I’m married now, have been for 3 years, and (knock on wood!) will be for the rest of my life.
Now, I’m basically a shy introvert (my aggressive obnoxiousness in the SDMB doesn’t reflect my basic personality at all) and in my single days, I was (to put it mildly) something less than a stud! And I admit, from time to time, I found myself asking the same, cliched question as the OP.
Oh, it’s NOT that I considered myself such a prize catch! Objectively, I can think of a LOT of good reasons women might not have been interested in me! I’m not particularly handsome or rich, and I have a host of neuroses/quirks that probably scared off potential dates (and if the other self-proclaimed “nice guys” look at themselves in the mirror, objectively and honestly, they’d probably have to acknowledge the same thing).
That is, I doubt whether women thought, “I’d love to date Astorian, but he’s just too nice.” More likely, they were thinking, “Astorian is really a nice guy, BUT… he’s a little too ___.” All kinds of adjectives could reasonably be inserted in there, from "nerdy to “dull” to “weird.”
And that’s fine. Hey, it’s even understandable. Look, there’s nothing in the Bible or in the Constitution that says a woman has to like me just because I like her (trust me on this- I’ve LOOKED!).
**
But in my my moments of depression, anger, loneliness and self-pity (what single guy doesn’t have them?), I DID catch myself asking “Why don’t women like me?” Because even though I KNEW loads of good reasons, it STILL seemed as if women had weird standards!
It often seems as if EVERY woman’s magazine of the last twenty years has had a cover story saying, “Why aren’t there any decent men?” EVERY female standup comedian (well, except Ellen DeGeneres!) insists that “The only decent men out there are gay or married.” Every phone-in advice show has dozens of women asking the radio shrink, “All I want is a nice man who’ll be good to me- why do I keep dating abusive jerks and two-timing scum?”
Get it- it’s NOT the “nice guys” who started this debate. It was the whining women who started it! It’s the WOMEN who’ve been asking, for all these years, “Where are the nice men?”
And when a semi-geeky single guy reads or hears these things, it drives him berserk! It’s THOSE kinds of omnipresent complaints from women that make the dateless “nice guy” fume! It’s THOSE kinds of gripes that make a Dilbert think (as he sits alone on a Saturday night):
"O.J. Simpson is a psycho killer, and he’s still screwing supermodels! Charles Manson gets a hundred marriage proposals a week. There are thousands of women out there who ADORE spouses who batter them. So, why can’t I get a date?
I mean, I KNOW I’m not the kind of man women dream of! I don’t even BLAME women for wanting someone better than me. But for all my faults, I’m stable. I’m employed. I bathe regularly. I’m polite. I’m kind. I’d never hit a woman or cheat on her. I’ve never been arrested. I don’t drink too much and I don’t do drugs. So, why am I alone, while scumbags who treat women like dirt have more women than they know what to do with?"
I KNOW that’s not a rational way to think. Eventually, even the depressed, self-pitying single guy realizes that (“THINK a second- would you WANT to date a women who’d consider marrying Charles Manson?”). If he’s lucky, he gets realistic, and eventually finds a worthy woman (I did!).
