Dating is Miserable but it’ll get you laid

Kyle’s: “The Nice Guy or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Dates That Bomb”

What a night that was! I maybe should have explained my mission statement a little bit better before introducing Arthur Kade in his post yesterday. When I said I tapped my favorite male bloggers (and writers in general) I should maybe have mentioned I didn't respect all, well really one, of them. The reason I asked Arthur Kade to write about women and the nice guy is because I knew my chauvinistic lovable friend Zane wouldn't write it for me. So I thought of the man whose opinion I respected even less when it came to women and...well...I think you can figure out the rest.I promise that he is part of a bigger statement.

Plus the fucker called me "a 6 in her picture with pretty eyes and an Iowa looking face, but potentially chubby soft body from not dieting and 'Drinking too much'." which is probably pretty accurate but a fucking IOWA FACE?!??! What the hell.

As usual, the asshole guy is over shadowing the nice guy. The next person I asked to write is my dear friend and resident nice guy, Kyle.

Why I Chose Kyle:
Kyle really is the nicest guy I know who is also witty and a great writer. His views on things are usually well thought out, funny, and very intelligent. He resisted the idea initially reminding me, and I'll give you the same warning, "As you well know, my #1, #2, and #3 problems with writing are an overabundance of verbosity... in that if something can be said in 3 words or in 5, I'll use 8". I assured him it was okay and he agreed. I encourage you to read the entire thing, yes it's long (that's what she said) because as he put it, "Any blog post that can involve Shakespeare, He's Just Not That Into You, Empire Records, and Mad Men has to be awesome." and I couldn't agree more!

[Disclosures: I’ve been accused of being a “Nice Guy” for many years, so my opinions may be biased. However, I’ve been engaged and gone through long spans of being in relationships and being single, both voluntarily and involuntarily, so this does come from more than just “I can’t get a girl wahhhh!”]

.

i. Background

In Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, Scene II, three married men make a bet for 100 crowns about who can get their wife to come to them when called. The first, Lucentio, bids his wife Bianca to come. She refuses. The next, Hortensio, entreats his wife to come. Not only does she refuse, she bids him to come to her, much to the amusement of his cohorts. The final husband to step up to the plate, Petruchio, commands his wife Katharina to return to the room. The others laugh at him, especially knowing how hard-headed his wife is, but lo and behold, Katharina quickly walks in, and asks, “What is your will, sir, that you send for me?”

The Taming of the Shrew was written in 1596. Even in the 16^th century, people were being taught by the fine arts – if you want something from a woman, don’t waffle on it. “Be a man”, demand what you want, and don’t make it an option. Don't bid, don’t entreat, but instead command! It was 1596, and already Willy S. was teaching us that a woman doesn’t respect someone who respects her, doesn’t respect some namby-pamby BOY who would beg, entreat, negotiate, and be wishy-washy. Over four hundred years later, the same games and rules exist.

.

1. Introduction

Ah, the Nice Guy. Opinions on him vary widely, and thoughts on his prospects are just as varied. Some people respect him, some people think he’s just another version of Nessie, the enchanted creature of the Emerald Loch - something of which there’s no real evidence other than a blurred photo and some whispered rumors. In the end, most people just feel bad for him, in the same way you feel bad for the cute puppy with three legs. You know he can’t help it, but you’re still sad because you know his chances of chasing down a ball first are just a little too remote. In the end, nobody really knows what to do about the Nice Guy. A perfect example of this is the direction I was given for this post. “You can write about his plight. Give advice. Crucify him. Really I don’t give a shit.”

I thought about it, and couldn’t pick just one of them... so I decided to do all of them! You’re not MY readers, so if a dissertation on the Nice Guy is going to make Miss Miserable’s readership drop by 73.26%, no skin off my back... she asked for it! So, I’m going to break it into categories, and we’ll see if by the end of this journey that we’re about to embark upon together, we’ve figured the Nice Guy out, and come up with both an opinion on him and some advice for him.

.

2. The Nice Guy, Defined

So to what am I referring in this post when I refer to the Nice Guy? I’m sure if you asked 100 people to define him, you’d get 77½ different opinions. So here’s the scope of what I’m talking about here.

For the purposes of this post, a “Nice Guy” means someone who:

• Regardless of what he hears about “how to get the girl”, is almost unfailingly going to be nothing but respectful toward women -- because he can’t stomach doing anything else.
• May sometimes dive into the world of saying something slightly less than positive (a mean comment, a failed attempt at “a neg”, etc.) -- but will generally end up feeling guilty and apologize for it later.
• Will play “shoulder to cry on”, lend an ear to listen to stories about the asshole guys the girl he likes is dating, and, if requested, drop what he’s doing to “be there for her” or help her with some emergency. Not because it’ll get him laid, but because he wants to help someone he cares about.
• Usually ends up in the infamous “friend zone” because … well, he’s just so gosh-darn NICE! He’s like a *drumroll* brother! (Kiss of Death right there)
• At the end of the day, is going to put someone before himself because he’d rather them have happiness, even if it means a little bit of extra work on his part.

