Oh, and one other thing -- TED MOSEBY IS A NICE GUY (TM). He goes overboard, he stays friends because he keeps hoping the magic will happen -- I actually don't like him. I watch that show for Barney.
@earthgirl: I actually disagree. I think Ted is actually a nice guy, but can sometimes exhibit passive-aggressive Nice Guy tendencies. He does actually care about Robin's friendship, both before and after they broke up. He doesn't guilt her about it, revile her for rejecting him, or sit around moping, trying to prove he's the one for her. He sucks it up, dates other girls, and does his best to keep Robin as a real friend.
@leslieannelevine: I wholeheartedly agree. While Ted's a hopeless romantic, he's not a Nice Guy - if he were, he'd still attempt friendships with Victoria and Stella, you know?
Too many guys use the line: "So why don't women like nice guys?" to me as an attempt to start a conversation with me in bars. My general answer is usually to explain to them that they're not nice, they're just passive aggressive and I'm not interested in that shit.
'Nice Guys' act as though their 'niceness' is outside their locus of control so they can't do anything (work on personality, confidence etc) to improve their chances of getting a date because girls just don't like nice guys. They treat their perceived niceness as an immutable trait that hinders their dating prospects but often that isn't the case.
This is just a way to blame women for their situation instead of working on ways they can be more appealing. Bad boys probably end up being appealing because in some sense the project confidence and they're direct, upfront and don't BS.
Also isn't there a tendency for nice guys under the guise of being nice to be passive aggressive and then progressively more aggressive particularly once you break up with them and what about shy/awkward guys that hide under the guise of i'm such a nice guy which is why i can't get a date as opposed to i lack confident or my personality is off putting.
I think the idea that women like bad boys comes from a couple of places.
1) TV/Film/Movies always show it. Does anyone else remember a series of YA books that I think of as the name books? Everyone had a girl's name for the title and the girl was always part of a huge historic event (Johnstown Flood, Gettysburg). There were always two boys, one nice but secretly selfish and one who was an ass but helped her in some way to end up with her. Its only as an adult that I've realized how messed up that is.
2) Some girls do tend to like drama and/or a guy who will boss them around a lit and these girls tend to be pretty vocal about it.
3) Bad boys by definition lie.
Obviously these aren't unbreakable man categories, but I do tend to think there are bastards and know it, guys who are entitled asses but think they are sweet dorks, and normal, stable men.
@clevernamehere: 1) Yes! I was thinking about that series just a few days ago! Adding to the ick factor was that the guy she ends up with is inevitably ethnically/socially "right" for her, according to her family, whereas the initial "nice" guy wasn't Jewish/Catholic/Italian/working class/etc. Creepity.
@mayfly: This is the best explanation and I am replying just so you get the big box! If anyone doesn't understand what "Nice Guy" or Nice Guy (tm) mean, they should read that.
First I think nice guys don't pu the priority on getting sex (it's just nice if it happens)
I have seen many women who like the bad boys (and guys who like the naughty girls) at first but when they get older have a change of heart.
There was one case when I was teaching when one of my male students who was a nice guy didn't get a second look from the women who all swooned for the class jerk. In the end the jerk got most of the ladies and left them heart broken.
Sure maybe 10 years later (or 30 years later) the nice guy will have a chance with one of them but it also means that he will be/feel like the rejected out cast for most of his HS and college life.
@FitzChivalry: I've known guys like this and I think that most of the time the issue isn't how nice they are, its that they cannot tell who is interested.
When I think of all the girls I knew in high school, lots of them had crushes on guys who weren't considered at all cool. Teenagers are awkward and girls in particular wait for some show of interest.
I think a lot of guys who felt like losers in high school probably could have dated the cute girl who sat behind them in bio, but they were either too insecure or too focused on the head cheerleader to notice. Blaming the cheerleader doesn't get to the actual problem.
@FitzChivalry: There are worse things in life than being the dude who couldn't get laid in high school. For instance, being the guy who can't get laid after he's finished high school.
