hearted, etc.) people out there who go unnoticed. Maybe they don’t dress right or have a good education or lack the social graces or whatever. If they’re not careful, the men end up as “one of the girls” and the women end up as “one of the guys.” Not that I would know…
And there are also those who pose as such, hoping it will get them somewhere with the opposite sex. Yes, believe it or not, there are women who will give a wiggle and a wink when asking a man for help, but they don’t have any genuine interest in the man. Shocking, I know, but there it is.
One of my disconnects on this is the idea that there are men who think acting nice will get them sex. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen; it just seems like getting the date is the first step and I thought the OP meant they wouldn’t date him. If the assumption is that, once the date has been accepted, sex will follow naturally, that’s just deluded. Besides, going the other way (“acting bad”) would more likely get those results. Clearly, your mileage may vary.
A long time ago, I asked for a definition of “nice.” If a woman calls me that, I consider it the kiss of death. In fact I posted a thread last summer about trying to figure out why this woman I dated. One night she had to cut a date short because an emergency came up at work.
She said I was very understanding, that it was nice of me to overlook it, etc., and I thought, ‘:smack:’ She promised a “make up” date, that she’d call me to arrange it the following week, but then didn’t call. Then she called after that window had passed, acted like nothing had happened, and set up vague plans with built-in excuses. Then nothing…then another attempt but of course, nothing ever came of it.
I wasn’t going to give her an out. I mean, I could have called her a liar or expressed some disbelief or slammed the phone or something, but I just fucking wouldn’t. I didn’t hold a gun to her head, demand a make-up date, or anything.
I just kept acting positive when I answered the phone to see how far she was willing to carry the charade. I never raised the topic of when we’d be going out again, but when she brought it up, I’d act reasonably enthused. One day she must have noticed that I had stopped her calling weeks earlier, that the only person she was fooling with the lies was herself, etc. The cloud of lameness descended…hard.
The fact is, she just lacked the nerve to say so. I concluded that I was too nice to hurt but not interesting enough to date. Apparently she was doing me a “favor” by sparing my feelings or…something.
Bottom line: if you really do have something to offer, like being a genuinely nice person, there are people who value it. If they don’t value it, they won’t appreciate it, don’t deserve it, and you wouldn’t be happy with them, anyway.
Ah, actually I already have. That was my script two years ago though, and it served me well at that time. Now, I’m sticking to local though.
While far from traditional, both turned out to be great dates. I’m not going to go into detail because frankly the thread isn’t about that.
Wow, really? I could have sworn you were one of the common posters in those thread some time back.
Oh well, forget all that. And forget about everything you know about the PUA community and Mystery’s godawful show. I could sling book titles and web site links all day but the only book I’d recommend to someone wanting to look a bit more into things is Neil Strauss’s The Game. It’s a fun, honest, and somewhat heart warming book about the PUA story and also an excellent primer. And considering it got me started on a pretty nice transformation of my own, I also have to credit it as being one of the very books to change my life…which is a little weird to say about a book like this. But then, I was painfully, painfully shy, horny, frustrated, awkward, and clueless as to how to fix any of it.
There are some things wrong with the PUA community, and The Game goes out of its way to point every single one of them out. The author acknowledges that many of the men who got involved with the community did so to cover up for some other inadequacy and there’s some very conflicted emotions there.
But the whole PUA thing is so large, and there’s so many different philosophies and approaches is there, no matter where you’re coming from you can find something there that works for you. It is entirely possible to be attractive without thinking like a misogynist or acting like an asshole at all :).
Give it a look and tell me what you think.
Yes, I understood the point you were making. I don’t think you got mine, though.
Admit it? I dated a ton of them!
They almost all to a one dumped ME, though. Thanks alot for bringing it up…
Not to me. I work with both types. I would much, much rather bang the geek than the “stud”. Not to my friends or sisters, either. So, you’re gonna have to accept that to a decent woman (me and my friends, and I suspect the women of The Dope) your hypothesis is flawed.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but no shit, Sherlock. Have I said anything in this thread that would indicate that I believe/understand/have experienced myself otherwise? For the ka-BILLIONTH TIME: That is NOT what we were talking about.
We weren’t talking about women like ME, either, for that matter. You know, the funny, smart, generous, good in bed, like to give blow jobs kind. The kind that intimidates men, apparently, because I can take care of myself (so say my friends). The kind who is FAT. The kind who never gets asked out. Who is serially rejected by men she’s interested in. Who’s never been in a long-term relationship because apparently I don’t do “girlfriend” or “woman” right. And I’m pushing 40! Yeah, life’s not fucking fair. I. GET. IT. What in the blue fuck does that have to do with the topic at hand?
And everyone knows it.
Saying something is the #1 thing they look for doesn’t mean that thing is the ONLY thing they look for. Woody Allen may be funny, but he’s also incredibly annoying and, frankly, unkind.
It isn’t as if humans are one quality personified. Woody Allen isn’t just walking hilarity, there are other aspects to his person–many of which are really unattractive, like insecurity and whininess.
Just having one good aspect isn’t enough. Just being nice or “Nice” isn’t enough.
This is true for a lot of “nice guys” I know. They treat women like some kind of “other” that is supposed to act in a particular way. And they have these HUGE expectations for what relationships should be like. It’s all already worked out in their head, they just need a woman to act out her role. It becomes not about the woman at all, but about this mass of expectations they’ve decided to hang on some poor girl.
When they begin seeing women (who, it turns out, are just as individual and complicated as men) they get frustrated because things aren’t working out the way they hoped it would. These emotions begin manifesting themselves as feelings of powerlessness and a desire for control. Which leads to emotional blackmail and guilt and other unpleasant feelings.
And so when women see the potential for this, they stay away. The last thing anyone wants is to deal with someone’s personal emotional burden because they happened to be the right gender.
The best way to begin a relationship is with no expectations beyond some vague optimism. Nobody should be talking about “feelings” for quite a while- because any feelings you are feeling that early on are not about the other person at all, but about your own expectations and personal insecurities. Just let things unfold. Each person has a beautiful story, and each relationship has it’s own trajectory.
That you have - well, “a legitimate complaint” isn’t quite right, nor is “a reason to be pissed”… let’s go with “something to bitch about” - and so do nice guys (and I use the phrase here in the outlandish sense of “guys who are nice”, not in the sense of men with the personality described by women in this thread, if those even exist in significant numbers) and maybe, just maybe, when someone decries his dating woes and wonders why he cannot attract a mate the correct answer might be “life’s not fair, I know it sucks” rather than “women don’t owe you sex, you creep”.