I’m angry but believe me I like women very very much. Your earlier posts were indeed a misjudgment. I’d refute you point by point but you’re honestly not worth my time. If you have something worthwhile to say, now might be a good time.
Girls just wanna have fun! ;)Maybe you’re striking out because you’re interested in being serious and they’re not quite ready to settle down. Once they’re ready to do so, I’m sure you’ll find the right one.
I’ll give it a go:
You appear to be frustrated because you’d like to date someone, but are having problems finding someone who would like to date you. Option 1: there is something about you – attitude, approach, style – that makes most women you approach uninterested in you. Option 2: every woman in your age group is shallow, vapid, and only interested in this mythical bad-boy type. Which one do you think is most likely?
I suspect you’re having trouble finding a relationship because you sound like you have Nice Guy Syndrome. Most women I know can pick up on it very quickly. “I have sexual needs just like anyone” is a really entitled position, and that’s a turn-off. Getting angry at women who don’t want to date you implies misogyny (I’m not saying you are actually misogynist, but that’s how it comes off, and that’s not attractive).
You are coming across as if you think women owe you dates and sex for being “nice”, fit, funny, confident, witty, emotionally astute, all your good qualities. Whether you believe that or not, that’s the impression you give, and that’s enough to make me and most women I know say “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
If anyone who fails to sing your praises, let alone points out that your self-perception may not be entirely accurate, isn’t “worth your time”, that’s pretty enlightening.
I think you have set up a false dichotomy Tracy, but you are indeed right in that both choices are far from perfect.
Listen Tracy, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I dont think any women owes me anything. Actually, while I don’t think I have lately been in the situation you have described, I have been in them before!
Thank you for being such a helpful part of this thread. I initially thought you were just a troll, but you proved me wrong with a vengeance! 
I admit I was pretty sarcastic, but I feel no regret for defending myself against a guest, especially since we’ve actually so far had a productive conversation (all credit goes to her, honestly)
I should point out that, as the posts I’ve linked to suggest, “Ladies, why don’t you [all, because you have a female hive mind] like ‘nice guys’ [like me! I’m single, nice, and unhappy!]” is itself a false construct, and a fiercely pervasive one. I’ve heard that question thrown out dozens of times, and it’s always, always, always phrased as “Women, what’s wrong with you that you don’t appreciate how great guys like me are?” Having that inaccurate, insulting generalisation directed at you OVER AND OVER gets very wearing.
Also, I’m only a “guest” because I stopped paying-to-post in 2006 – I’ve been around for four years!
I’d be lying if you didn’t have a good point.
Honestly I started this thread to vent… maybe I should have put it in The Pit. I wanted to strike a balance between knowledge and emotional venting. You are right through Tracy, and I totally hear where you are coming from.
With that said, don’t you admit that the generalities that pain me are true? Won’t you swallow the blue pill?
I’ve posted pages about this in the past, and I’ll say more later when I have time, but here’s the shortest version:
“Nice guys” play to not lose: they think people should date them because of what they are not–not rude, not selfish, not arrogant, not poor.
Girls don’t care what a guy isn’t, and in fact will overlook a lot of sins if they like what a guy is–hysterically funny, or a really good kisser, or any number of things. Girls don’t date assholes because they are assholes, it’s just that they are willing to overlook it if there are things they like.
The other thing is that some people are just harder “matches” than others. Some people just get along with a wide variety of people and tend to hook up easily because of it. Their quirks and hangups and interests are more universal. Some of THOSE people are assholes. Some are nice guys. You don’t see the nice guys that hook up very often, because they tend to stay with people–they are married or practically married by 24, so they don’t get out. They stay home with their wives/girlfriends and mostly socialize with other couples. The assholes who are good at hooking up with a wide variety of people aren’t very good at staying with them, so they tend to be back in the market a lot. It messes up the sample size.
And then you have people that are difficult matches. It doesn’t make them better or worse, and it’s not even about being more “picky” or “won’t settle”, though difficult matches tend to tell themselves that. It’s just that some people are more of an acquired taste. Their (my–I’m like this) pool is smaller. So they hookup less. There are nice guys and assholes in this pool, too.
More later.
Auto–how much do you drink in social situations where you are interacting with girls you would potentially like to date? Especially as you get older, girls are not interested in a guy who drinks too much, no matter how nice you are.
You’re a girl? I call misleading username!
A suggested read for you, OP: “Iron John.” I don’t fully comprehend it but I think you’ll find some questions to ponder and possibly some answers in there.
I could have written your OP a couple years ago. “Iron John” suggests to me that you’re identifying yourself to women in the wrong way. Put it like this: any woman would be proud to have raised such a decent, thoughtful, compassionate son. However, women don’t want to mate with their sons.