@FitzChivalry: As a girl who used to hook up with "bad boys," I can tell you that it's not that the "bad boys" carry any sort of specific allure, at least not for me. It's that they were the only ones who made their desire for me known.
The "nice guys" who liked me were the ones who would clam up and not talk at all when I was around. It never occurred to me that those guys liked me; I just thought they were weird.
You gotta put yourself out there if you want to get anything back.
@Your Screenplay Sucks: I think be nice not too nice makes sense if too nice is thought of as things that would make you unhappy. But if it is defined as things that you fear might make you seem too nice its a little messed up.
@clevernamehere: I think I mean that there's such a thing as being too accommodating, too available, etc.- I feel like even the kindest among us have a tendency to take people who are too nice in that way for granted.
Like Lady Gaga insisting on her artistry-sans-pants, those who feel the need to declare themselves to be something are rarely that which they are declaring themselves as. Real nice/feminist guys just kind of...are. Their niceness/feminism reveals itself in their actions.
There are a number of problems with that whole Nice Guy/Bad Boy paradigm. It doesn't have to be either/or, but Nice Guys are particularly convinced that it does. Nice Guys are convinced that they are in fact nice, when often by definition they are not. Nice Guys are convinced that niceness is the most desirable quality in a human being, when it is mostly a desirable quality in fresh fruit or an insurance salesperson or cellophane tape. Nice Guys think that they need to explain to you in long and elaborate emails just where you fell off the turnip wagon. Nice Guys depend on books of varying types to explain human behavior to them, and many of these books are fictional. Nice Guys get wounded if they can't make you have an orgasm. Then you are supposed to comfort them.
All told, it's a wonder they don't get even fewer women than they do.
@TheFormerJuneBronson: Spot-on. May I add that Nice Guys also never leave you alone after breaking up with you because they need to make sure that they are, indeed, very nice and not just another asshole, so they ask for forgiveness over and over in a really condescending, self-indulging way, so you remember that they're nice? Nice Guys need to be have their Niceness validated all the time.
@TheFormerJuneBronson: This is so true it hurts. Why, oh why, do Nice Guys (tm) expect your to comfort them when you don't enjoy sex enough to suite their fragile egos? *head desk*
@tetragami: My college boyfriend actually got angry with me because he couldn't make me come. I did very reasonably explain the insanity of this paradigm, but he was too angry to hear me. He was also angry, hurt, and confused when I broke up with him. It's been thirteen years, and I was not shocked recently to read that he's still single.
@Casquivana: I was just thinking of all the passive-aggressive CEsFAD we read on this site, and how many of those guys think they are Nice Guys. They all seem to be saying, "I'd ask for your forgiveness if I thought I'd done anything wrong in the first place, but the truth is that I'm Nice, so if anything went wrong, it must have been because of something you did. I'm doing you a kindness by pointing this out."
the Nice Guys are the ones that don't break up with you when they should for fear of hurting you so so badly...after only a few months of dating. As if they'd be so hard to get over that you'd be crushed for life...
My theory about Bad Guys (with some help from Jared Diamond):
Nature has granted individuals of various species certain attributes to indicate to other members of their species that their DNA is particularly desirous. In most cases, these attributes are actually detrimental to the individual's survival--a really long tail for a peacock, ridiculously large antlers for an elk, etc. The idea is that anything that could survive with that kind of impediment must be a badass, so the female of the species should get some of that successful DNA right quick.
For humans, these detrimental attributes are usually behavioral rather than physical. A guy who is an absolute prick to everyone around him but has managed to survive with all of his teeth intact *must* have something else going for him. Likewise, guys who smoke/drink/abuse drugs to excess, etc. *must* be really successful in some other regard.
The part of our brains that hasn't evolved all that much sees a jerk in the same way that a doe elk sees a bull elk with enormous antlers. Fortunately, the part of our brains that *has* evolved tends to kick in after we've dated a few of them.
