I think most women go through a phase of attraction to “dangerous” men. Not necessarily the true bad boys, with guns and felony records, but the aloof, emotionally unavailable type. They are the antithesis of the “nice” guy.
Maybe its the challenge of pulling a response where none is expected, the unpredictibility factor.
Nice guys are predictible. They show up on time, they aren’t moody and distant at a whim. They bring flowers, and rarely borrow money or your car, so they leave us nothing to complain about.
If you have to be a nice guy, then get a second job as a spy, so you’ll have at least a little bit of mystery.
That danger we seek can’t be faked, either. You’re either an Arnold or a Dana Carvey playing Arnold.
But, there is hope, most of us get over it or maybe grow out of it. It takes a lot of energy to reinvent the wheel every night, just to win that crumb of emotional response.
I do agree with some of the other posters , however, that some nice guys (NOT ALL) aren’t exactly, they’re just too afraid of being humiliated to say or do what they really think. So they smile and hold it in.
All that said, I married one of the nicest guys on the planet.
My pet theory on this whole “nice guy” thing is that nice guys aren’t much of a challenge, and not-nice guys are.
The idea is that women are like anyone else, and like the chase. Nice guys who are already doing all that stuff aren’t making women flirt, etc…, and this isn’t very much fun, and since dating’s about fun in the early stages, these guys don’t do well.
I noticed this after I started taking the attitude that the chicks didn’t matter- there’d always be others to go out with, instead of trying real hard for each date. In essence, it meant that the girl had to work a little harder to try to impress me, and I suppose I was more confident in the process.
Oh god, this old chestnut again? Can’t we just do a search and cut and paste all the stock responses and be done with it? I guess that would be too simple.
I want someone who is happy and productive in their own life, as well as the usual common interests and good in bed stuff. They need to be a whole person, with a life independant of me or any one else. We’ll have fun together, but I won’t be responsible for making this person’s life good, or bad, or anything. Two whole people, one whole relationship.
Admittedly, when I was younger, I did the jerk thing. Jerks aren’t happy and productive either. So far, I’m doing well with a guy who is probably the sweetest man on the planet, but with a backbone and a life. He inspires me with how he lives. He doesn’t expect me to make his life worthwhile or even be the center of it - he expects me to live well.
Confidence isn’t sexual forwardness - its knowing that you will be happy with or without the object of your affection. (among other things.) Life is good and you’re on top of it. You’re pretty sure that you can handle anything that comes at you.
I have been seriously involved with several different guys, less seriously with a few more than that. ALL of them were nice guys, some of them a bit nicer than others but I wouldn’t classify any of them as jerks. For the most part they all treated me as well as they could at the time. They/I had other issues that caused the end of the relationships completely independent of them being nice (different life paths, mutual loss of chemistry, afraid of monogamous relationship, unable to express feelings, lack of physical attraction, etc).
I guess since I’ve had so many ended relationships, I could try to say it’s because I tend to be extremely giving (even… nice) with men, and maybe they want a girl who’s going to be more trouble, more of a bitch, and not want to bake them cookies or whatever all the time. But in reality it had nothing to do with any of that. Causation doesn’t equal correlation and all that.
And yeah, I’m friends with all my exes (and even ex-flings), except one that’s a total fruitloop and can’t decide if he wants to talk to me or not (he got upset, apparently, because I gave him a Christmas gift) and another which is deceased.
Don’t assume the only reason that someone doesn’t want to pursue a relationship with you is because you’re nice.
I get a little irritated with the whole “Jerks get women because they are confident” routine. There’s some truth to that, but as I said earlier, a lot of jerks are actually deeply insecure and lack true confidence.
By the same token, I get a little perturbed at the “Nice guys are insecure whiners” reply. Once again, I think this is a severe oversimplification. I happened to know a lot of genuinely nice guys who don’t fit that mold, but who have historically had trouble getting women. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to dismiss these individuals as spineless or whiny. Sometimes, it’s easy to put too much blame on the victim, if you get my drift.
