Nice Guy Syndrome

[sickofbeinglonely]

This has probably been discussed umphty times on the board but I just thought I'd bring it up again for bad measure.

Why is it that nice guys never seem to get anywhere? I sometimes wish I'd been born an arsehole if it helped me to be more successful in life. I know I don't want to be nasty but I often think I'm never going to get anywhere in life by being so bloody submissive!! :x

I know I've got to seriously change to become the man I'd like to be. But sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it...

 

[Thelema]

Its true girls don't want nice guys. They say they do but they really just want an asshole. But if we use that as an excuse we won't ever get anywhere. I have a friend thats a woman and she says the most important thing to her is a confident guy with a good heart.

 

[LA-girl]

Its true girls don't want nice guys.

This is just as true as saying: "All boys are assholes"!
And if both arguments turns out to be true, then there really is no problem! :wink:

 

[crazyfairyx]

The problem isn't nice guys don't have girlfriends, the problem is YOU don't have a girlfriend. My boyfriend is a nice guy, and he's got a girlifriend (me) and I know a lot of other nice guys with girlifriends.

By saying 'nice guys don't get girlfriends' or something similar you are blaming your situation on society and taking the victim role, that's your choice, but the fact is, it just isn't true. Not all nice guys are sitting around feeling lonely. Yes horrible guys get girls but the fact is they are louder about it than anyone else and they go for the easy girls. Nice guys don't usually go for girls with skirts that show their bums off and go sleeping with 50 guys a week, horrible guys do. The only thing you're 'missing out on' really is taking advantage of nice girls and sleeping with lots and lots of easy cheap girls, if that's what you're after, well, you can't class yourself as a nice guy lol. If that's not what you're after, then you have the wrong idea of what horrible guys actually do. They don't fall in love and get a lovely girlfriend, they might get a lovely girlfriend and treat them badly, but hopefully that's not what you want.

Nice guys quite often get nice girls, it just takes longer than it does for a nasty guy to go out and find a nasty girl, because they are the type of people who go flaunting themselves and are therefore easy to find. If a nice girl was flaunting herself and being easy to get, she wouldn't be nice. It's very rare for something worth having being easy to get.

 

[Thelema]

Look at how many girls get beat up every year and how many single mothers there are that is proof that women would rather have a bad guy. From what I've seen the girls here want nice guys but I don't believe for a second this is what most girls want. Girls say they want the nice sweet honest guy but they go for the opposite of that all the time. The nice guy ends up being just a friend while she goes searching for an asshole.

 

[crazyfairyx]

Look at how many girls get beat up every year and how many single mothers there are that is proof that women would rather have a bad guy. From what I've seen the girls here want nice guys but I don't believe for a second this is what most girls want. Girls say they want the nice sweet honest guy but they go for the opposite of that all the time.

Well what about all the happy relationships there are? You are only seeing what you want to see, not every women in a relationship is getting beaten up, not every women is in an unhappy relationship, therefore not every women is with a horrible guy. My guy buys me flowers, cuddles me, talks to me when I have problems, I fail to see how he is possibly the only nice guy on the planet with a girlfriend, especially as I know other nice guys who are in relationships. You are just trying to explain away why you don't have a girlfriend instead of looking at yourself and being honest with yourself.

 

[Y]

Look at how many girls get beat up every year and how many single mothers there are that is proof that women would rather have a bad guy. From what I've seen the girls here want nice guys but I don't believe for a second this is what most girls want. Girls say they want the nice sweet honest guy but they go for the opposite of that all the time.

Well what about all the happy relationships there are? You are only seeing what you want to see, not every women in a relationship is getting beaten up, not every women is in an unhappy relationship, therefore not every women is with a horrible guy. My guy buys me flowers, cuddles me, talks to me when I have problems, I fail to see how he is possibly the only nice guy on the planet with a girlfriend, especially as I know other nice guys who are in relationships. You are just trying to explain away why you don't have a girlfriend instead of looking at yourself and being honest with yourself.

Hes gotta a point there, somehow everyone has a part that wants to be ruled and tortured maybe, and it is more dominant in girls, and everyone likes confident people, sometimes even i pity social phobics that are worse than me (its a thought i cant block), its like the force of nature, powerfuls rule weaks and weaks like to be ruled, powerful ones earn respect that comes out of fear.

Noone likes bad guys but cos of fear everyone respects them and treats them nice, and they wanna be with them, so in the end nice guys are the losers...

