A self-proclaimed “nice guy” wonders why women seem to get bored of drama-free love and start looking for trouble.
Originally appeared at She Said He Said
Dear Sexes: Why do women not know how to handle a nice guy, or a guy who always shows a lot of love, and doesn’t disrespect them? In the beginning, they like all that, but then they start disrespecting you and they take advantage of such niceness. Nice guys ended up feeling frustrated because they don’t receive the same love that they give. Is it really true that what women like is drama, and bad guys who disrespect them, don’t call, and don’t show much love, or who they are?
She Said: Whoa, slow your roll there, partner. First, not all women dismiss nice guys. Here’s the crazy thing: I think “nice guys” are often attracted to drama-junkies.
We all go through times in our lives when we live for the drama. And there’s something so appealing about the fighting-fucking-fighting-mellow for three minutes-fighting-fucking cycle. But for too many of us (men and women alike) we fall into a trap of craving intensity as a replacement for true intimacy.
That cycle is really damaging, and it’s really tricky. The fighting and making up feels so intimate, but it’s not true intimacy if it’s so unstable and you’re always unsure of whether there’s going to be a big blow-up or not.
If you keep ending up with woman after woman who seems to crave drama, then it’s time to look at yourself. Sit down and make a list of the top 5 features that have attracted you to the top 5 women in your life. This is your 5 of 5. Feel free to repeat the same words over again in describing them. What you’re looking for are trends.
To look for the warning signs, figure out how each initially-attractive trait eventually turns bad. For instance, I think sometimes “nice guys” (and “caretaker women”) really love helping a woman and sort of crave that sense of being needed. Therefore, they tend to (subconsciously) drift toward women who need more help – as in, women who have a lot of drama (real or created).
And why do we love being with people who need more help? Then we feel indispensable. We feel important. We feel secure. But is it real security? No.
Take a look over that list of 25 traits and see what you can avoid in the future, as well as what you can heal in yourself.
He Said: Okay, are we talking about ALL nice guys, or one particular nice guy? Never mind, that doesn’t matter. Here’s the deal: women do like nice guys, but they also like a little mystery and excitement. So it’s better to be an adventurous nice guy, rather than a boring one. And regardless of how good a communicator you are, don’t share all your life stories in the very beginning. Be a good listener (though don’t be anyone’s therapist), and leave something to the imagination, when it comes her getting to know you. As a guy, it’s more important to have the ability and desire to communicate, rather than actually communicating everything all the time.
Occasionally women get confused with the whole bad boy thing. Some of them think that mystery, excitement, passion, and adventure can only come from a jerk. In reality, sometimes a jerk is just a jerk, and a boring jerk at that! But don’t worry about those neanderthals. You, just be your evolved, sharing, giving, communicative self. Eventually you’ll find an amazing woman, with enough intelligence and healthy self-esteem to realize she wants a rewarding relationship – with a good guy. Just remember my pointers and you’ll do fine!
About She Said He Said
Well said, my friend.
“So it’s better to be an adventurous nice guy, rather than a boring one.”
WHAM! That’s how it should be said! Best way I’ve heard it summed up in one sentence.
The “she said” also made a great point about feeling needed. It’s important to realize how dangerous it is to go after guys who are “in need of repair”. While guys don’t have as much of this danger, we still need to keep our eyes out, too.
Frustration and anger often lead to simplistic thinking. One example of simplistic thinking is the false dichotomy. One example of a false dichotomy is when someone reduces all men down to two supposedly opposite categories: nice guys or selfish jerks. In fact there are men who are both and men who are neither.
The world does not really follow high school stereotypes. Men do not actually divide into “arrogant jocks” and “nice guy nerds,” however much we want life to be that simple. If you’re trying to go back to re-do high school or you’re drawing lessons about women from adolescent experience, then you have to let go of that stuff. If you’re still in high school, bear in mind that it’s a very peculiar social context, not necessarily a good lesson about the real world.
I know it sounds like some deep, meaningful wisdom to reduce all men down to only two categories, but really it’s not. Sure, you can look at men through that lens and find all sorts of prejudiced anecdotal evidence to support that theory, but you’d have to ignore a lot of other things. For one thing, being jealous of another man who’s with “your woman” is hardly conducive to an objective analysis of his character. Of course he’s not going to be as good a person as you are, because he doesn’t love her the way that I do. No one could love her as much as you do, right?
Well said on the ‘false dichotomy,’ between nice guy and selfish jerk, wellokaythen. It really makes men seem one-dimensional. It’s rarely as simple as that.
