You took the words right out of my mouth. I don’t know Auto outside of this thread, but everything he’s said about himself demonstrates some seriously creepy behavior that I imagine would turn just about anybody off and some really bad judgment to boot.
“Always putting her happiness before my own?” That is incredibly creepy; who wouldn’t set a land speed record running away from that? Going on two “dates” with a girl who is currently seeing her boyfriend of five years? That is not a recipe for success.
It doesn’t make him a bad person, but it definitely makes me think “Nice Guy.”
I’m curious, Auto - do you have many friends who are in relationships, or are most of your friends single? Are most of your friends men or women?
I understand. My question is: what is romantic? What is an acceptable sacrifice to be made for a SO? How can one try to be considerate and place the SO first at times without appearing ‘sycophantic and spineless?’
I guess it felt nice thinking we did have a relationship even if it was brief. You’re right… I do place self-esteem on having a relationship, most likely because of the extreme bitterness I have about my past failures with dating. I’m trying to change that.
OK, now this is just unnecessary. I have been listening to all advice in this thread, and even if I have acted defensively, I’m trying to keep an open mind.
She values her relationship with her BF more than the brief thing we had. That’s fine with me.
All of your mockingly bitter and caustic tone aside, I am taking this advice.
I took a long break from dating in college and focused on fixing the things that I did wrong in relationships (in my case, I did all the work of maintaining the relationship, which left nothing for my boyfriend to do, and then I got resentful that he wasn’t doing anything). When I was ready to start looking again, I dated a couple guys that I knew or met through friends, and then “gave in” to internet dating. That turned out to be the best thing for me, because dating is really a numbers game. I went on a lot of dates, but only pursued a few guys. There were one or two that I thought might work out long-term, but they didn’t feel the same way. There were one or two who thought I might be the one for them, but I wasn’t feeling it. The biggest realization I came to was that there was nothing inherently wrong with me, or with the guys I was dating. We just weren’t right for each other. Eventually, I found a guy who was. So my advice is twofold: 1) Get introspective, and if you find some flaws in yourself, fix them. Then, 2) Date a lot of people, but don’t waste your time or energy on incompatible relationships. If it doesn’t work out, try not to place blame, just move on to someone else.
There’s no real definition of romantic. You ask 10 people, you’ll get 15 answers. I personally thought it was romantic when DoctorJ got me a dog training system for Christmas right after we got engaged. My coworkers were unimpressed, and rather aghast at my enthusiasm.
Acceptable sacrifices depend on a lot of stuff–length and depth of the relationship, specific circumstances, how likely you are to make an actual difference, all sorts of stuff. My husband once spent five hours driving through 18" snow to get me home for Christmas, even after I suggested we turn around and go back to his mom’s house. Most of the time, this would be an over-the-top thing to do, but we’d been together for 10 years, we were married, I hadn’t been home for the holidays in 2 years because we moved 3 states away for his job, it was my only niece’s 1st Christmas, and my uncle had just died. As it was, I really appreciated it, but under any other circumstances I’d have been wondering what the everloving fuck was wrong with him. (And even then, there were points before we got there when I kinda wondered what the fuck was wrong with him.)
General rule of thumb is if it would make you feel a little awkward for someone to do the same thing for you, it’s probably overboard. If you expect recognition or appreciation for having done it, or would be disappointed or put out not to be thanked for what you’ve done, you’re not doing for the right reasons.
Cazzie, get thee to Jezebelnow and submit that letter to their Crap Email feature. They also have an archived post on dating a ‘reformed’ nice guy (here). A great sample:
ladyfoxfire is spot on about at least one thing – guys won’t have the same experiences with their male friends and acquaintances as the women these guys date. Especially if they’re the types of guys who don’t discuss relationships in detail with one another, which isn’t exactly rare.
Unless Groveling and Desperate is the name of your band and you wear cute clothes and a sour expression. Then you’re set. I suppose someone might call you a ‘bad boy,’ but we can’t even agree on ‘nice guy,’ so I’d love a definition for that (Unkempt hair? Tattoos? Alcoholic? All the hot ‘bad boys’ I’ve known have just been risk-takers with nasty senses of humor, but ultimately respectful and smart).
Yes! This! We aren’t hearing from a 40-year-old virgin. Just someone who’s hit a rough patch. Going after someone who’s in a relationship? Does not compute.
Women do go for shy, genuinely nice guys – but I imagine getting more experience with women (and maybe a bit of a lady-led makeover) makes these guys more confident and therefore, one might imagine, luckier in love, or married. Therefore no longer considered shy and socially awkward.
Okay. I need to stop reading this thread. Seriously now.
I think your scenario is on the mark. Been there, done that too many times. ID thinks that I’m some wishy washy wuss, and, in reality, I have better things to worry about than what/where I’m going to eat something that I shall crap out in a day or two. But, as it was later reported to me, my whole world view could best be described as “he doesn’t know what he wants.”
I’m glad to hear it. I wasn’t attempting to hurt you with my sarcasm (though I do have fun with it :D), I was using it to try and get my point through to you. I have found that sometimes we need to get cut open a little to let words sink in deep enough. It was my last ditch attempt to try and offer some advice, as it’s astounding you were even spending effort wondering if she may miss you as a result of the “break”; let alone posting that desire online. Take it from someone who spent some time in his younger days as a “Nice Guy”, it takes some shocking of your system to spark change. Godspeed in your self-improvement.
Autocylus, I feel I owe you a bit of an apology. I was overly harsh in my earlier post - and failed to give credit where it’s due.
You are taking *truckloads *for this OP, but you seem to be handling it with stoicism and humour (after the early rough patch). Most of us get to go through this sort of thing in private.
Don’t sweat it. Like Brandon said, it was necessary for me to get roughed up a little before I truly opened up. As for taking truckloads, well there’s a small yet perverse part of me that enjoys it, so no worries there.
Anyway, just replying to let you know you don’t have anything to worry about (and yeah, I haven’t contacted her and I’m not planning to. At the risk of sounding like an arrogant jerk, it’s her loss.)
Although there’s a lot of criticism on this thread, a good portion of it is constructive criticism from both the women and the men…just focus on that and you’ll be fine.
Just fine tune that criticism filter of yours; most of us mean well.
(and yeah, I haven’t contacted her and I’m not planning to. At the risk of sounding like an arrogant jerk, it’s her loss.)