No Mister Nice Guy

This Kugelmass post (via AWB) on where Nice Guys come from is very good, and the explanation he gives seems accurate, judging from my experience. There was a time, around the end of high school, when I think I was in danger of falling into Nice Guyism myself, and I think JK’s explanation explains at least part of why I didn’t. My experiences were similar to the ones he describes in some ways, but there were some crucial differences that I think made most of the difference. The biggest one is the thing about female friends; I never had any really close female friends in high school, and so I never experienced that peculiar mix of unrequited lust and blithe cluelessness that seems to define the Nice Guy attitude toward women. I always really liked girls and preferred their company to that of other guys, but I was also shy and awkward enough that I wasn’t comfortable entering into any friendships with girls unless I had a definite expectation of becoming romantically involved with them, and when it (inevitably) became apparent that they weren’t interested in me I immediately stopped hanging out with them. This was kind of dickish and immature of me, but it did prevent me from falling into that weird “but if I just keep hanging out with her and offering her emotional support maybe she’ll change her mind and go out with me” mindset that tends to characterize the Nice Guy.

I’m often puzzled in these discussions when the subject of the girls the Nice Guys ignore comes up, because up until that point I can generally understand the dynamics that people are talking about, but when it emerges that these guys are ignoring their other female friends, who are madly in love with them, I feel like I’m suddenly in an alien world. If these guys have girls who want them, I think, then why don’t they go for them? This is nothing like my experience, and it makes me a lot less sympathetic to the guys. Kugelmass mentions that one thing about Nice Guys is that they “feel lonely, but the truth is that they’re not nearly lonely enough.”  This seems about right; I was very lonely in high school, but I didn’t end up concluding it was because I was too nice.

There were other factors as well that contributed to me not becoming one of these guys, I think.  Among them was going to college and meeting some of them and thinking “holy shit, I don’t want to be like that!”  Another, strange to say, was discovering this website.  While I realize now, and suspected at the time, that it’s totally full of shit, it sets up its theory of dating as an explicit rebuttal to the Nice Guy theory of dating, and allows a guy who’s trying to figure out how these things work to see an alternative explanation that is more realistic (though, ultimately, no more accurate) than the Nice Guy one.  It’s just as depressing, though, and I wasn’t very happy trying to see the world through its terms.

In college, of course, I actually got to know a lot of girls as purely platonic friends for the first time, and it was this that I think ultimately made me realize how stupid all those “theories” about women that lonely young men come up with are.  It began to dawn on me that women all have their own perspectives, their own likes and dislikes, about men and dating and sex, and that learning to appreciate them as individuals, as people, is ultimately the only way to have any true romantic success.

Now, as all regular readers of my blog are aware, I haven’t actually found any romantic success since that time.  I consider that largely a fluke, though, and attribute it to unfortunate circumstances and my own shyness and insecurity.  It’s certainly not because I’m too nice or poor or whatever, and as long as I keep trying (which, admittedly, is not something I’ve been great about recently) I’m sure I’ll find someone eventually.

I did sign up for Nerve the other day, so that’s something.  I’m actually pretty impressed with the women in my area that are on it; there’s definitely some potential there.  We’ll see how things turn out.