Nobody really meets ALL of these criteria, but the Nice Guy is the kind of guy described above - not forward, not brash, not throwing out pick-up lines at a bar or being inaccessible just for the sake of it. He is more about caring about the people he wants to be with and putting them before himself whenever such a situation arises.

.

3. Hollywood’s View of The Nice Guy

So what does pop culture say about him? You have songs from the great bards of our time, Green Day, like “Nice Guys Finish Last.” If you type “Why do girls like” into Google, the first two suggestions are “Why do girls like bad boys” and “Why do girls like jerks”. The entire crux of He’s Just Not That Into You is “Guys are assholes; the instant he doesn’t want to bang you, he’s off trying to bang someone hotter and easier than you.” On VH1, we have “The Pick-Up Artist”, a show entirely devoted to how to be a dick to a girl and make her work hard to convince you that you should sleep with her.

And yet, in film, who usually ends up winning out in the heart-melting stories of love? The puppy-dog character that everyone was really rooting for, but that she just … *sigh* … didn’t notice. From Bridget Jones’s Diary to Swingers, Say Anything to If Lucy Fell, Legally Blonde to Empire Records, these sad saps always seem to end up with the girl. Everyone’s heart is warmed, and they leave with a happy look on their face, and hope in their heads. If they’re a girl, they leave thinking that one day they too will find that “right guy” who really knows how to treat them right, and will be nothing but sweet and giving, and they’ll be living out “happily ever after”.

Society tells us that women SHOULD want a Nice Guy, but how does it usually play out in reality?

.

4. What Reality Teaches Us About The Nice Guy

In reality, most girls don’t REALLY want the Nice Guy. Many of them think that they do, but when confronted with it, it doesn’t happen. So... why is this?

The Nice Guy looks great when up there on that big screen for those 110 minutes. On paper, he’s great! He’s smart, he’s sweet, he’s caring, he really “gets” her. Who WOULDN’T want that?

Well, in the end… a lot of people. Sad as it is, people love drama. Girls do, guys do. Having someone who does everything you ask of them, is unfailingly loyal, cares about you that much, and puts your interests in front of his all the time? That’s kinda boring. I mean, it’s great once you’re 6 or 8 months into a relationship and just need someone to curl up on the couch with -- but to start with? Notsomuch.

To be honest, let’s look at our wonderful blog hostess. The entire POINT of this whole site is to complain about how crappy guys are and how bad dating really is. Go back through the last few years of Miss Miserable’s dating life, and count the number of guys she’s dated vs. the number of guys that turned out to be total assholes. Recently there was the guy who turned out to be dating on the side even after months together… there was the rocker cokehead banging groupies at will… guys who just completely ignored her in order to live their own lives regardless of what she wanted... and others that did far worse. Do we think that this is just because she’s never come across a Nice Guy? I’d imagine not. She meets a lot of people, and gets to know a lot of people, why do all these relationships turn out to be with jerks? My guess is that it’s because the Nice Guys are the ones that give her space, console her after these relationships blow up in her face, and end up being “great friends”, and the alpha, brash, up-front, making-a-move, being aggressive about trying to make something happen, don’t-give-a-fuck-about-friendship guys are the ones that get the dates, and get into the relationships -- a good recent example being The Lawyer. After “the incident” transpired, instead of looking for what she claims to want and never speaking to him again, the relationship continues. Maybe there's a part of her, conscious or not, that really wants Snoop Dogg more than Barry White after all.

And a lot of guys have picked up on this. I have a friend in New York, Kyle, who is so jaded it’s unbelievable. I’ll find him online and talk to him about a girl I’ve been pursuing recently, and talk about how she was really excited to show off a new outfit that she got just before we hung out. His response? “You should have told her she looked fat. She’ll feel bad about herself and want to fuck you to feel better about it.” I mention how a girl has been mostly dating douchebags and assholes the last couple of years that ignore her, take her for granted, and sleep around behind her back. The reaction? “That’s what every woman wants. You can’t compete with that!”

