I think one of the biggest problems with talking about Nice Guys™ (I’m using the term gender-inclusively) is that there are several different kinds of people who fall under the Nice Guy™ umbrella. Admittedly, some forms of Nice Guy™ will evolve into other forms of Nice Guy™, much like Pokemon, but if you don’t know your Charizards from your Charmanders, you’re just going to end up confused.
Therefore, I will now break down the four types of Nice Guy™ I have observed in the wilds of both meatspace and the Internet.
Stage One Nice Guy™, or the Pseudo-Nice-Guy™
A stage one Nice Guy™ is a person who for whatever reason behaves in a typically Nice Guy™-ish way, but without actually having the characteristic personality traits of a Nice Guy™. By “behaving in a typically Nice Guy™ way” I mean not asking people out, befriending people and then expecting romantic relationships to happen by magic, expecting all the problems in your life to be solved by Twoo Wuv, “joking” about how if the person they liked dumped their partner and went out with them everything would be perfect, observing that women only like assholes/men only like bitches… all that stereotypical shit. Not all people who do that are true Nice Guys™!
The stage one Nice Guy™ is usually somewhat socially awkward and highly afraid of rejection; they may be prone to some pedestalization of people they want to date, but not to extreme levels. Although their traits may pattern-match to those of the true Nice Guy™, they are usually not any more sexist or objectifying than the average person. They often make quite good partners if you don’t mind making the first move.
Stage Two Nice Guy™, or the Objectifying Nice Guy™
This is, in my experience, the most common type of Nice Guy™. According to this type, the people they want to sleep with ought to work according to a formula, and if the Nice Guy™ fulfills the formula, they ought to be able to date the person they desire. Common formulas include being nice, being physically attractive, being rich, and being willing to treat one’s partners “like a princess” or “like a king.” The stage two Nice Guy™ rarely asks people out, because they are still terrified of rejection; besides, as long as they fulfill the formula properly, people ought to be coming to them.
Many pick-up artists are stage two Nice Guys™ who acquired a new formula that involves actually making the first move.
Stage Three Nice Guy™, or the Entitled Nice Guy
The stage three Nice Guy™ deserves a relationship, and they are pissed the fuck off that they haven’t got one. Of course, they’re not going to ask people out or anything, because they just know that everyone despises them for being so nice and so successful. They have done everything right according to the formula, and since they still don’t have the romantic relationship of their desiring, clearly the problem must lie in all those people who are running about refusing to sleep with them.
It may be somewhat difficult to figure out the difference between a stage two and a stage three Nice Guy™. The big difference, I think, is in the response to being rejected. A stage two Nice Guy™ will respond by beating themselves up and trying to figure out what they did wrong; a stage three Nice Guy™ will get very angry. How dare someone not recognize how awesome you are and reward it with sex!
Stage Four Nice Guy™, or the Misogynistic Nice Guy
I say misogynistic, because I have only seen straight men ascend to this form. The stage four Nice Guy™ knows why he can’t get laid: because women are BITCHES and SLUTS and WHORES and FAT and UGLY and ENTITLED and he DOESN’T WANT THEM ANYWAY and he is going to get a woman from ASIA where they are OBEDIENT and know how to TREAT A MAN, or maybe a SEXBOT, and oh god he is so alone. Many of them infest or even write the more obnoxious pick-up artist or men’s rights activist sites.
AllSaintsDay:
That is basically what I have been trying to say. As epsilon approaches zero, it eventually becomes wiser to simply not bother, and seek out other sources of happiness. Apparently, people think that this makes me a cynical monster of some kind.
