A different take on "nice guys"

[haraleah]

Or rather why we (that's a generic we) think they are less successful with women than "not nice" guys. One of the problems in the discussion, I think, is that it's very difficult to actually define what "nice" is and also whether a girl is actually going out with a "nice" guy or not.

So here's my thought (ie. the reasoning why it looks as if girls prefer "not nice" guys):

- Statistically (and logical from a "selfish gene" point of view), women tend to prefer larger, taller, more physically imposing men;

- There is a high degree of correlation between physical size and aggressiveness (ie. "not nice") - this is, again, genetic/biological in origin, but is exacerbated by how we (society) glorify sportspeople, how sporty types at school are praised more than academic types and how boys play in their formative years (fighting/rough and tumble games).

=>It's co-incidence that women go for "not nice" guys since they're actually going for "large" guys who just happen to be "not nice" more often than "smaller" guys.

Discuss :-)

[stargate]

i would almost agree with you but i consider myself,and have been called many times, "a nice guy" but I'm also fairly tall and a succes rate with the opposite sex is... shall we say bad. Of course I'm a coward and never persue anyone so that may be it

[CrystalThrall]

I'm one of those nice guys that's SO nice that the ladies want me for a friend than anything else. Go figure... :(

[history1me]

I'm one of those nice guys that's SO nice that the ladies want me for a friend than anything else. Go figure... :(


See the ladder theory and also a friendship whore (the ladder might be under a different name).

Quick solution, fake being an a-hole and let the girl peel the rough edges out till they feel like they have "polish" you into a brillant pearl.

[CrystalThrall]

Quick solution, fake being an a-hole and let the girl peel the rough edges out till they feel like they have "polish" you into a brillant pearl.

I couldn't, in good consciousness, make myself into an asshole just to win the affections of a lady. It's just not who I am. I DO know what you're saying and to an extent I agree that slight "modifications" to my personality could wield different results but inside I'd know that it just wasn't ME that won the day but someone I had to be. You could say that I'm a living Catch-22. :(

[Shadowknight]

Mmmm. Go to fastseduction.com to better understand how to avoid the friends ladder. Short, short version is;

1. be cocky/funny
2. don't be needy
3. don't be uber-available; she should know that you have a life of your own and that while you may like her, you have othe priorities in your life
4. Try to dominate social circles; don't be a jerk, just portray an interesting personality, have stories to tell, etc. So that people are around YOU, instead of trying to be part of the crowd
5. Be a sexual being. Coming off as a "friend" who hopes to show how good a guy he is so she'll get interested over time doesn't work. Make your intentions plain from the start. Ask her out as a man, don't try to hang out with her as a friend
6. Body language; move slowly and confidently, not quick and jerky. A good example is Dwight in Sin City. When Marv's at the bar, you see Dwight at a booth eating when his girlfriend brings him a drink. He exhudes strenght, sexuality, and confidence.
7. Eye contact, eye contact, eye contact

[Pierrot le Fou]

No. It ain't because we're taller. It ain't because we're bigger. It's because we know what we want, aren't afraid to ask even if the answer's no, and we don't make excuses for our failings.

[hapacheese]

Word.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there's a difference between being a strong, but nice guy, and being a doormat.

I have friends who are "short nice guys" that have girls following them around. One of them hardly even clears 5'4.

[Nekesu]

there really isn't such thing as a "nice guy" in my opinion, guys will act however appropriate in chances of getting a girl, just over time only kinda being a jerk works. Being a jerk shows you have some confidence, you don't care what people think, being a jerk while also saying stuff in a joking way seems to work.

I have more to say on the subject, but im tired, laterz

[Collapse]

Women like confidence a whole lot, and I -suppose- they don't see it in some nice guys. They also like men taking risks and challenges and dares and all of those stuff.

Thrillride until they hit the 30s, then most of the women just settle down and find a financially-secure guy (and also a lifelong partner at that).

But I don't have a significant partner yet, so my take could be a direct miss.