One thing I find interesting is the men who consider themselves ‘nice guys’ and start to put on airs of being ‘assholes,’ based on the behavior they assume is ‘assholish’ in order to get women. So are they still ‘nice guys?’ Are they then ‘assholes’ because of their behavior…or does the intended deception make them actual ‘assholes’ in the end? Was that the endgame then?
@ Aya
There are guys who put on a “nice guy” persona to get women because they think it’s what women want. I don’t doubt guys would do it with the “bad boy” persona too. I don’t know that deception itself is sufficient to make someone an asshole. In the case of a 44 year old, true. A 20 year old might simply be foolish and not malicious. In the end, you’ll never be happy being someone else and relationships are work. If you’re not willing to put in the time or effort, it won’t work out “nice guy”, “bad boy”, or something in between. Relationships are compromise too.
There is a problem with the terms I think, if these nice guy weren’t trying to get women to own up to liking “jerks” and “assholes” they would make more progress with what it is they are trying to say.
I think that they could say that women can often prefer a male with some natural dominance and directness about him to a male that uses more covert female type relationship getting techniques such as being nice and helpful in order to initiate a relationship, and they would be more accurate and more women would agree with them.
I think it’s more about how we define nice guys and the double standards we place on the genders…why is being nice enough for guys but not when it comes to chicks?
“When was the last time a dude got hard for nice?” http://www.somethingshedated.com/2012/03/do-nice-guys-finish-last.html
Hold up isn’t there an issue now that a lot of women have with men who will take the slightest kind gesture and read something into it that is not there? I know I’ve heard plenty of women complain about guys that took a smile, a gimme gift on a holiday, or a simple “hello” as some weird confirmation that she must be ready to bone.
Hell it seems like being nice is all it takes for a guy to get interested in a woman.
“When was the last time a dude got hard for nice? Girls have to be fit, healthy and adventurous…but ya know…all the while maintaining a kind of fresh faced makeup-less beauty that allows for no faults of DNA. Boys want witty conversation, and upbeat personalities, smart opinions but polite decorum. They want the Princess without the baggage, the President without the power-trip and the Pornstar without the career…they want the pussy without the problems.”
Great quote, especially the first line. And yet, I’m often hearing on here that women are the ones with the overly high standards….
Great quote, especially the first line. And yet, I’m often hearing on here that women are the ones with the overly high standards….
Simple. Both are true and both actually happen. This is one of those cases where evidence of one happening doesn’t indicate that the other is not happening. Just the same way as boys and girls are raised when it comes to intergender hitting.
A lot of boys were raised on the strict value of “never hit a girl for any reason, but its okay for girls to hit you”. A lot of girls were raised on the strict value of “its okay for a boy to hit you, but you should never hit him back”. Depending on culture, location, and one’s parents both of these phenomenon happen and the fact that one happens does not prove that the other does not.
@ Aya
” Great quote, especially the first line. And yet, I’m often hearing on here that women are the ones with the overly high standards….”
I’ve heard many people even women (many who warn their boyfriends and husbands about straying) state that it’s easier for women to get laid than men. If that’s true, women may have higher standards.
That might be just the ideal. Like when young girls dream of marriage with the tall, handsome, powerful and successful man, who will rescue them from danger and shower them with material wealth like the big home.
@ Danny
“Hell it seems like being nice is all it takes for a guy to get interested in a woman.”
I don’t doubt that this happens, but we don’t see it so much because women are taught to be passive in relationships. If women were more aggressive, many women might misinterpret my natural friendliness for flirtation and act upon it. That would indeed bring visibility to the possibility. Being very uncomfortable around sexually aggressive women, you just gave me nightmares and that ain’t easy, since it’s the morning and I’m awake.
I don’t doubt that this happens, but we don’t see it so much because women are taught to be passive in relationships.
I’m talking about before relationships. I’m talking about randomly crossing paths on the street, working in the next cubicle over, next to each other in line at the market.
I’m told that women are taught that they must be nice and cheery at all times and that that nice and cheerniss is often mistaken asn an invitation of interest.
I was just questioning what was said about above about how being nice isn’t enough for a woman to get a man’s attention. From what I understand (from women themselves) being nice is actually too much.
Mind you I’m not saying that its right or anything. Just that it happens.
“I think it’s more about how we define nice guys and the double standards we place on the genders…why is being nice enough for guys but not when it comes to chicks?”
Confirmation bias.
