# Young men and relationships
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 11, 2025, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156 "2025-02-11T05:39:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 12
### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/221 "2025-02-17T17:37:56Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> I don’t know that forced marriage is inherently unjust or sexist. If men and women are both forced to marry, that seems fair to me.
You think that as long as both men and women are being raped, and on top of that being forced to live with their rapist, it’s perfectly fine that people are being raped?
---
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/222 "2025-02-17T18:12:12Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> I don’t know that forced marriage is inherently unjust or sexist. If men and women are both forced to marry, that seems fair to me. If men could opt out, but women couldn’t, then I’d agree with you.
Well, it’s unfair and inherently unjust in that you are forcing two people to enter into a lifelong, life-altering contract against their will. So there’s that.
Also it’s not like it’s going to solve the problem as the whole point of arranged marriages is to strengthen the power and economic bonds between two families. No one is going to want to arrange a marriage with a broke loser.
---
### Author:  [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/223 "2025-02-17T18:14:52Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> > [@Ulfreida](#):
> >
> > To think that almost all of these issues would be solved if we just re-instituted arranged marriage.
>
> _Forced,_ not simply arranged. Unless it’s forced many people will say “no”. The two aren’t the same; plenty of arranged marriages have been willing ones, where one or both of the participants could have refused if they wanted to.
>
> As an aside I recall hearing that kind of solution proposed by the incels, as a weird kind of sexual socialism. Just treat women as sexual property to be handed out fairly and evenly (no need to ask _their_ opinion, of course).
>
> At any rate I think that the fundamental problem is that sexual and romantic relationships are _inherently_ unfair. People aren’t standardized in either characteristics or desires, nor are they in unlimited supply, so some people are always going to be unable to have the kind of person they want, and some are always going to be popular than others. So the inevitable result is that either some people are unhappy because nobody wants them, or because as in the forced marriage scenario they have an unwanted relationship imposed on them. Or both.
Yeah, exactly this. My parents had an arranged marriage (it wasn’t forced exactly, but there was a lot of cultural pressure to go through with it) as did many of their generation, and let’s just say that I am really, _really_ not a fan of arranged marriages. In my experience, it really does kind of go hand in hand with a lot of dysfunctional treatment of relationships, and being forced to be married to someone can involve a lot of dysfunctional power dynamics. (It doesn’t have to, of course, any more than a given single young man has to become an incel, but it definitely makes an atmosphere in which this kind of thing can easily happen.)
---
### Author:  [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/224 "2025-02-17T18:47:08Z")
I guess the whoosh just whooshed on past into the ether. Oh well.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/225 "2025-02-17T18:52:30Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> You think that as long as both men and women are being raped, and on top of that being forced to live with their rapist, it’s perfectly fine that people are being raped?
I’m not remotely fine with it; I’d be very much against it. But it would be equal.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/226 "2025-02-17T22:26:43Z")
I knew you didn’t intend that as a serious suggestion. But a lot of societies have arranged or partially arranged marriages, and i sometimes wonder if that’s something we do right.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/227 "2025-02-17T22:54:54Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> I’m not remotely fine with it; I’d be very much against it. But it would be equal.
It depends on who’s doing the arranging. If a 40-year-old man pays the parents of a 15-year-old to “arrange” a marriage between them - something that happens fairly often in some societies - would you call it equal?
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/228 "2025-02-17T23:14:11Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> It depends on who’s doing the arranging. If a 40-year-old man pays the parents of a 15-year-old to “arrange” a marriage between them - something that happens fairly often in some societies - would you call it equal?
No, unless 40-year-old women were paying the parents of young men for “arranged” marriages, too.
---
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/229 "2025-02-17T23:25:42Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> The analogy I think of, and that I want more unhappily single folks to think of, is friendship.
>
> Let’s say you’re lonely, and you want some people to hang out with. Specifically, you like gaming. You reach out to a gaming group asking if you could join the game.
I think it might be more complex than that in (using the gaming analogy) a lot of people don’t really understand the game or how to develop the skills to be competitive at it. Or they simply don’t have what it takes to be invited to play in it.
It’s also possible a lot of young men aren’t really interested in forming a long-term committed relationship. If going by the internet is anything, I think the message that a lot of young men get these days is they should be focusing 110% on making money (which usually involves some variation of having your nose buried in a laptop for hours a day).