[hapacheese]

You can be confident and "manly," but still be a nice guy. They aren't mutually exclusive. You can be engaging in a conversation, be genuinely interested in what a woman has to say, open doors for her, and buy her a drink, but still have enough personal respect to let a woman know when she has stepped on your toes, let her know when you're sorry, but you can't bring her that gallon of ice cream she craves, and so on and so forth.

[caseylim]

Women like confidence a whole lot, and I -suppose- they don't see it in some nice guys. They also like men taking risks and challenges and dares and all of those stuff.

Thrillride until they hit the 30s, then most of the women just settle down and find a financially-secure guy (and also a lifelong partner at that).

But I don't have a significant partner yet, so my take could be a direct miss.

That is bad. How could they fool around, playing with their hormones around then expect to be accepted by nice caring and loving guys. If they do this, they can say bye-bye and become a slut for the rest of their lives. They can forget about being someone motherly or a mother cause they have no right.

[Collapse]

That is bad. How could they fool around, playing with their hormones around then expect to be accepted by nice caring and loving guys. If they do this, they can say bye-bye and become a slut for the rest of their lives. They can forget about being someone motherly or a mother cause they have no right.


But time changes everything, correct? I mean at one peak of their lives they'll realize that they too, need to be responsible and be a mother and such.

As I've stated before, my take could be a direct miss.

[Bob]

- Statistically (and logical from a "selfish gene" point of view), women tend to prefer larger, taller, more physically imposing men;

Do you have a Cite?

[haraleah]

Do you have a Cite?

Sadly only on DVD: I was involved with a recent BBC TV show called "Science and the sexes" which tried to analyse attractiveness. There were some flaws in it (and at least they admitted that some of their theories were wrong), but the one consistent thing they did measure was that taller men were more successful in getting dates. That doesn't mean they make better partners, but that in terms of immediate attractiveness, which is almost entirely physical for both men and women, they will make more impact.

I've also got some statistics that I've gathered from a random internet survey which show this (not a big enough sample really but a good start): from memory (since I can't remember the URL I've got the results hosted on offhand), there's an average 6"+ height difference. And the distribution is skewed enough to reinforce the hypothesis.

Plus, just look around as you walk around - it's very, very rare that you will see a couple where the man is shorter than the woman and usually there's a significant height difference. Now this may be a UK thing and different elsewhere, but unless someone's going to pay me to travel round the world with a tape measure, that's what I've got to go on for now :-)

Re: Confidence - very true, but I think this ties in with the physical thing too. From a male perspective, there's still a hierarchy that we grow up with which is re-inforced by physical aspects more than social/mental. In other words, those who are more physical as they are growing up are more likely to be dominant males in their groups and so will become more confident.

Note words of generalisation - there are obviously exceptions, but I'm looking at trends rather than absolutes.

[Praetorian]

So far I've noticed just about any short man is overly self-confident.

[haraleah]

Can you expand on that, Praetorian?

[Anderson Council]

To put such weight upon such a peripheral and obscure issue as physical size as the difference between Az's conception of the 'nice unattracive guy' to the 'mean attracitive' one is to ignore a glaring pink elephant in his editorial. First, let us specify what precisely is his definition of the nice and mean fellow. The Nice guy he defines as "Sweet, charming, loveable...but highly dependent, lacks self-confidence, highly insecure, etc."; and the Mean Fellow as "rude, selfish, outspoken, but also confident, secure, and very independent": all as evidenced by his third essay on mating rituals. Essentially, the Nice Guy is clearly one who is unable to secure his own physical and emotional needs, and thus expects a romantic partner to fulfill said needs; while the Jerk is clearly formed as one who has the ability the aforementioned fellow is strikingly impotent of.
Now, for those of you who are still with me, we see most any respectable psychologist/ Relationship therapist declare that a relationship based and created out of need shall either be short and brutish or long and soul-crushing. Therefore, it would be quite rational that the fellow defined by Az as "The Jerk" would be drastically more attractive to women than his needy "Nice Guy".

