To all the girls: Why don't you like nice guys?

In My Humble Opinion
321

The funny thing is, both “sides” are somewhat correct: there are indeed many so-called “Nice Guys” who self-identify as such because their sense of entitlement is damaged by the fact they are not getting the sex they feel they deserve; and there are indeed many women who are sexually turned on by bad boys (with bad results).

To my mind, both are essentially symptoms of callowness, male or female - which most eventually grow out of with experience (of course some people never grow out of).

What I find amusing are those who insist that only their generality has any truth to it - it is the equivalent to my mind of insisting that only men, or only women, on occasion act immaturely. Both can, and do.

322

I confess, you really have us all figured out. You have seen through the deceptive facade to stare into the abyss that is my soul.

323

Quote:
Originally Posted by jsgoddess
It’s a power play, an attempt to guilt me into love.

Shhh! You’re not sposta tell! :smack:

The male/female game is fun to play unless you’re on a long dry spell, I’d settle for batting 200. :slight_smile:

324

Normal, healthy people don’t martyr themselves. There’s something behind it, and it’s really ugly.

325

The thing is, no one has insisted that all men are “Nice Guys,” but plenty of people have insisted that all women like bad boys (as well as five hundred other assertions of “what women want.”).

Women don’t have one mind and one set of desires, which people have been pointing out all through this thread, yet some people keep insisting that the one thing all women want is Antonio Banderas or a biker or whatever. I married a fucking mathematician, for cripes sake. You really can’t get wussier than that; the worst injury he can get is a friggin’ paper cut!

“Nice Guys” are a very small subset of men, and that really should be abundantly clear by now because no one has insisted that all men are shallow like that. What should be equally clear is that women who drop their panties at the sight of a leather jacket are also a small subset. The generalizations are really only coming from one side in this thread.

326

Hey, those Mathematicians are hellava tough - worse that Bikers. I don’t have nightmares about Bikers beating me up, but I do have nighmares about high school math exams, and that was over two decades ago! :smiley:

While I quite agree that no-one is arguing that all men are “Nice Guys”, I don’t agree that all of the generalizations here are one-way. Again, I think both ‘sides’ have some truth to them, when applied to the right subset of people (e.g., the callow). That truth gets blown out of all purportion when people start painting with an over-broad brush and adding a helping of moral opprobrium, which leads to absurd conclusions - such as that all women like biker types (quite obviously untrue) or that all guys struggling with self-confidence issues in relationships are predatory “Nice Guys” (also untrue).

Both types of course exist; what is getting people’s panties in a knot on either side is the insistance that everyone meeting minimal criteria fits these mold(s). As in “every single guy who whines about not getting laid is … X”, or “all women really want, whatever they may actually say, is … Y”. You can bet neither X nor Y is either (a) complementary, or (b) actually true of everyone (though true of some). Hence, dueling anecdotes, people getting pissed off, etc.

327

Auto, I read your previous thread about this latest girl. The main issue with that relationship, such as it was, was that she was a manipulative beeyotch. Don’t puff up and get defensive, just shut up and listen for a minute. All those text messages about how much she wanted to kiss you, how much she was hoping you’d kiss her…that is NOT how you act when you don’t want someone to get ideas. That’s how you act when you’re trying to plant ideas. She wanted you to pant after her because it fed her ego and made her boyfriend act more like she wanted him to act for a while. That is all.

I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told DoctorJ back before we started dating when he would piss and moan about how the sorrority chicks who were only nice to him when they wanted something wouldn’t go out with him after he’d given them what they wanted. Because, you know, all women only like jerks. The main problem here is that the particular women you’re picking out are crazy-ass bitches. Of course crazy-ass bitches don’t like nice guys–hellooooooo, they’re crazy.

I like nice guys (genuine, not Nice Guys) just fine, thank you ever so much. Because I’m not a big steaming wad of nutso, and I don’t appreciate being lumped in with people who are simply because we’ve got similar plumbing. You need to avoid the crazies and go after the sane women. One of them will appreciate your many sterling qualities, because you really are a great guy. But this attitude is incredibly unattractive, and it’s gotta go or else nobody will ever want to go out with you ever again because you seem like such a fucking chore.

It seems to have been reasonably effective advice for him. Do with it what you will.