A couple of my female friends concurred that women often seek men who are a challenge. Some of them even go after the “fixer-uppers,” which may explain why they fall into abusive relationships. Now, it’s easy to claim that these ladies simply want to avoid spineless wimps and losers, but I think that’s a rather naive viewpoint. It certainly doesn’t jibe with what I’ve observed.
I think this is the crux of the matter. A familiar whine in these threads is the whole “She broke up with me because I’m too nice/Women don’t want to date me because I’m too nice”. Maybe it’s nothing to do with being nice. Maybe they broke up with/won’t date you because of some other reason. Maybe you have no sex appeal or backbone or talk about Star Trek too much: maybe you are trying to appeal to the kind of women who will never be attracted to you. “I’m too nice to get laid” isn’t a good excuse. Plenty of nice men get laid.
(And for the record, I like “nice guys”, but I’m not attracted to them. Nor am I attracted to jerks. Funnily enough, there’s a whole range of men in between those two poles).
People’s motives for being involved in abusive relationships are undoubtedly more complex than a morbid fear of wimps. Nice guys who get involved with women on the rebound from bad relationships are also not necessarily being rejected on account of their niceness: their niceness was probably what attracted to the woman to them in the aftermath of her bad relationship, but it doesn’t mean that whatever drew her to that situation has been resolved.
Not everybody wants the same things out of a relationship. Not every woman is looking for a white picket fence and a happy ending. Some women want thrills and spills, and to live on an emotional rollercoaster. Some people go bungee jumping for excitement, and others look to their relationships for it.
I’m going to recommend you try a little from Column A:
And a little from Column B:
I think a lot of Nice Guys take it too far with the niceness, especially on the first few dates. I like going home and having a little time to overthink and speculate on the meanings behind every look and little gesture and offhand remark. I don’t want a giant bouquet of flowers and an invitation to dinner the very next morning. It takes the fun out of the first few dates, and kind of makes me feel claustrophobic. Think about it - if I already know that you really, really, really, really like me, it makes it harder to slip away if I don’t like you back. I either have to fall madly for you or break your heart. And I don’t really want to do either.
In my experience, Nice Guys tend to have an agenda. They’re not in it to date and get to know people. They’re in it to find a girlfriend. And that can be a little off-putting, especially if I’m not really eager to be someone’s girlfriend.
And maybe this is you, and maybe it’s not. I haven’t gone out with you (I don’t think), so I can’t tell. But it does apply to a lot of the Nice Guys I’ve encountered, so I’m throwing it out there.
What exactly is a “nice” guy? Someone who is polite and boring? A guy who is awkward or passive? Is simply not being an abusive asshole considered “nice”?
Look, when a girls says “you’re too nice” it means she finds you dull and boring. Yeah you’re polite and bring flowers and whatever. Great. But you aren’t providing the kind of quality entertainment she’s looking for.
Why do you think Colin Farrel gets laid more than Tobey Maguire? Because he’s cool. He smokes, drinks and swears and speaks in an Irish accent. A girl who’s with him knows “this guy has no problem going off an banging some other girl so I better straighten up and fly right”. Meanwhile, Peter Parker is the nice safe bet. “Hey, I know he always likes me so I have a safety net while I play the field.”
And I’ll second the confidence thing. Back in college, these dorks in my fraternity are trying to get with these girls by playing beer-pong with them. They must have been at it for an hour trying to impress them with their witty banter or whatever. I come into the room, look around a little, single out one of the girls who I catch eyeing me, give the ole “wan’t the tour of the house” line and off we go to my room to hook up. And I’m not even that studly. I just dress in a kind of casual preppy/dirtbag style and am incredibly brash and arrogant for no apparent reason (it confuses women…more on that later).
Basically, girls don’t want to sit there and listen to you babble for an hour if they don’t like you. If they do like you, it doesn’t matter what you do. That’s why I never talk to a girl for more than a few minutes. I figure, I can only say something that can turn her off.