[LimbyLoo]

wow, you guys put way too much thought into this thing. I'm saying this as a chick.

[Anderson Council]

Not at all. I just find it intriguing that, at least with Mating III, Az hit it right on the nail with what most psychologists have been saying for years.

[Thespis]

- Statistically (and logical from a "selfish gene" point of view), women tend to prefer larger, taller, more physically imposing men. This I agree with, and I think it is just as shallow as a man putting too much emphasis on the ideal hourglass figure. I can see where a woman might put it as "something nice to have" in a man, but too many women make just as big an issue of it as men who make them self conscious about their bodies.

- There is a high degree of correlation between physical size and aggressiveness (ie. "not nice") - this is, again, genetic/biological in origin, but is exacerbated by how we (society) glorify sportspeople, how sporty types at school are praised more than academic types and how boys play in their formative years (fighting/rough and tumble games). This I do not agree with. I've seen too many "big teddy bears" and too many aggressive / violent shrimp boys. What you described may be a perception, but there is little correlation with size and aggressiveness. It may effect individuals on an individual basis because of whatever experiences they've had with size, but there are too many contradictions to size = aggressive statements.

[CNagy]

In my experience, short guys are fiesty little bastards. Something about being short seems to make them feel the need to let everyone know that they might be small, but that they are not "half a man."

[Thespis]

In my experience, short guys are fiesty little bastards. Something about being short seems to make them feel the need to let everyone know that they might be small, but that they are not "half a man."
Yeah, I think that is true in a lot of those cases.

[dillon]

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/ng.shtml
i agree with this site when it comes to explaining "nice guys".

[Thespis]

Yeah dillon, I would agree with that explanation pretty well.

[General_Admission]

Not at all. I just find it intriguing that, at least with Mating III, Az hit it right on the nail with what most psychologists have been saying for years.

Pretty simple.

1) Love yourself first
2) Have confidence & self-esteem (part of 1)
3) Have fun and take things with a pinch of salt.
4) Practice moderation

nuf' said.

[KiwiKitty]

Thrillride until they hit the 30s, then most of the women just settle down and find a financially-secure guy (and also a lifelong partner at that).

Just over a year ^^ Just over a year ^^

Not that that's anything to be proud of, but I've only really had one relationship, and to end up in that one, I so had to let my standards drop.

Honestly? You can be anything you like, but if you don't hit something within 30 seconds of meeting a woman, I can introduce you to the wonders (and lack thereof) of life-long friendships that last until she finds something more interesting to occupy her time :P

It's why I gave up on women.

[Pierrot le Fou]

A-fucking men, I love the parable:

The Man With No Spine - A parable for "Nice Guys"

By John Russell

There once was a man without a spine.

He was a very likable guy. The advantage of not having a spine was that he could fit himself to anyone, and he frequently did. He could flex this way and that.

But he couldn't stand up ...

...and being kinda mushy and flat most of the time, people often walked on him without realizing he was there.

So he got sad, having this dreadful absence of a spine, and he was resentful too. He wondered why other people couldn't fit themselves to him the way he fit himself to others, but that was silly because he never felt he had the right to ask anyone directly to fit themselves to him. He was formless, what was there to fit to anyway? In cyberspace he talked tough as if he had a spine, but people could clearly see by his rage and resentment that he didn't have one in real life, and he perished in the flame wars he provoked and only came out feeling more ashamed and ineffectual.

He wished he could be with a woman, to help him the way a spine would. If he clung to a woman with a spine, he could stand up, but women didn't like it when he did that. He often called them "bitches" for the women with spines coldly asked him to let go of them, or unceremoniously shrugged him and his issues off onto the ground telling him to get his own spine.