As for those of you who can’t understand what’s so undesirable about someone who is happiest when making you happy, think about your grandma. (Or your great-aunt Martha, or whatever dear, kindly relative you have who thinks the sun shines out your butt and has dreadful, dreadful taste. Pretty much everybody has one of these.) She’s so sweet, and so kind, and she loves you so much that you can’t tell her the Christmas sweater she knitted for you with her own hands is utterly, utterly hideous and two sizes too big to boot. It would crush her and you would feel like a complete asshole for hurting her feelings.

Now imagine living with her, and Christmas comes a few times a week. A constant stream of ugly sweaters you hate, and you can’t say anything negative about them because it would make her so unhappy that you’re unhappy.

Doesn’t really sound like my idea of a fun life, personally.

328

Jesus tap dancing Christ. How many times and how many people have to say this. I will say it again for the cognitively learning disabled

We are not the ones that give this title to these types of men. They are the ones who give it to themselves.
We are not trying to generalize all men who are shy or bad with women or chronically single or needy or whatever as being part of this group. Only the disbelieving men in this thread have tried to paint it like we overuse the term. For fuck’s sake, most of you didn’t know the phenomenon existed, now you understand all the nuances of what leads a woman to think the things we do about those types of guys? Give me a break!

As many before me have said, Nice Guys are self labeling. They call themselves nice because they don’t understand that its their own negative qualities that is doing the job, not that all women hate nice guys, therefore it turns them into a victim of their own positive characteristics and the stupidity of women. See? Does it make sense? Or do you still think we are trying to mentally eliminate shy, quiet guys from the dating pool by attributing characteristics to them that haven’t been displayed? I really don’t know how to explain it if its not making sense to you. For what its worth, I did a quick poll of 3 men and 3 women at work about the Nice Guy phenomenon. All the women knew it, had experienced it, and none of the men knew what I was talking about. Seems to be largely the case here.

329

Interestingly, while reading this thread about Clay Aiken, I found some clues that may shed some light on the plight of nice guys.

The OP asked the question of why Clay had been considered gay by many. Many of the answers were:

Red Barchetta: “Soft-mannered, neat”
drastic_quench: “Effeminate and soft-mannered”
shy guy: “neat, well-manered, and soft spoken”

Maybe nice guys (not Nice Guys, but actually decent guys who are nice and are good listeners, but can’t seem to get a date) in general are more soft-mannered and soft-spoken than the rest of the population of guys. Even if it doesn’t trigger the gaydar of the women they interact with, it seems reasonable that women will not be sexually attracted to men who have a trait in common with gay males.

Of course, there are exceptions, as phil417 has pointed out that her husband “is soft-mannered, and neat”, but that doesn’t mean that the majority of women are attracted to that trait.

330

Why do you think this is impossible, on a subconscious level?

331

A relationship would be much more fulfilling and stable if both partners realize that they are “Responsible ‘to’ each other, but not responsible ‘for’ each other”, which also includes making each other happy. Try not to be responsible for each other’s happiness (because that’s like banging your head against a wall…I know that from experience!), but be the best person you could be as a partner, someone that you yourself would like to be with, and you will attract those that you would want to be with without resorting to “Nice Guy Tactics”. I’ve been married for 22 years now, and by no means am I an expert at this, but I’m trying and small ways, I’m succeeding. I had a lot of bad habits that I’m trying to unlearn, so it’s gonna take quite awhile to be that person that my wife used to know, and she in turn is trying to change the way she’s responded over the years (the negative responses, that is). We stumble quite a bit, but our relationship seems a lot stronger than it was just a few years ago.

What does this all mean when someone is only dating and not married? It means that don’t try to too hard to make someone happy, you are not responsible for his/hers happiness. Just do things that are thoughtful and positive and leave their emotions within themselves; don’t take ownership of their emotions, but let them express their emotions on their own without pressure…this way you will find out how they truly feel about you. Then you can assess whether the relationship will go forward or not.

I wish I was mature enough all those years ago so I could have been a better husband and would have benefited from a better marriage, but at this point in time, I do feel some level of redemption. I thought this is something worthwhile to share with others.

332

We still don’t. The only evidence is your unsupported claims that men who call themselves nice guys feel entitled to sex/relationships.

I really don’t know where women get this notion. It is possible, even common, to be sad or disappointed or bitter without feeling you’re entitled to whatever it is you’re missing. The very same thing happened in another dating thread. I said it was weird that dancing is a dealbreaker for so many women and was immediately attacked for demanding that women conform to my requirements abd date me no matter what. Of course, I’d said nothing of the sort, and these men you call nice guys have said nothing of the sort either.