Did you know that surveys of human sexuality in American culture find that approximately 25% of men have 75% of the sex? And the median number of life-time sex partners for a man is seven? (That means that half of men have seven or fewer sex partners in their entire lives.) The image of the serial womanizer banging everything that moves applies to only a small cohort of men. They can get away with this because they are either so naturally hot that women flock to them, or they put a lot of effort into their “game.” I heard explicit confirmation of this in a public radio program about hook-up culture on college campuses in which they interviewed a group of young women in a bar about how hard it is to find a boyfriend on a campus with a 55% female to 45% male gender ratio, and one of them sniffed, “…and only, like, 20% of guys are even worth talking to in the first place!”
I see plenty of evidence out there in online forums for the myth that each woman is a unique and special snowflake, totally unlike any other. While I agree that each woman is unique and special in some way, that notion really does not apply to women’s preferences in men. In general, all women pursue the same fundamental traits in men. And one of those traits, interestingly, is social influence and desirability. Think about that– one of the powerfully attractive things about a man is that he is attractive to other women!
The upshot? On the level of whole populations, all the women want to get one of the men toward the upper end of the (self-reinforcing) attractiveness pyramid. The men toward the top have many, many choices of potential partners, and therefore, they can afford to get picky. As you put it, they CAN get the pussy without the problems. (Or have enough potential partners lined up that they think they can.)
As an individual woman, (generalized over all the men you encounter in a lifetime) you’ll pick the men toward the the upper end of the attractiveness pyramid, too. Since those men can afford to get picky and hold out for the perfect woman, you will find that, “All men have incredibly high standards.” But it’s not all men, it’s just confirmation bias.
(Incidentally, there you have it, the flip side of the “nice guy” who only goes after the “9′s and 10′s” and wonders why he can’t get a girlfriend.)
But most men are attracted to the same fundamental traits in women as well. In my experience, 80% of the men pursue 20% of the women and the same is true of women (80% pursuing 20%). I’ve read articles that say that a majority of college women aren’t a part of hookup culture. If you are not at the top of the pyramid, you will have trouble dating.
I have to object to what you’ve said. I imagine that even an average looking woman will have far less trouble dating than even a pretty good looking man. For example, even a mediocre-looking woman on a dating website is going to get TONS of messages. Like I’ve said before, I have a complete profile and I have gotten 7 VISITS in 9 months. I have received 0 messages.
You are right, that is clearly the case on dating sites. Women (particularly young wonen) get swamped with responses. Whether that translates into greater success at finding partners, I don’t know. Women reject a lot of available men, that’s very true. Men are also rejecting a lot of available women. It just seems to me sometimes like there is this large cohort of lonely people who are all chasing a dream.
Of course it is going to translate into greater success! It’s like in sales. More leads == more opportunities == more sales. Are men rejecting a lot of available women? It is almost impossible for me to find examples of men turning down women.
It happens more than you think. I’ve asked guys out a few times in my life, and I’ve been turned down. And I don’t think I’m hideous, but I’m fairly average.
Well, I’m supposedly pretty attractive… or so I’ve been told by numerous older women, and I’ve always been rejected. It’s true I get a lot of women looking at me on the street, but I don’t think that really indicates that they find me attractive.
Yeah, and I’m a 98 lb. librarian/ballerina, who can cook like a demon, tuck her ankles behind her ears, check her own oil, and stop traffic in Paris. I also haven’t been on a date in years. There are no hard and fast rules governing these things.
@ Miss Information
You might want to try asking someone out. A lot of guys will see how wonderful you are and just assume that you must be dating someone. Other guys will be intimidated by your confidence. Even more guys will think you’re out of their league so why bother getting rejected.
@ John
That’s sweet, but of all the reasons for my non-existent love life, I don’t think that overwhelming fabulousness is really one of them. I do get asked. My dates forget to show. Guys also forget my name, my phone number, their intentions to e-mail (I’m a very forgettable person).
My point isn’t woe is me, why can’t I get a date. I know why perfectly well: jerks like me, I don’t like jerks; I like sweethearts, sweethearts aren’t interested in me (n.b. sweethearts not “nice guys” because there’s a difference). Attraction, love, and sex aren’t mathematical formulas. You can’t plug in the values and get a predictable result. It’s not so simple as “women don’t like nice guys”, or “confirmation bias”, or the 20/80 rule. Human beings are predictable in the aggregate, but not in the individual. We all have are own weird and individual sets of predilections and preferences, fears and scars. If you are having trouble getting a date, it’s about you, not about women in general or men in general, but all the things, good and bad, that you are carrying around in your personal baggage. Take ownership of that. It may not improve your love life. It certainly hasn’t done anything for mine, but it may stop all this unholy whinging about how unfair it all is. Life is not fair, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something (pace Inigo Montoya).