@la.donna.pietra: That theory is in no way supported by behavioral ecology. Many "aggressive" individuals of a variety of species are less likely to mate than the less aggressive individuals. If you're interested, I'll try to dig up some papers.
I married a guy. Not a NiceGuy(TM), just a guy. A dude. It's lasted. The one NiceGuy who targeted me treatened to show up on my wedding day to make a scene, because it would "just save [me] the heartache."
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This is just a way to blame women for their situation instead of working on ways they can be more appealing. Bad boys probably end up being appealing because in some sense the project confidence and they're direct, upfront and don't BS.
Also isn't there a tendency for nice guys under the guise of being nice to be passive aggressive and then progressively more aggressive particularly once you break up with them and what about shy/awkward guys that hide under the guise of i'm such a nice guy which is why i can't get a date as opposed to i lack confident or my personality is off putting.
07/02/09
1) TV/Film/Movies always show it. Does anyone else remember a series of YA books that I think of as the name books? Everyone had a girl's name for the title and the girl was always part of a huge historic event (Johnstown Flood, Gettysburg). There were always two boys, one nice but secretly selfish and one who was an ass but helped her in some way to end up with her. Its only as an adult that I've realized how messed up that is.
2) Some girls do tend to like drama and/or a guy who will boss them around a lit and these girls tend to be pretty vocal about it.
3) Bad boys by definition lie.
Obviously these aren't unbreakable man categories, but I do tend to think there are bastards and know it, guys who are entitled asses but think they are sweet dorks, and normal, stable men.
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[en.wikipedia.org])
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[divalion.livejournal.com]
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I have seen many women who like the bad boys (and guys who like the naughty girls) at first but when they get older have a change of heart.
There was one case when I was teaching when one of my male students who was a nice guy didn't get a second look from the women who all swooned for the class jerk. In the end the jerk got most of the ladies and left them heart broken.
Sure maybe 10 years later (or 30 years later) the nice guy will have a chance with one of them but it also means that he will be/feel like the rejected out cast for most of his HS and college life.
07/02/09
When I think of all the girls I knew in high school, lots of them had crushes on guys who weren't considered at all cool. Teenagers are awkward and girls in particular wait for some show of interest.
I think a lot of guys who felt like losers in high school probably could have dated the cute girl who sat behind them in bio, but they were either too insecure or too focused on the head cheerleader to notice. Blaming the cheerleader doesn't get to the actual problem.
07/02/09
07/03/09
The "nice guys" who liked me were the ones who would clam up and not talk at all when I was around. It never occurred to me that those guys liked me; I just thought they were weird.
You gotta put yourself out there if you want to get anything back.
07/02/09
I've always followed this philosophy in dating and it has worked great for me. Of course, I may just be a complete asshole.
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All told, it's a wonder they don't get even fewer women than they do.
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the Nice Guys are the ones that don't break up with you when they should for fear of hurting you so so badly...after only a few months of dating. As if they'd be so hard to get over that you'd be crushed for life...
07/02/09
Yeah, I've been out with a few; why do you ask?
07/02/09
Nature has granted individuals of various species certain attributes to indicate to other members of their species that their DNA is particularly desirous. In most cases, these attributes are actually detrimental to the individual's survival--a really long tail for a peacock, ridiculously large antlers for an elk, etc. The idea is that anything that could survive with that kind of impediment must be a badass, so the female of the species should get some of that successful DNA right quick.
For humans, these detrimental attributes are usually behavioral rather than physical. A guy who is an absolute prick to everyone around him but has managed to survive with all of his teeth intact *must* have something else going for him. Likewise, guys who smoke/drink/abuse drugs to excess, etc. *must* be really successful in some other regard.
The part of our brains that hasn't evolved all that much sees a jerk in the same way that a doe elk sees a bull elk with enormous antlers. Fortunately, the part of our brains that *has* evolved tends to kick in after we've dated a few of them.
This would be why we're human and elk are not.
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Facebook tells me still single. Imagine that.