Progressive sensibilities of this board aside, there is definitely a perception by a lot of young men that marriage isn’t something worth pursuing. The narrative goes something like this - a woman is ultimately only interested in him for his money (regardless of how much she makes). And there’s a high chance that at some point she is going to get bored and cheat on you while you’re out making money to support her. There’s usually a whole misogynistic slant to it as well.
I find it a bit strange that so many young men seem to have these problems well into adulthood. I feel like this is the sort of shit that I (like most men of my generation) sort of figured out from middle school through college, maybe into their 20s a bit.
---
### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/230 "2025-02-17T23:43:39Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> As a general rule, I do not care at all what strangers think of me. Yesterday, my beloved and I went to an Indian restaurant we had never been to before. When my meal came, I picked up the serving bowl and poured the whole thing onto my plate as I always do. The plate was more shallow than I thought and some sauce overflowed onto the table. I also managed to get a little sauce on my shirt while eating. She was strangely upset by this.
I don’t know how much we should care what strangers think of us. For most of history, encountering non-hostile strangers would have been a rare event, so it’s plausible most people are worrying unnecessarily. But that doesn’t mean they can just turn if off at will. If only it were that easy to get rid of negative emotions!
If it bothers your beloved, you surely should care about that, though. Do you think she might have asked you about the restaurant staff because it did bother her, but she felt awkward saying so?
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> I have a romantic partner. So I am not looking for one and do not care whether I make a favorable impression on random women I meet.
It _shouldn’t_ matter, but I suspect that subconsciously, seeing that other people are attracted to one’s partner makes them more attractive to you. Besides that, no one should be ‘letting themselves go’ just because they have a partner, and the reactions of others are a way of gauging that.
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> Sometimes, just because I felt like it, ran errands and/or rode the bus dressed as a clown, wearing a brown hooded cloak and carrying a staff, etc.
Is that what you sew, costumes?
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> Beyond that? I do not care what strangers think. Various people have told me that I should. None of them have ever given a valid reason why I should.
If you realised you’d accidentally been rude to the restaurant staff or made them uncomfortable somehow, would you care?
I wasn’t talking about strangers in my post, but other kids at school who I had to see every day, plus acquaintances and so on. I did other things to try and fit in: avoided talking about my interests - which meant I hardly talked at all - tried to avoid using long words, pretended to find tests hard when everyone else was complaining about them. It didn’t work. I’m sure this kind of thing doesn’t work as a dating strategy, either.
* * *
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Yes women judge (not necessarily consciously) potential partners partly by some combine score of measures that are proxies of power, and how that score relates to their own. This combined score is not a checklist of masculinity.
My point was that one reason men have been easy marks for PUAs and redpillers and so on is that society was often not giving them accurate or helpful advice, about dating or in general. On the one hand we have feminists telling men it’s wrong to approach women, in pretty much any location, and colleges giving students the highly impractical advice that they should get verbal consent for each advance in physical intimacy. On the other, we have well-intentioned dating advice that won’t admit being short makes dating harder for a man, and insists nice guys don’t finish last, without mentioning that most women prefer more assertive, confident men, and it is possible to develop those traits without turning into an asshole.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> This btw has nothing to do with being open with feelings and vulnerable, other than that these men are often really bad at it, little practice. And of course if the feelings they share are mostly ones of bitterness and resentment or self contempt it doesn’t fly well. OTOH the ability to share feelings without being overwhelmed by them can fall into the confidence bucket. And in any case it is something _not_ dumped out all at once first meeting.
These stories were about sharing serious emotions like grief with long term partners. I mentioned them as an example of bad advice given to men, but it’s fairly likely they were just outliers.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Here’s the thing. There is no simple cure for their problem. They can work on their true strengths and present themselves more confidently in a greater variety of environments. It doesn’t have to be attractive to many; just the right _one_ …. take the rejections in stride and keep get your swings at bay. That is a difficult treatment course. Hard.
>
> There is snake oil that is just sugar water, maybe even has a positive placebo effect, and snake oil that is drinking poison or even that harms others.
>
> Buying into demonstrating power by putting women in their place, by being a bully, by adopting caricatures of manliness, is in the last group. It is not just snake oil: it harms both themselves and others. They won’t treat what ails them by buying into being more controlling men.