Why would you think this strengthens your case?

333

Because quite frankly, you still have not grasped that we’re not talking about the same types of people. And because now you’re trying to discuss some completely unrelated claim that none of us are addressing. You haven’t gotten it so far. You doggedly insist that we women hate nice guys. You give some reasons, claiming that’s “just the way it is” and when a dozen women come to disagree with you, you back down to the point of accusing us of doing it all subconsciously. Forgive me, but from what I’m seeing of you in this thread, I don’t believe you have the capacity to psychoanalyze the subconscious desires of an entire gender. I’m not going to convince you. The bajillion women in here who think you’re full of crap haven’t managed to convince you either.
And Priceguy, the only point in showing that was to illustrate further the gender disparity in this argument. There have been plenty of guys in this thread who understood what we were talking about. I talked to bouv about it, he got it. Its clearly not been constructed by women for the purpose of…I don’t know why we would do that really. I’m sorry you’ve never experienced it first hand. I don’t know how to convince you. There’s not much point continuing, I’m about where niblet_head is right now.

334

Me neither. I was hoping you could tell me. You still haven’t explained how you know what you claim you know. You’re just flatly stating that these guys dislike women, feel women owe them sex and so forth, without explaining where this bizarre notion comes from.

335

Personally, it’s from the way the self-described Nice Guys I’ve met have talked about the women they’ve been trying to date. They aren’t disappointed that the girl won’t see them, they’re angry. The “Nice Guys” I’ve met, when rejected, have said things like, “Why are girls so stupid that they only date assholes? You know what, I give up. I’m going to get in shape and be an asshole, get all the girls I want, fuck 'em, and leave 'em.” (Parts of that are as close to verbatim, as I can get (most of the Nice Guys I’ve known I knew in college), but think of it as a composite.) That’s not nice, and it doesn’t indicate that they like women very much.

Hm. Now that I think about it, it’s the anger that generates the impression that the Nice Guys feel entitled to sexual relationships. If I am denied something I wanted very much, but don’t feel entitled to, I’m disappointed. It’s only if I’m denied something that I feel I’m owed that I get angry. I wonder if it’s possible that these Nice Guys are just really bad at expressing their disappointment as disappointment rather than anger. It does seem like society tends to push boys toward expressing anger rather than other emotions, so maybe that’s it.

336

You seem to not have grasped that I understand that there are two types of people being discussed. See post #302: “It looks like the men and women of this thread are talking about two different types of guys.”

Point to where I state that “women hate nice guys”.

If you brush up on your reading comprehension skills, you would understand that the “just the way it is” comment was not addressed to the feelings women have for “nice guys”, it was addressed to the (lack of) feelings women have for shy, not-so-well-built, non confident men. (Some, but of course not all, of those shy, not-so-well-built, non confident men happen to be nice people)

I didn’t say that women hate nice guys subconsciously. Brush up on your reading comprehension.
Let’s look at the big picture: If you look at the linkmaggenpye provided, you will see both types of nice guys listed there. The first two definitions refer to the nice guys who can’t get a date, and the third definition refers to Nice Guys, the ones the ladies in this thread are referring to.

It looks like both types exist, so we can put that to rest.

The guys in this thread, from what I can see, are curious as to why the first type of nice guy can’t get a date, and not why the Nice Guy can’t get a date.

And yet, the women in this thread are fixated on why Nice Guys can’t get a date. From their description, they seem like assholes. It’s pretty obvious why they can’t get a date. It’s an easy question.

The more interesting question is why the first type of nice guy can’t get a date.

337

Yes, that I’ve heard as well. I’ve even said it a time or two in my day, but I have never disliked women (any more than I dislike men, anyway) nor meant that women are somehow obligated to provide me with sex.

338

Cite that he can’t.

339

No. Never mind. This thread has gone the same way so many threads have gone that it just isn’t worth it.

340

I don’t think there are official studies on nice guys and their dating habits, so I don’t think I can provide a cite.

Let me ask this question: If a woman has a guy friend to whom she pours her heart out and tells all her problems (about school, work, other people, etc) day in and day out, and he listens patiently and provides support, is it true that his chances with her, romantically, are practically nil?

That is my understanding, but I’d love to see womens’ responses to this question.

Is this a mistaken view?