Hey, that’s one of my favorite lines….although I just remember Westley (Cary Elwes) saying that.
Absolutely, Sarah, I totally agree. It’s worked out okay for me, though, since I recently met a woman who works in Silicon Valley and hasn’t found a boyfriend for whatever reason. I think she’s just dandy, though. All those guys just don’t know what they’re missing.
@ Jonathan G
For a while I dated a security specialist who worked in the financial services sector. Since I’m in IT, you’d think we’d be a natural. It might have been a tech’s natural proclivity to seek out the security flaws in a system and a security specialist’s job being to stop that. I’m not saying that you’re not a wonderful catch (why am I feeling like Stiffler), but some of her difficulties may have resulted from her profession. A lot of IT guys are competitive.
“why is being nice enough for guys but not when it comes to chicks?”
Who said that. Niceness is one of the biggest things we are looking for. I prefer girls who smile, who are nice, who are sweet and who like to laugh. Why exactly do you think Don married Megan? What never ceases us to surprise men is that many women don’t seem to want this. Why exactly do you think Megan married Don?
I agree kindness is very attractive.
As a term, the word “nice” is itself quite broad. What makes a guy nice? Many of the qualities about being nice are things that unversally women tend to prefer. Things like being respectful, generally pleasant and warm. The bad boys can certainly display these characteristics. Where you get to the differences is when you enter into personality traits and a man’s responses to certain things. A bad boy might be more of a turn on sexually because his personality involves more confidence, but that confidence might also cause him to think he’s above extending common courtesy to a woman or returning a phone call now and then. A nice guy will maybe come across as less confident or passive so his personality may seem to indicate he is not going to be a good lover or is not as appealing sexually. But that passive nature may make him a better listener, so he is likely to be more in tune with hearing a woman, understanding her and remembering that because he values the importance of her individuality. He might just turn out to be a better lover because he can listen and take mental notes, whereas the bad boy might think whatever he does sexually is going to be great no matter the woman, no matter the situation, and he could suck.
“You, just be your evolved, sharing, giving, communicative self. Eventually you’ll find an amazing woman…”
How long is “eventually”? I’m 38 and haven’t found any yet, or if I did, they didn’t give me the opportunity to find out they were amazing.
A couple of problems for nice guys; #1 He thinks he should “Get to know” the girl before making his move, by then nice guy, you’re in the “friend zone”. Also by they time you feel you “know her” well enough to ask her out, one thing you don’t appear is confident. Confidence is the most attractive trait women see in men, and it took you 6 weeks to work up the courage to ask her out. #2 If you’re a “Bad Boy” and she does bad, dirty, nasty things with you, it’s your fault, you’re bad. If you’re a nice guy, she has to own those dirty desires and can’t blame them on you.
So do you have to be bad? No but you do have to have enough mystery about you that she can spin it in her fantasy life that you are, even if you’re not.
Speaking of ‘friend zone,’ as someone who’s put people there (and been put there), I have a few other things to add. Oftentimes, at least for me, there’s been and awkwardness involved. When I get too close to a friend, he starts to almost feel like a brother, and even if the guy is very attractive and confident, there’s a certain point where it starts to feel weird. Also, when a guy puts you on a pedestal, if you’re an insecure girl (like I have been), you feel like you’ll never be able to measure up to the fantasy the ‘nice guy’ has of you. That you’ll somehow disappoint him. You have so much more to lose in this type of situation.
Wife in the kitchen, whore in the bedroom. Is that what men want? If we want a relationship, generally no.
Nice guy to live with, bad boy to f*ck. Is that what women want?
As always, there’s more to these things than what’s on the surface.
For example, confidence is attractive to anyone you meet – ‘bad people’ (if there is such a thing) can often be ‘bad’ because they’re thinking of themselves and not considering others. People who don’t care much about what others think aren’t going to struggle in the same way with confidence issues as the ‘nice guy’ who’s jabbering and nervous trying to make a good impression.