Yeah, I agree. They do need enough honest feedback to know what to work on, though.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> I’ve only quickly skimmed this article and already feel like it belongs here:
>
> [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/opinion/toxic-male-movies.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.xk4.K0l9.3K0rGEc-oSBc&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/opinion/toxic-male-movies.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xk4.K0l9.3K0rGEc-oSBc&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)
Interesting. Most of the comments are disagreeing with it, though. One pointed out that only one of the movies mentioned was a box office success. I thought this one was relevant to the thread:
> [@](#):
>
> Unfortunately, the embrace of the “toxic masculinity” narrative by progressive media and much of the education elite is just another wedge driving men away from the Democratic party.
>
> There are of course men who behave badly in classically stereotypical ways, but it is unfair (and would be unacceptable if applied to any other group) to paint men broadly with this negative label.
>
> The reality is that a large share of males face the opposite of societal tolerance of “toxic masculinity”. Behavioral expectations in school have boys falling behind girls at an early age and not catching up, college attendance has skewed heavily female, the pool of available middle class “blue collar” jobs has decreased, and yet societal expectations continue to drive men to think they need to be the breadwinner for their families to fulfill their expected roles.
>
> This combination of the tilt of the playing field against young men, while retaining old expectations that men should provide is leading to alienation for a generation of men - made worse by silly headlines on toxic masculinity.
>
> Please stop this - it is unfair to men and provides fuel to the “go ahead and break it” MAGA mentality.
* * *
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> I was thinking that in the old days, it wasn’t so much that a young man got advice from older men as that his parents talked with the parents of eligible women in his community, and both the men and women were pressured to marry based on who their families picked for them.
In the _very_ old days. Arranged marriages haven’t been common here in England for several centuries.
* * *
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> When I think of positive (sometimes referred to as “heroic”) masculinity, I generally think of how men were portrayed in films and TV as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Action heroes like Chuck Norris or Arnold Schwarzenegger being extreme examples of this. But in more practical terms, some of the characteristics for any man (any person really) might include:
Yeah. If young men were modelling themselves on this, I don’t think we’d be too worried either for them or about them.
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> I think it’s really hard to teach these traits these days. Largely because we live in a relatively safe and soft world where not of these things are tested. Think of Ed Norton’s character in Fight Club. There is nothing “manly” about him. He has not purpose or goals. His only “strength” is his ability to endure a tedious job indefinitely. A lot of men, even well educated ones, are like that. They just sort of “exist”. How is that attractive to anyone? It’s not, so they try to make themselves more attractive with a veneer of conspicuous materiality. But that just turns them into superficial douchebags.
Perhaps we could test this by looking at countries with wars - Ukraine and Israel. Are men there more likely to have the traits you listed?
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> I also think we need to stop pretending that men and women (and everything in between if you prefer) are the same. There is a tendency to treat women as small sexy men and men as emotionally malfunctioning women. Both can have the same traits I described above but do them in ways that are inherently masculine or feminine (or both, or neither).
Yeah, I agree.
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> I am afraid that you are declaring as masculine values the values shown by one nation’s film industry during a twenty-year period, coincidentally the period during which your own identity was formed.
>
> How does that compare to ideas of masculinity in, say, Maoist China of the same time period? or 18th century France? Or 12th century Senegal?
Why would you want to adopt some other culture’s idea of masculinity rather than (a positive) one that comes from your own?
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> I just don’t know what “inherently masculine” means, if not “done by someone with testicles.” If that’s not what it means, I think it’s not a meaningful term, given how masculinity is culturally situated. If it is what it means, I’m not sure it’s more useful than describing the way to do certain things as “inherently redheaded” or “inherently gaptoothed.” If it means a third thing, can you explain?
You can do some things in a right-handed or left-handed way, and most people prefer one or the other, but can choose to do the opposite when necessary. As far as we know, it’s a preference that people are born with, though it can be modified by the environment. Gender is a lot more complicated, but men and women naturally tend to be different in certain ways, this impacts and is impacted by the gender roles in a given society, and we recognise a subset of these differences as masculinity and femininity.
---
### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/231 "2025-02-18T00:07:37Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> If it bothers your beloved, you surely should care about that, though. Do you think she might have asked you about the restaurant staff because it did bother her, but she felt awkward saying so?