If he fancied a spineless woman, on the other hand, he couldn't get her interest because they were looking for men with spines that they could cling to. But the spineless women would hang around with him for sympathy, and he'd be their platonic male friend and play "therapist" though he was as sick as they were. He'd often call himself a "feminist" and lecture these spineless women how to stand on their own when he had no idea of how to stand for himself.

With all the bending and flopping around he did, a spine never could get a chance to grow.

Then one day he had a brainstorm, he decided he'd make himself a spine.

He took a long stick.... and he put it far up his ass.

It was an improvement, though uncomfortable. It was the first time in his life he could walk tall, if not a bit stiff. He found he could have opinions at odds with others, and stand for them. He found out that he didn't have to be liked, that the world didn't end if he pissed someone off. He didn't want to fit easily with other people anymore, in fact he became inflexible.

People commented on the change, some people didn't particularly like him with the stick up his ass but they did notice him more. Some people felt that at least they could respect him, even if they didn't always like him because he did less whining. At least nobody stepped on him by accident.

However relationships still didn't come easy, it was hard for a woman with a spine to love him with the stick up his ass. He was stiff, cold, brutally opinionated, condescending, and self-righteously hostile. But eventually he did attract a very pretty woman without a spine who saw him as a tower of strength to cling to.

At first he loved this woman, he thought the stick up his ass was the answer to his dating problems. He was finally being loved the way he once loved others. At first it was great, and then it was good, and then it was ok, and then it was uncomfortable, and by the end of a year it was infuriatingly suffocating. The spineless woman clung like a straightjacket. The horror!!! The horror!!!

But the stick up his ass made him so inflexible he didn't know how to get the spineless woman off of him, If only he could bend. He was trapped, upright in his "obligations", "duty to her", "guilt", "pride in his commitment", he spent months with his arms helplessly flapping about trying to get her off of him and trying not to look like he was doing that.

He was hoping that she would leave by hinting her indirectly, he used sarcasic tones, said mean things that were "just a joke", neglect, "constructive" criticism intended to insult. He only made the spineless woman feel more insecure, so she clung HARDER.

Spineless men envied him, called him a jerk for the way he was treating her, just the way he remembered how he used to envy other men before he had the stick up his ass (when he'd play consoler to their teary-eyed spineless girlfreinds). If only they knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a spineless person's embrace they'd understand. He wished she'd leave him for one of the spineless men who envied him. He felt ashamed for the way he must have made women feel in the past when he was trying to cling to them, he knew that they weren't so evil after all.

One day he decided that there was only one way to be free of the spineless woman once and for all, the stick up his ass had to go.

So he pulled the stick out, and to his amazement a miracle happened: he was still standing! All of the years of inflexibility allowed him the chance to grow a spine. At first he was still a bit stiff but eventually he had the flexibility to contort a bit and yet maintained the firmness to struggle, push, and wriggle from the spineless woman's grasp (though she protested much). He stayed far out of her reach and the reach of other spineless women so that he could never be grasped by one again.

He was overjoyed with his new-found freedom; he could bend sometimes like he used to (but not too far) and also he could stand tall. He went out, partied, enjoyed life to the fullest, and eventually found a woman with a normal spine like his.

They stood together as separate individuals giving mutual support and enjoying time alone too, and lived (relatively) "happily ever after"...

heartless bitches (http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/spineless.shtml)

That really is spot-on for so many people.

[StormShadow]

It's like you are my own personal Jesus Crist, except for I am neither spineless, or have a stick up my ass

[yao_yao]

LoL. I have no dating experience and have very little credence...
but I personally like taller guys. Problem is defining 'tall'.

My dad's family are Manchu Chinese, which means they're all very tall. I consider any guy under 6'3" to be short. Which kinda narrows the playing field for me...

[Benaire]

I can't be bothered reading all this junk. Nice guys really don't exist too many people think they are the "nice guy" its all bull. How many people here have you seen posting that there "nice guys"? Its just a lame excuse something to sooth there damaged egos. HAHAHAHA she dumped me cause im a nice guy....... not because i ate her dog no that couldn't be it at all.