 

[Kinetik]

Being an arsehole gets you nowhere. Being confident, having a spine, showing healthy indifference and independence at times - that's a different story. Humour's a big plus too. But I think women are attracted to a bit of danger and unavailability, and there's nothing wrong with that. We guys are the same - we'd ignore someone who was "easy" and downright slutty. So yeah, the standards that are out there are pretty necessary if you ask me. And life should be a challenge. Hell I'd be so bored of women if each one were super submissive and slept with me on a whim. Not that I'd complain, but it would get real old, real fast. :wink:

The thing is though that the so-called nice guys always do win in the end - they're always the ones with the solid relationship, loving partner etc. I think if women go through the process of liking a bad boy (and I reckon most do at some point), it's mostly a phase thing. Also, from my experience at least, some women like to think they can "tame" a guy - like, I have quite a few problems, and I've noticed that the girls I've dated thought they could somehow "improve" me. So they do appreciate the challenge-aspect for sure. I think it's more about being "difficult" rather than an arsehole per se. But at the end of the day, the nice, stable guy always seems to get the better deal.

 

[Falcon]

I have been thinking about this issue for a while now.

The whole nice-guy/jerk split is a false dichotomy. It's an attempt by people who aren't satisfied with their lot in life (mainly "nice guys") to dodge responsibility. By painting themselves as the white knights ("nice guys"), they effectively convince themselves into thinking that it's not their problem they don't get anywhere, but the rest of the world's problem.

The problems "nice guys" have is that they are:

1) Too needy; they seek validation WAY too often.
2) Afraid to straightforwardly ask for or pursue what they really want; they defer to others' judgement and preferences WAY too often.
3) Not interesting; they rarely take risks, even calculated ones.
4) Not confident;

I realize nice-guy syndrome affects whole ranges of life, from relationships to friends to employment, but let's take women for now, because that's what others in this thread have discussed.

Consider 3 guys. #1 is the epitome of a nice guy. #2 is the epitome of a jerk. #3 is...well...let's call him the "bad boy".

The guy and his girl are walking down the sidewalk. They're dressed nicely, and she's wearing fancy open-toed heels. They come upon a puddle.

#1, the nice guy, offers to carry her across the puddle.

#2, the jerk, jumps the puddle and berates her for being too f***ing slow.

#3, the bad boy, jumps the puddle, lightly teases her while smiling a bit, then comes back and carries her across.

See? #1 was so eager to help that he came across as a lap dog. #2 is just a, well, jerk. #3 exploited "push-pull" - he pushed her away with some slight teasing, then pulled her back by doing the right thing. He exploited tension.

Let's take another - the guy's girl comes crying with some huge story about how her best friend did such and such. You know the kind of huge dramas that women come up with.

#1 listens for hours and hours, attempting to fix the problem. He becomes her emotional dumping ground; her psychoanalyst.

#2 says "shut up, tell someone who cares" and goes back to watching TV.

#3 listens for a bit, shows some sympathy and says "I know you feel rotten right now, what a horrible thing for her to do.", holds her a bit, then distracts her with another activity, or by sleeping with her.

Again, #1 is trying too hard - she doesn't want someone to fix the problem, she wants someone to understand. #2 is a jerk. #3 understands what she really wants - a sympathic ear, and then to be distracted by something else.

Guys there is no nice-guy syndrome, it's a failure to determine what women really want. You can be the most moral, polite, upstanding, upright guy in the world and still be a "bad-boy" by simply knowing when to tease, when to be sympathetic, and by never, ever, ever supplicating.

Nice guys and jerks BOTH finish last...it's just that jerks can pose as "bad boys" better than nice guys can.

 

[Quixote]

Why is it that nice guys never seem to get anywhere? I sometimes wish I'd been born an arsehole if it helped me to be more successful in life. I know I don't want to be nasty but I often think I'm never going to get anywhere in life by being so bloody submissive!! :x

I understand what you mean but I think you are perhaps confusing the symptoms with the causes... being nice and likable is probably an advantage in itself, the problem is when the "nice behaviour" originates not from a natural trait of character but from a lack of self confidence, in other words from "weakness". That is the true cause of one's "failures".
I've seen quite a few very nice guys being very successful by all indicators, in fact my opinion is that very successful people are often those who know how to make themselves liked by most, not envied or admired, but genuinely appreciated. True, "assholes" do manage sometimes to reach a satisfactory degree of success, but you will seldom see them in the highest positions, because people simply don't trust them...