Nah. We have a relationship built on trust, open and honest communication, and a love of Spirit Halloween. We discussed the issue at length. We agreed to disagree- she thinks the solution is not to be “sloppy” in front of restaurant staff. I think the solution is for her to make a conscious effort not to care what strangers think.
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> Is that what you sew, costumes?
Mostly. I also sewed felt Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick Star and Plankton stuffed dolls for my niece.
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> If you realised you’d accidentally been rude to the restaurant staff or made them uncomfortable somehow, would you care
You would have to be more specific. In general, if I have to interact with strangers I try to treat them as I would have them treat me.
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> and colleges giving students the highly impractical advice that they should get verbal consent for each advance in physical intimacy.
I have always found it excellent advice to be sure you have enthusiastic consent, verbal or otherwise, before making any such advance. At the end of a first date for example, I would slowly lean in to kiss her giving her ample time to express consent or refusal. I do this at each stage to be sure. The worst that has happened (yes, these things really happened) is that one woman grew frustrated with my hand moving slowly and said “Are you going to grab my boob or not? We only have a few hours!” Another woman, similarly frustrated, grabbed my hand and placed it firmly on the area I had been asking consent to touch.
Moving forward without waiting for a clear sign of consent can and does cause all kinds of problems.
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> and insists nice guys don’t finish last
What do you mean by “nice guys”? I have found that most men who describe themselves that way present themselves to women as friends. They make no romantic or sexual overtures. They then get very angry when women do not ‘reward’ them with a romantic or sexual relationship. I like to think of myself as a nice guy. If I was interested in a woman, I would tell her so. I have told myself many times “Faint heart never won fair maiden”. If the woman in question was already a friend, I would preface my declaration of romantic feelings with a short and honest speech about treasuring our friendship, not wanting to damage it, but wondering if we were missing out. If she said she was interested only in friendship, I tried not to take it too hard and to keep being a friend. These ‘nice guys’ are usually much closer to incels than they are to actual nice guys.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/232 "2025-02-18T00:37:19Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> that society was often not giving them accurate or helpful advice, about dating or in general.
I’m not sure “society” is giving them any advice or ever has. Of course there is noise out there and bad advice always has been a constant probably since advice was given. Individuals pontificate. The issue is that the playing field is different, in many ways, not that the pop culture advice is newly bad.
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> They do need enough honest feedback to know what to work on, though.
Meh. They may get that. They have to choose to listen to that though above all the bad advice of all sorts.
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> (Quoting a comment)
> but it is unfair (and would be unacceptable if applied to any other group) to paint men broadly with this negative label.
Good thing that is not what most do.
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> Why would you want to adopt some other culture’s idea of masculinity rather than (a positive) one that comes from your own?
Here we come to the crux: why adopt any model of imposed gender characteristics, be it my father’s era, or anyone else’s? I am a man. I do my best to be a good person, a good husband, a good father, a trusted colleague, good at my job, a reliable friend, a helpful person. Whatever I do in pursuit of those goals in what a man of today does as positive virtues. I admire who my dad was. He was a stereotype WW2 era guy. Tough. A boxer. A tough guy. Stoic. He was a man of his era. I don’t aspire to be him. I am a man if _my_ era and I define what “being a man” is for myself, by just trying to be the best I can be, within the context of _my_ time.
---
### Author:  [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/233 "2025-02-18T00:38:11Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> These ‘nice guys’ are usually much closer to incels than they are to actual nice guys.
Agree with this. I use to sometimes meet young men (before I got married) who were ‘nice’ because they were socially awkward and had no idea that women were about 95% just human like them. They usually turned out to not be actually nice, but simply fearful and awkward. Under the veneer they often seethed with anger and frustration.
Actually-nice people are comfortable in their own skin and are interested in people of any gender for their own sake, not for the sole hope of gratification of lust.
---
### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/234 "2025-02-18T00:38:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> colleges giving students the highly impractical advice that they should get verbal consent for each advance in physical intimacy.