I’ll chime in to agree with some other thoughts in this thread.
The bottomline is that “nice guys” don’t establish and respect boundaries with themselves when it comes to other people. Then, they resent their “sacrifice” when the outcome doesn’t match what their intent was.
Nice Guy Example:
They take of their jacket for a lady, and place it over a mud puddle. Then…when she doesn’t fawn over him later…he gets pissed off and resents them. Because he is so nice, he passively expresses this without being honest and direct. You see, he didn’t lay the coat out exclusively to be nice without an expectating something in return. This sort of scenario is typical of many “nice guys”.
“Bad boys” are a known commodity and you don’t have to wonder where you stand with them. You also know they aren’t going to let you violate them and a level of respect comes from that. People that take care of themselves are better in a relationship than those that don’t.
I’m a reformed “nice guy” and life is MUCH better now.
I will admit to being one of the women the OP is describing. I am excited by men who degrade me. I am uninterested in relationships without conflict. I am bored by sex without at least a hint of anger in it. I am unable to form attachments in the absence of insecurity. In short, I am not attracted to men who treat me well and I lust after men who practically reek of heartbreak.
I know this, I’ve accepted it about myself, and I’ve pretty much opted out of any long-term relationships at this point in my life because of it. So to the OP I say–why does this matter to you at all? Do you really want to be with someone who has issues like this? Leave me and my kind to chase misery to our hearts content and thank your lucky stars you aren’t one of us. It’s not an easy way to live, or love.
shrug Some women are stupid. Some believe in the whole “I can help him change!” thing they get spoonfed from the media, or the “I have to stand by him” thing. Some women just claim to be looking for “a nice guy” because they can’t say “I’m just chasing some cheap thrills and excitement for now, maybe I’ll settle down later” out loud. Some get stuck in codependent relationships where they buy into the whole “you’ll never find anyone who treats me better than you” line the guy feeds them. Some are too scared to be alone. Some would rather be with a sometimes good, sometimes asshole guy rather than be alone, and you commisserating with them just feeds their need for attention, so they get that bonus too. Some really would like a nice guy but the nice ones they meet are socially inept. (I like the “Loft-Builder Guy” concept from breakupgirl.net - if you like a girl, doing handy/friend-things for her is not the way to go about wooing her.) Take that whole list of possibilities and you’ve probably got it covered. There’s no one answer to why does a woman (or any person) stay with someone who’s “obviously” bad for them.
I spent way, way too long hanging onto an emotionally distant boyfriend because I bought his excuses about being busy, was trying to be supportive, and thought that women were supposed to be understanding and stuff. Finally I said screw it (with the urging of friends), dumped the guy, rebounded with a nice guy who wasn’t too nice to not show that he found me very attractive, and here we are over a dozen years later, happily married still.
That is refreshingly honest of you. It’s good to know that there are some women who don’t deny this about themselves. It’s refreshing to see that not all women dismiss the “nice guy” phenomenon as being due to mere spinelessness on the nice guy’s part.
Well, I’m wondering about your sample size. You say you’re dating women in their thirties and forties now, right? I suspect that a significant number of the women in that age group who like a genuinely good guy (avoiding the “nice guy” phrase because it has all sorts of bad connotations) are in fact, actually already married or in a relationship with one, and aren’t in the dating pool. There are a lot of good men out there, and a woman that really wants to be with one has many opportunities to actually be involved with one. You’re probably not seeing these women because they’re off your radar.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some women single by whatever circumstances that like your sort of men, but I think they might be diluted out by the women that are perpetually single and available for dating for a reason. I think you’re seeing a higher proportion of women who like the “bad boys” because that’s more of who’s single (women-wise) at any one time. And it may be a phse with these women too, but if you put together the women who like that sort with the women who are getting their wild on for a few years, the ratio is even more skewed. I myself spent a few years being a little wild and attracted to some odd sorts between my divorce and settling down with my own personal good man.