@JenniferP: The commenter above who said that if he didn’t want to sleep with his female friends he wouldn’t be friends with them at all made me sad, because it seems like one more way of saying that a person’s worth is in her fuckability. I touched on this in the comments on Part Four, but for me and many other guys I know, the causation goes the other way: “a person’s fuckability is in her worth.” The things that attract me to someone as a partner vs. as a friend are pretty highly correlated. If I find someone awesome… Read more »
As I was reading my favourite humour website today, I noticed that someone had thrown a link to this odd little piece of gender policing: http://www.thefrisky.com/2011-12-28/12-guys-not-to-date-in-2012/ Number 7 on the list of undateable men? Lo and behold, it is our friend, the Nice Guy: “The Guy Who Can’t Get It Together To Ask You On A Date”. Why does he fail? Because his passive approach is an indication that the author of that stupid little list will be forced to “steer the ship” and “take charge”. Also, she mentions that if she “drops signals”, then she will “probably say yes”… Read more »
no more mr nice guy: “I think guys Friendzone themselves.” In my case I have done that a lot. Everybody is different, but many women need the man to nonverbally (tone of voice, eye contact, body stance, etc.) send the message “My body wants your body for sensuous and sexual contact. That is part of why I am attracted to you.” to register that there is a potential suitor around. Making a move, as in initiating some kind of body contact (a hand on her arm, or anything not too rash really), though ideally a second step (after “- My… Read more »
I’d just like to stop by and point out that some people like the geeky guys. Me, for instance. Y’all are hardly undateable now and forever amen. Some people are looking for a guy to share their nerdy interests and weird quirks with. 🙂
@BlackHumor, I’m nodding at your description here, and glad to see that the FEELINGSBOMB concept is spreading across the internet.
Someone who views a friendship with me as being Friend-Zoned will not be my friend very long, probably, and I’m glad that I’m of an age where I’ve grown out of my NiceGal “If just hang out here longing for you and being nice you will want me” tendencies, which believe me, were embarrassingly rampant in my youth.
Not sure whether to post this really quickly or hold out until I see another response so we can consolidate our two convos into one. XD I’ll go for really quickly! @ RocketFrog : Gotcha- I understand what you’re saying. Although I haven’t seen much TV so I am not super familiar with the show you’re talking about, but I’ve definitely seen the trope. On the flip side, there’s characters like Liz Lemon on 30 Rock who have a terrible time getting a date or characters like Lem and Phil on Better Off Ted that are married or frequently dating-… Read more »
@ RocketFrog : “Success or beauty are apparently regarded as necessary, but not sufficient, for being considered worthy of being wanted.” Agreed with you. And although I also agree with your statement that there’s more of an expectation of beauty from women and wealth from men as the primary expectations for suitability- I think men are still held to the beauty standard (although different kinds of beauty) on top of the wealth standard where women don’t seem to be held to a wealth one because it would probably be seen as emasculating for a man to rely on a woman… Read more »
Emily: At that point in my discussion with Schala, I was trying to think in terms of “cultural expectations” – something that is admittedly not my strongest side. Judging solely by popular culture and personal observations, a “geeky girl” is not considered an inherently undesirable creature, whereas a “geeky guy” is. Schala brought up the series “The Big Bang Theory”, which (although more markedly in its first season) frequently parodied this scenario. The geeky woman characters in the show (Dr. Leslie Winkle and Dr. Amy Farrah-Fowler) can and do pick up geeky men whenever they want, whereas the geeky men… Read more »
(Oops. Sorry for poor sentence quality above n…n)
Emily: […] couldn’t we all agree there’s an expectation for both men and women to be beautiful and hopefully wealthy to be worthy of being wanted? I agree, although it seems to me that the typical cultural expectation is highly gendered: Women are expected to be beautiful, men expected to be wealthy. Furthermore, I think there is an ill-defined personality component involved as well. A wealthy man is still not considered worthy of being wanted if he fails at being sufficiently “cool” and “manly”. A beautiful woman is still not considered worthy of being wanted if she is insufficiently “feminine”.… Read more »
@ RocketFrog : “The unfortunate flip side, though, is that a geeky guy is not exactly considered a geeky girl’s dream guy.”
Really? I’m not trying to detract from the conversation, but I don’t see that so much. But I also think things like that can vary really wildly within smaller societies or regions within a community, but I’ve felt like all the popularity of geekiness with the internet and games and such has been actually increasing the desire for either geeky guys or guys that at least mimic some geekiness (referring to traditionally hetero matches, anyway.)