Because you have to be a challenge to women, in other words you can’t talk to them everyday or every other day, you have to let them miss you a lot, they always have to be second place to work, career, sports, etc… women aren’t very logical, they want a love story. That story includes you always being out with friends and other women, you never ever txting them. In other words its not about her, its about you, your just being nice enough to let her tag along sometimes…. also on dates, keep it light, keep it funny. No serious talk at all, and do not ever conversate on the phone. The phone is only used to set up appointmens. And never see them more than twice in one week, and every other week, only contact her once that week… do this, I promise you’ll never have a girl problem again….
I disagree Jay. I don’t need a challenge. I am busy enough. I don’t want a love story or a fairy tale. That’s terribly unrealistic. I throughly expect anyone who likes me to call me. If all you do is text and then it’s only on occasion, then obviously you don’t like me enough and I haven’t the time for someone who isn’t going to put me first when it’s important. That’s a great way to keep a lot of girlfriends, sexual partners and friends, but not good for a serious long term relationship.
It’s not that women like the bad boys or seek them out. We end up with them sometimes.
But ask yourself, are you a nice guy? I can’t tell you how many self proclaimed nice guys I have dated(and ask any friend, I have never dated a man for his looks…brains are my thing). In fact, if you are calling yourself a nice guy and wonder why you aren’t banging a supermodel, you might want to return your nice guy card.
Lets assume for right now you are a nice guy. Do you really want to be dating half the women today? With feminism trying to turn the female populous into men, you really probably don’t. Women are trying to prove their empowerment by sleeping with lots of men so STDs are on the rise.
If we date bad boys it’s for several reasons.
1)Confidence: Jerks, Douchbags, and A**holes have a great deal of confidence. We (women) know they won’t be pining at home wondering where we are and if we have run off with the hot guy next door. That goes a long way. That guy who is standing up straight garnering attention ala a true alpha is really sexy.
2)No Whining: We hate men who whine. That’s almost as great a turn off as pulling your little friend out of your pants in a museum(yes it has happened to me). “Aww, poor me. Why can’t I get a hot girlfriend?” Women want someone to have a baby with, not a man who covers both roles.
3)Predictability: We know what we are getting into with bad boys.
@Lilly..
I do not regard myself as Mr. Nice. However, I am no bad boy either. I think most men are somewhere in between. Bad boys are probably 20% of men. But, maybe the 80/20 rules applies? They (bad boys) certainly get a disproportionate amount of the action. I think we can all agree on that.
You said, “We (women) know they won’t be pining at home wondering where we are and if we have run off with the hot guy next door. ”
Of course!!!! You really don’t care either way. Most bad boys are shtupping you and several other women as well. Most women know this. The guy has lots of options. Since most women are only interested in these kinds of men for short-term sexual relationships or someone to fill a void, him not pining over you is a red herring. Come on Lilly, let’s be honest here.
As for women having lots of partners, it is their own biz. I have zero interest in such women. I am a very low partner man (less than 7) and I am only interested in similar.
The bad boys might have the confidence, the c**ks, the swagger blah blah blah. But, we have the $$$$. In America, money talks and bullshit talks!!! Men have gotten wise and simply are no longer interested in long term relationships. There just isn’t much there for us.
We are never going to enjoy the sex that most women served up to their bad boy lover. So, why enter into marriage or LTRs if she is going to treat you in a manner inferior to her bad boy lover. Thanks but “No Thanks!”
Im gonna say this…WOMEN DON’T REALLY LIKE BAD BOYS. Disagree? Let’s make a comparison. If there is a nice guy who is good at sports, and knows how to dance, takes care of his health, and a bad guy who has the same traits, who do you think wins? The nice guy of course. Oh, but they’re boring and they’re not a challenge. Well ladies, when you date a bad boy, you already know you will get your feelings hurt. Yawnnnnnnn. This means that bad guys are just as boring, if not more! Which one is more than likely to have a good job, the nice guy! I will say this, there are “nice guys” who act nice only to you just to get in your pants, or try to, idk. THOSE AREN’T NICE GUYS
Look, I am a nice guy who happens to be good at sports,and I treat EVERYBODY with respect, even the ones I don’t care for. That’s the way God wants us all to be. Yeah I was bad up until about 8th grade, when my parents decided that I needed a change. I have girls always talking to me. Too bad I have to tell them I’ve been with the same beautiful woman for 3 YEARS! I think that most girls are talking about “nice guys” who are fat, lazy, or smell bad, because obviously their personalities are good. Nice guys, get out of the house, start taking care of your health, pick up sports, because I seriously doubt that a girl can say no to a nice guy who is athletic! NEVER change to a bad guy! Peace out..
when did they ever?, but many of these type of women are such losers anyway.