
Originally Posted by
Aurora_Sunset
My problem with "self-professed" nice guys is that they're usually not actually that "nice." I'm not saying they're all evil douches. They could very well, at their fundamental core, be pretty nice people - but for some reason, when romance is involved, the "niceness" warps into something not-so-genuinely-nice. Like the study says, "The first [reason] has to do with the general (and totally deserved) jadedness of the modern woman; female respondents assumed that ulterior motives lurked behind male attentiveness, perceiving responsive guys as manipulative and looking for action." IME, that's pretty true. All the "nice guys" I've ever known were only "nice" to me for so long. Only for as long as it took them to realize, for real, that they were never going to win me over with grand gestures of "niceness."
Sometimes I think the only difference between the "asshole" alpha and the "nice" beta is that the asshole is blatant and knows how to move on and play the numbers game when he's shot down, so of course he gets more play. Whereas the "nice guy" keeps trying to slowly and strategically "win the game" with one person at a time and then reacts more negatively when all that time and effort isn't "rewarded."
Right now I am being pursued by a "nice guy" who I have straight-up, honestly communicated with that I was not looking to date him. He respected that for about 2 weeks, and then launched into doubling his efforts to "show me what a great boyfriend he could be," and trying to "earn points" with me. He has actually used those words and phrases, and I've been told by a mutual friend that he's actually said, "Yeah, she says she doesn't want to date me now, but I'm just gonna keep being super nice and super charming, and eventually I'll win her over." Fuck. That. That's not NICE. That's creepy and a complete dismissal of what I specifically stated I wanted and was comfortable with and overt pushing of my already-stated boundaries. But then his friends want to get up my shit about "Oh, but he's such a nice guy!" Umm... no... not if everything he does for me has this ulterior motive designed to make me "change my mind" from what I already said I wanted. Even if certain guys from my past haven't been so bold as to state that stuff out loud, I'm pretty sure that's what was going through their heads as well. So, no, that's not nice.
Have I been attracted to "assholes," or alphas? Of course - there is something instantly charismatic about people who appear confident and "IDGAF." But at this point in my life, I've dealt with enough of them to know we could probably be great friends with similar strong personalities, but they are shit for dating (at least for someone like me - most of them have gone on to have very successful relationships with more mellow women who can deal with their aggression).
The flip side to the guy above though, is there is a guy I'm interested in now who I believe is genuinely nice. He has never been a jerk to me. He is very good at listening and not judging me when I talk to him about problems. Never ignores my texts or blows me off, or has really ever done anything douchey to me. I would legitimately classify him as a nice person/guy. But I can tell that's just his general personality. I've known him a good while and he's not just doing this stuff in leaps and bounds trying to get with me. My most recent ex was the same way - Nice guy that I was actually attracted to because it didn't come off as sleazy. It's perfectly do-able to be nice without being the self-professed "nice guy" who is only nice as part of a "woman-getting plan."
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