 

[SqueakyGibson]

It's a bit too simplistic to say "nice guys" and "bad guys". The bad guys are usually just varying levels of confident, verging on arrogant. Nothing that makes them particularly "bad".

Nevertheless, you have to ask youself the question: "Why don't girls like me? I'm so much more sensitive than other men. I'll listen to them and treat them right, and understand their emotions in ways those jackasses can't."

Trouble with that is, women already have people that fulfil those needs for them: their female and gay friends.

I think women split their various needs into different people. They take their need for emotional support and understanding from people they don't have sex with; and they have sex with people who don't need to be their emotional support. Whereas most men probably want all these needs taken care of by the same woman.

I'm generalising of course. And I have no experience of what I'm talking about.

 

[Lonelyheart]

Look at how many girls get beat up every year and how many single mothers there are that is proof that women would rather have a bad guy. From what I've seen the girls here want nice guys but I don't believe for a second this is what most girls want. Girls say they want the nice sweet honest guy but they go for the opposite of that all the time.

Well what about all the happy relationships there are? You are only seeing what you want to see, not every women in a relationship is getting beaten up, not every women is in an unhappy relationship, therefore not every women is with a horrible guy. My guy buys me flowers, cuddles me, talks to me when I have problems, I fail to see how he is possibly the only nice guy on the planet with a girlfriend, especially as I know other nice guys who are in relationships. You are just trying to explain away why you don't have a girlfriend instead of looking at yourself and being honest with yourself.

Thelema and crazyfairyx, you both have good points; however, my beliefs are somewhere in between.

I strongly believe that most girls do like jerks, but I don't like most girls. I like lovely ladies. There is a small portion of the female population who has earned the right to be called a lovely lady; however, even lovely ladies can be manipulated by players. Unfortunately, this is often what goes on in my neighborhood.

I've always had a tall, athletic build and been pretty good a sports so players sometime falsely assume I'm also a player. Because of this, I've had a first hand look into the mind of a player and it is truly disturbing. Promiscuous men often tell me stories about all the women they've slept with and how they manipulated them into sex. Often these players will take the most sweet, innocent ladies, fu@k them and leave them. I know this happens because other men tell me they've done it with pride. Many men seem to think it is there mission to fu@k as many women as they possibly can. These players are not selective and will use any woman to get sex.

The problem is that players have the ability to attract both sluts and lovely ladies. If a player want a slut, they will simply ask directly for sex. If a player wants a lovely lady, they will lie and manipulate. Players are often without a conscious so it is easy for them to manipulate anyone they want, no matter how nice or innocent they may be.

On the other hand, a nice, extremely shy man like myself will not approach a slut or a lovely lady. I have absolutely no interest in dating a slut, and I'm too anxious to approach a lovely lady. In fact, even if a lovely lady approaches me, I usually become quiet, reserved, and overly respectful. In addition, I never feel like I'm quite good enough for a lovely lady and almost never express my true feelings.

In summary, I feel my failure to find a lovely ladies is multifaceted. It is a combination of a lack of lovely ladies, manipulative men corrupting the few lovely ladies that are available, societies acceptance and encouragement for women to act like sluts, and my own anxiety and social ineptness. This is an interesting subject and I have more to say, but I have to go right now.

Bye.

 

[crazyfairyx]

I agree that women do like guys with some kind of character totally. A lot of guys who see themselves as nice guys just aren't appealing to women because they don't have any kind of edge to them. Guys who act needy and over the top will very rarely be found attractive, but it's not because they are 'nice', it's because they are needy, huge difference. Being funny and able to tease you and not always just whimper around doesn't make you a bad guy haha. I was talking in terms of very black and white because that was how the main poster was talking, but I definately agree that it isn't as simple as nice guys and bad guys.

People have to look at themselves and decide what they are doing that may or may not be making themselves attractive to the opposite sex, girls generally do like guys who are nice to them, but if they go to far and seem needy it's off putting. Just as guys who are nasty and go too far with teasing or being too confident is off putting. I also strongly agree with whoever said that a lot of girls go through a phase of wanting bad guys (because you're young, silly and bad boys will buy alcohol for you when you're under age :lol: ) but then the nicer guys usually get the girls later on in life, after the girl has grown up enough to know what she actually wants.

xx

 

[Richey]

well im too nice most of the time and i probably fall into that category and its got me nowhere at all ......girls want guys who can constantly play and be witty around them(i see it everywhere) and although i have shades of those characteristics its not consistant enough that people would walk away with that impression of me unless they knew me well.