Schala: I think you’re off there. Admitting you’re a male geek can be a form of rebellion against mainstream culture. Sort of saying “screw you sport-obsessed masculinity mandate people, I’m my own person!” It’s something you do AFTER you lost cultural value, when you think cultural value itself is a lost cause. Purely anecdotally: Nearly all the “geek communities” I have had any contact with have had vastly more men than women. This might be a function of local culture, but it seems to me that other geeks, of any gender, say a similar thing. There is less incentive for… Read more »
The “Friend Zone”, at least as I use it, is not a congenital thing. A specific woman(presumed) “friend zones” a specific man(presumed), and she(etc.) does it by rejecting him or dumping him with the phrase “but we can still be friends!”. It’s not a MALICIOUS thing; it actually SEEMS (at least to people who do it) like a very nice thing, because, hey, who doesn’t want more friends? Unfortunately this is a case of good intentions paving the road to hell, because what actually happens is usually that he can’t get over his romantic feelings for her and goes through… Read more »
@Emily:
What you’re describing are Nice Guys(tm). Guys that believe they are entitled to a woman. The guys have high standard and obsess over some type women and reject all the others women. A few years ago, in alt.support.shyness, there was a guy that had a woman that was chasing him and was constantly calling him. He refused to return her calls because he found her boring and after that he started bitching that women are picky.
@RocketFrog: “Friend Zone” can means many things: — A woman can be interested to be friend with a guy – not to become a girlfriend. — A Nice Guy is too shy to ask a woman and he put himself in the “Friend Zone”. That was Ozy example. — A Nice Guy(tm) believe that because he’s doing all sorts of thing for a woman, he’s her friend and she will become eventually his girlfriend while in fact she’s not interested at all by him. The guys think that he’s in the “Friend Zone” while for her he’s in the “Creep… Read more »
I don’t know, maybe this is in left field, but my experiences with self-proclaimed ‘nice guys’ I felt like it was more an issue of people struggling with what society tells us to value in a partner that was causing a problem with the ‘nice guy’ finding love than that he wasn’t trying to ask people out or expected it to come his way. Maybe that’s not the case for everyone obviously, but what I observed is that society puts emphasis on prettiness and success as the key factors for finding a partner. At least in reference to Het relationships… Read more »
“Unfortunately – although I may be wrong – it seems to me that there are more straight male geeks around than there are straight female geeks.” I think you’re off there. Admitting you’re a male geek can be a form of rebellion against mainstream culture. Sort of saying “screw you sport-obsessed masculinity mandate people, I’m my own person!” It’s something you do AFTER you lost cultural value, when you think cultural value itself is a lost cause. There is less incentive for women to reject the beauty-obsessed mandate, at least this overtly, because you still have cultural value (as a… Read more »
no more mr nice guy:
Then I have misunderstood the Friend Zone concept. I thought it meant the state of being permanently “friend material, but not romantic partner material”.
If someone tells others that a friend of theirs is a creep, then I do not really think that that person can meaningfully be considered a friend at all.
I don’t think that women can have the Madonna/Whore complex the way some men have it. I think guys Friendzone themselves.
Schala, continued:
A nitpick: I personally think that the only thing having a freakishly high IQ means is that a person is freakishly good at solving IQ tests.
An aside: I admire your compassion for romantically unsuccessful, awkward men.
Schala: I’d say the benign form is a romantically passive man who befriends someone and might later develop feelings for her, or might not know how to express interest in her, while not wanting to be too forward (because it might be seen as sexual harassment, even if only in his ethical system) about it. Perhaps I screwed up the pragmatics, but that is what I meant. By “unrequited crush”, all I meant was that the benign nice guy develops feelings for his female friend that she does not share (and she might in fact be unaware of his feelings).… Read more »
Not really, the Friend Zone is someone with a madonna/whore complex mentally putting you in the box labeled madonna. Unfortunatly someone got the idea that all women have a madonna whore complex and confirmation bias did the rest.
@RocketFrog
The normal way that people enter in relationship is by being already in relationships. Friends introduce you to other people or invite you to party where you meet other people. So having friends is normal. But on the other hand if a Nice Guy(tm) obsess over a woman that is not interested in him, she will not introduce him to other women, she will not invite him to parties and she will probably tell all other women that he’s a creep. That’s the Friend Zone.
Oh and “being nice” is not being a tasteless, uninteresting person. Or even ‘basic decency’. It’s actually the positive trait of being nice. Like being generous, attentive, studious taken together can mean “good person”. Being nice is not the basic state of non-murderers. It’s a positive state that is probably accompanied by other qualities, that people he has a crush on never get to discover, because they don’t ask him, and he won’t tell them without it coming to that (because that would be bragging). Leonard Hofstater (typo?) has a freakishly high IQ, no doubt, discovers stuff about physics that… Read more »