This could be part of the problem here. How can we make an objective analysis without knowing both sides of the problem? It could very well be that one of these “flaws” is something that is turning girls off. I’ve met nice guys that were incredibly boring because they had an intense interest in one topic of conversation that dominated their whole being. I’ve met nice guys who couldn’t make a simple decision to save their lives…just pick a restaurant, damn it! I met one nice guy who had loud, destructive parrots and an onion allergy…prior to meeting him, I had no idea these would be deal-breakers for me.
Sometimes it’s one of those flaws that others see, that turns people off. I’ve noticed, when I’ve posted comments on some of my relationships, that many people here feel that my need to be told what exactly it is about me that didn’t appeal to someone (if there was a specific thing) is somehow a stupid request. The “make a clean break and walk away” contingent feels very strongly that further discussion about why a relationship went wrong is a waste of their time, while the rest of us sit and wonder what we’re doing wrong, and is it something we can fix?
I’m a slim, reasonably cute blond young woman with no obvious personality flaws and generally good luck with guys, and I come home empty plenty, too. Sometimes I sit there and wonder “Fuck man, I thought girls were supposed to always be able to get sex. There must be something terribly wrong with me.”
And then I realize that I probably could have gone home with plenty of people, and in reality I chose not to. If you want to walk in to bar and go home with girls, you have to be ready to sleep with bar sluts. That’s what all these “jerks” are doing that gets them laid so often.
Yeah, I’ve been there on the dating woes and I know how frustrating it is! The ‘nice guy’ thing just become such a meme (and, again, an inaccurate and insulting one) that it’s difficult to sit down and go through it patiently again.
That said, no, I don’t think the generalities you make are true. I agree with Manda JO’s comment about sample size, and suggest that confirmation bias might also be a factor.
You’ve got a girlfriend of three year’s standing.
Yet you think girls don’t like nice guys. So either you’re calling yourself not nice or you’re saying she isn’t a girl.
You think you’re lucky to have a role model like your father. And seem to be annoyed that you can’t emulate his success with women. Maybe when you are as old as him, you’ll have perfected your skills. Was he shagging other women all round the world when he was your age?
We can agree, I think (?), that if we were desperate to have someone—anyone—in our lives, that we would. There are women I’ve met who would have accepted me, I think, but they didn’t hold my interest. No global pronouncement on them as human beings, but they weren’t what I was looking for.
Most if not all of us are holding out. There’s quantity and there’s quality.
Both good points. Young girls love bad boys because they seem exciting. Nice guys seem bland at that age. If you want to try to shake things up it is a good plan to try hanging around crowds where you are the “bad boy” relatively speaking.
But it does get better with age. When I was young, I kept chasing emotionally unavailable, inconsiderate, deceitful, etc. guys. As I grew up a little (around age 24 I’d say) I realized that wasn’t working for me and developed the confidence to realize that I do deserve more. My current boyfriend is an amazingly nice, sweet guy who absolutely adores me. I adore him too. 
(I also think guys with big noses are absolutely adorable, by the way - huge part of the reason I thought one of those jerks was hot-looking enough to tolerate his jerkishness).
I think you’ve misunderstood what I wrote, to a great degree. I’m quite happy with my situation right now. I don’t know where on earth you got that I’m “annoyed that I can’t emulate his success with women.” I choose not to be promiscuous because I have a girlfriend who I like a lot, to the point where I wouldn’t sacrifice our great relationship just for some cheap thrills with other girls.
Also I never said girls don’t like nice guys, I said that girls don’t like guys who have no confidence. Some girls like nice guys, some girls like guys who aren’t nice because they see something in those guys that makes them overlook the fact that they’re not nice. A lot of girls go for the cocky and slightly arrogant style, but if you overdo it, then you’re just a genuine asshole and nobody likes one of those. In any case there are no hard and fast “rules of attraction.”
Again I think you missed the point of what I wrote.
Nothing in that post really fits with anything that you wrote in response.
That’s your problem. That’s not nice, it’s passive aggressive. OK, if you feel that way one evening every few weeks it’s romantic but a constant diet of “whatever makes you happy makes me happy” is annoying and off-putting.
Your girl has enough on her plate without carrying the total responsibilty for your happiness and you make her feel inadequate and selfish for daring to have her own emotional life that does not revolve around how you feel. Professing your willingness to slam a car door on your hand if it will dry the tears of your love is not a demonstration of strength, it’s psychotic.
You also may be trying so hard to make her happy that she doesn’t get a chance to know you. When you make all your decisions based on what will make your love happy, she never gets to learn what will make you happy. You may also, in you quest to be “romantic”, may be idealizing your love to the point where she thinks you don’t really know who you are. You can’t have a healthy give and take relationship when all you want to do is give, give, give.
And then, when these relationships don’t work it’s always her fault because how could you be at fault when you made your love the center of her universe? Then when she goes for a good guy with his own feelings and thoughts that are often at conflict with her own and sometimes cause her unhappiness, she becomes the bitch that did you wrong. This is why they aren’t lining up for you.