I’m pretty sure this is an exaggeration created by people who don’t really believe in consent. I was once prepping a presentation for my reunion class in the same “back room” as a group of actors prepping for “consent training” for incoming first year students. I asked them about that, and they laughed, and said that no, consent was typically physical, not verbal, and that requesting consent can be very sexy. I also talked to my son after _his_ incoming class had similar training, and he agreed with what the actor said, and said he thought it was mostly pretty good, except for the sexist assumption of generally presenting the guy as likely to ignore that step.
I mean, I’m sure there is bad advice out there, too. But the focus on consent is, imho, a huge advance since my undergraduate days.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/235 "2025-02-18T00:45:58Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> What do you mean by “nice guys”? I have found that most men who describe themselves that way present themselves to women as friends. They make no romantic or sexual overtures. They then get very angry when women do not ‘reward’ them with a romantic or sexual relationship.
How much of that is true, and how much is a stereotype? It used to be that men who expressed romantic interest in a friend were accused of faking the friendship just to get in her pants. Now you accuse them of being not bold enough. Is there any evidence to back up either assumption?
Also, does either story really help anybody? Reads to me like “damned if they do, damned if they don’t”.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/236 "2025-02-18T00:49:31Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
> >
> > I just don’t know what “inherently masculine” means, if not “done by someone with testicles.” If that’s not what it means, I think it’s not a meaningful term, given how masculinity is culturally situated. If it is what it means, I’m not sure it’s more useful than describing the way to do certain things as “inherently redheaded” or “inherently gaptoothed.” If it means a third thing, can you explain?
>
> You can do some things in a right-handed or left-handed way, and most people prefer one or the other, but can choose to do the opposite when necessary. As far as we know, it’s a preference that people are born with, though it can be modified by the environment. Gender is a lot more complicated, but men and women naturally tend to be different in certain ways, this impacts and is impacted by the gender roles in a given society, and we recognise a subset of these differences as masculinity and femininity.
If you are serious about this, that there’s a “masculine way” and a “feminine way” to do things, i think you are factually incorrect.
I think there are a large number of traits that show some sexual dimorphism. The average man is taller, has less body fat, and more muscle mass than the average woman. For almost all of those traits, the dispersions overlap. There are pairs of men and women, who aren’t wild outliers, but where the women is taller and leaner than the man. There are a tiny number of traits where there’s very little overlap (eg, amount of testosterone) and a huge number of traits where the sexes have essentially identical dispersion (eg, blood type).
So when it comes to " ways to do stuff", men and women often do stuff identically. And when there’s a way that works better for short people, there will be overlap in who chooses which style.
That is, i think masculinity and femininity are just regions on the spectrum (of any trait) and individual people fall all over that spectrum.
So i think it’s harmful to try to pigeonhole people into the whole kit and kaboodle of masculinity and femininity.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/237 "2025-02-18T00:49:48Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> How much of that is true, and how much is a stereotype? It used to be that men who expressed romantic interest in a friend were accused of faking the friendship just to get in her pants. Now you accuse them of being not bold enough. Is there any evidence to back up either assumption?
We’ve had a few threads on ‘nice guys’. My search skills are weak. but I will try to find some.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/238 "2025-02-18T01:04:13Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> We’ve had a few threads on ‘nice guys’. My search skills are weak. but I will try to find some.
I probably read them at the time. That was somewhat what inspired my post; accustations that nice guys were just pretending to be nice.
> [@Ulfreida](#):
>
> They usually turned out to not be actually nice, but simply fearful and awkward.
Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
> [@Ulfreida](#):
>
> Actually-nice people are comfortable in their own skin and are interested in people of any gender for their own sake, not for the sole hope of gratification of lust.
Again, why does it have to be all one thing, or the other? It’s possible to like someone, and lust for them. I think they should go together more often than not, rather than one as a smokescreen for the other.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/239 "2025-02-18T01:07:50Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> I probably read them at the time. That was somewhat what inspired my post; accustations that nice guys were just pretending to be nice.
Does this mean I can stop searching? As I said, my search skills stink and it is taking me forever.
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### Author:  [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/240 "2025-02-18T01:08:04Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> Again, why does it have to be all one thing, or the other? It’s possible to like someone, and lust for them. I think they should go together more often than not, rather than one as a smokescreen for the other.
They should, and they often do. But not always. I was commenting about that type of young male who is trying very hard to appear nice in order to try to get a woman into bed, but scratch the surface and weird shit comes up. Has happened to me on occasion.
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