i dont think they want (arse holes) they just want edgy characters ......someone with plenty of stories who can look after them but can also look after themselves, from my experiance with girls they have been into me for a little while but in a short time they jump to someone else that they find appealing and thats their choice, i dont hold it against them, but i got to a stage where i just didnt want to persue relationships anymore(why bother if you dont even respect yourself half of the time), i can handle rejection but sometimes i struggle to overcome it, essentially i would rather just find a good friend to talk to and have fun with, i think at this stage of my life ive realised that its a mistake to be in a relationship unless ive been friends for a long while and i know them enough to make that leap forward.

i work with girls and guys who seem to think that polyana is the only acceptable emotion ...if you show any signs of weakness of realness then your being no fun ......even the expression on your face, for instance if ive had a tiring day at uni and im not really into going to work i turn up and sometimes im just switched off .....i cant really dodge any bullets because in hospitality there are staff everywhere, so you have to be at least present yourself for the entire shift, and that can be draining for a personlike myself who has symptoms of SA, let me tell ya....argh!

 

[bentnbroken]

niceness=some negligible value, strong=high value to women

omg...don't get me started...

niceness = some negligible value, strong = high value to women,

strong = less need to be concerned with niceness

less need to be concerned with niceness = still hot to women

*many many women are pointedly attracted to cruel, insensitive men and many are attracted to abusive men.

You can be nice independently of weakness but my point here is that niceness simpliciter is less valued by women than strength ie advantages that allow one to need less.

i think the element of "niceness" that indeed turns women off is weakness which goes hand in hand with neediness. women like power. they like the psychologically stronger males. they also *usually* go for status and height. they are human though (even though they behave in many ways like predictable instinct driven animals) so they mediate these attractions in accordance with their own sense of morality, with empathy, and with their own life experiences. then there is also their own bargaining power and that of the man they are interacting with. they are much more comfortable as a rule with being a subordinate in a relationship than a male. all these factors can in some cases result in nice guys being attractive...but usually despite their nice qualities rather than because of them. on the other hand, being abusive in different ways is often forgiven and sometimes a turn on.

it's also less common for strong males to be all that nice in reality despite how they may present themselves (they don't have to be). if a female had to choose between nice (but not weak) qualities and strong qualities the strong ones would be heavily favored. Niceness or good character or condiderateness is an afterthought that is less important than strength. that is why so often strong males get all the women no matter how assholish they are.

somewhere in this thread is some truth...it's not always easy to deal with though so we'll all see what we are able to with this one.

i guess i should add that i'm not really blaming anyone although i do seriously believe that women will always favor the asshole in terms of choosing a mate. i can't figure out why that is so controversial especially since it's as patently obvious as the sun rising and setting. and guess what? males like pretty ladies. turns out with women it's not so much how the potential mate looks but how strong and healthy and advantaged they are. in both cases morality is not a factor. but sex drive is. too bad sex is amoral since it takes up a lot of space in our hearts and minds. so in summary, yeah we're all shallow and that includes you ladies.

 

[romeno82]

i think the biggest problem of nice guys is they dont have any agressivness. they dont make others respect themselves. nice guys end most often in abusive relationships or the relationships ends in friendship.

most of the times nice guys have a repressed agressivness. they dont fight for their rights, dont protect themselves. they lack of assertivness, and they just wont gain any respect. i can say this cos i was i nice guy

 

[romeno82]

i also think its just stupid that western guys let determine women howtheir menhood should be nor not be. cmon are we mens or are women slaves. also in this post: women want confident guys,... i dont give a f*** how a women WANT ME TO BE. i determine how i wanna be as a man. and from that point on can be build a healthy relationship with respect for men and women

By the way thats my opinion, not universal thruth

 

[Emma]

I would personally love to meet a nice guy.....but there don't seem to be any left.....every guy around here seems to be a stuck up little jerk (I mean around where I live, not here on social phobia world)

 

[LA-girl]

i think the biggest problem of nice guys is they dont have any agressivness. they dont make others respect themselves.

In my opinion agressiveness do NOT equal respect. If you use agressiveness as a tool to make people respect you, you are more likely to end up being feared and hated rather than respected. Being feared is not the same as gaining respect, rather the opposite, you end up being disrespected...

 

[romeno82]

hi la-girl with that i dont mean offensive aggressivness. i dont mean being unrespectful, arrogant or mean.

what i mean is making repect your needs, boundaries and your dignity. and that without disrespect none. only when someone dont respect you, you counterattack