He didn’t get to this point just by suddenly deciding one day he wasn’t going to respect women or hold their relationship tactics in any sort of high regard. He was trained, by bad relationship after bad relationship, by stupid decision after stupid decision made by female friend after female friend of his, by night after night of his college neighbors coming by to cry about the assholes they were dating, to swear them off (for good this time!), only to rinse and repeat the whole thing again a week later. For years he watched this happen, with EVERY girl he knew, and decided he’d figured out how the female brain works. Treat them badly, they feel like they’re not good enough for you, and they will come back twice as devoted and loyal! Treat them nicely, and they realize there’s nothing to strive for. It quickly becomes boring, and they move on. The more he tested this, the more he was proven right, over and over again.

.

5. Why People Want To Believe in The Nice Guy

Most women will say that they either believe or want to believe that Nice Guys really have a chance.  That they’d jump at the chance to be with that right guy, that guy who will appreciate them, who will respect them, who will return the love that they give and more. Nice Guys are told that such women are out there, ready to be swept off their feet. This is usually, however, followed by a caveat: “When you start being around girls who are a bit more mature and who can appreciate what it is that you provide.” The problem is, this is something that starts being said from the time these guys are 15 years old. I’m 25 now, and there’s no end in sight, no magical “maturity line” that’s coming up when suddenly women will start looking for something different in a guy.

That’s not to say girls don’t spend time looking for a Nice Guy. Every time a girl gets dumped by an asshole, gets left hanging by some idiot who decided to sleep with the bartender at the Applebee’s down the street, she’s “done” with “guys like that”. She “just wants to find a nice guy who will really appreciate me”. She’s SWEARING OFF asshole guys! Next time, for SURE, she’s going to go get a Nice Guy!

But inevitably, possibly after using up a Nice Guy as a rebound guy until she’s back in the saddle, her next Facebook photo album post is filled with smiling pictures of her and some guy who’s clearly checking out the breasts of the girl walking by as the camera goes off.

.
6. Why Nice Guys Finish Last

So why is it like this? Doesn’t some kind of logic dictate that women really SHOULD want to be with Nice Guys? Hasn’t it been long enough since the caveman days that we don’t NEED to go for the alpha male who’s in it for nothing but himself?

Short answer: No.

In the end, Nice Guys are great, and yes, some women can and do appreciate them. Even Mr. Jaded Kyle from New York himself has found a nice girl who appreciates kindness, sincerity, and a drama-free environment. There’s no arguing it, they do exist. But especially in the mid-20s age range, it’s not about that for the majority of women. It’s about excitement. It’s about attraction. It’s about spicing things up. It’s about all sorts of things, but “really being deeply appreciated” isn’t one of them. That’s why in that age bracket, assholes and guys who treat women terribly are some of the most popular characters on television. Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother - the definition of the one-night-standing, disrespectful, user of women. Dr. House on House, possibly the biggest jerk to ever grace the small screen (who once convinced his ex-wife to leave her kind, devoted, loving husband to go back to a vortex of mutual self-loathing and self-destruction -- a perfect example of the kind of illogical decision-making this whole post is about). And more recently, Don Draper on Mad Men. Drinking all the time, being an aloof ass to his wife, cheating on her every chance he gets, being a dick to everyone else in his life… but look at that chiseled jaw! Look at his PRESENCE! Honestly, I cannot even count the number of girls I’ve talked to in the last few months who said they’d sleep with Don Draper. (Perfect example: one of the people who edited this post for me, immediately upon reading the name “Don Draper”, said “Ooh, Don Draper... I’d totally do him!”)

To all the women out there reading this and saying “Oh, that’s not me! I’m totally not like that. If a really nice/sweet/caring guy came along, and seemed like he was ‘Mr. Right’, and would appreciate me, I’d jump at the opportunity and be grateful for it!”… I want you to think back over the last couple of years. Think back to all the guys that have liked you, been really sweet, and really overly “there” for you. Not ignoring you, not making you question what he was thinking or whether he was interested, and making contact as often as possible. Maybe you didn’t think it was because he was a Nice Guy, but out of all of those guys that have been in your life, how many of them did you just “not feel a spark” with? How many of them did you just “not see in that way”? That, my dear lady-friends… is what this entire post is about. Just because you don’t mean for it to happen, or don’t notice it happening, doesn’t mean it doesn’t/isn’t.

.
7. Conclusion (The Final Word Or: HOLY SHIT I'M DONE WRITING)

So, my final note to the female portion of the audience: if you don’t want all of the Nice Guys in your world to turn into Petruchios, doing their best to be jerks and alpha males to make you swoon -- it’s time to show us that it’s not 1596. That you want a guy who will respect you, who will appreciate you instead of figuring out which one of your friends will sleep with him when they’re drunk. Stop rewarding bad behavior, punishing good, and complaining when you end up getting dumped by a guy for no good reason, cheated on by a guy, or just treated badly for months by a guy.

I entreat you.