Is this negative "nice guy" stereotype actually a thing?

[Dr. Crawver]

You know in endless movies where the hero is a total loser with no redeeming qualities, but because he's not actually a Nazi or whatever, we are supposed to think he's a great guy, and the scantily clad love interest character falls in love with him in the end? Some people have watched too many of those movies.

Is there really a movie were the guy starts out as a loser, stays a loser and then wins ze girl? In most stereotypical "from zero to hero"-movies, the loser actually does something and accompliches some grand labour, which even in real life would open many ladies eyes to someone who was invisible to them before.

Sounds to me like an anime movie, rather than a live action/western one. Seriously, some of the male characters in anime are so bland, boring, and have no redeemable factors that you can never understand why the female characters like them. This is especially worse in the "hareem" genre. I'm not a fan of anime in general for thing like this.

-OT-
Unfortunately, where I'm from, we're seeing kind of one of the worst cases of the "nice guy" thing. Guy I know was a virgin, spends his whole time trying the "nice guy" act on about 3 different women for the span of about 7 months. They are all genuinely too nice (or oblivious in one case) to tell him to fuck off, and stay friends with him. Whenever he's on a night out with them, he's also of course pouring alcohol down their throats. So, about 3 weeks ago on a night out, one of them actually heads home as she's not feeling too good. A friend takes her back. Then, at the end of the night, the guy in question goes back to "check up" on her. We don't know exactly what happened, but it's now the guy has a smug sense of self-satisfaction and does admit he had sex with her, and she refuses to be near the guy and has distanced herself from him, and a lot of his friends. I'm not saying it's rape, but it's got far too many of the warning signs to be comfortable. All in all it's definitely not what a "nice guy" would actually do.

 

[Vegosiux]

Unfortunately, where I'm from, we're seeing kind of one of the worst cases of the "nice guy" thing. Guy I know was a virgin, spends his whole time trying the "nice guy" act on about 3 different women for the span of about 7 months. They are all genuinely too nice (or oblivious in one case) to tell him to fuck off, and stay friends with him. Whenever he's on a night out with them, he's also of course pouring alcohol down their throats. So, about 3 weeks ago on a night out, one of them actually heads home as she's not feeling too good. A friend takes her back. Then, at the end of the night, the guy in question goes back to "check up" on her. We don't know exactly what happened, but it's now the guy has a smug sense of self-satisfaction and does admit he had sex with her, and she refuses to be near the guy and has distanced herself from him, and a lot of his friends. I'm not saying it's rape, but it's got far too many of the warning signs to be comfortable. All in all it's definitely not what a "nice guy" would actually do.

Nnope, it's not what a nice guy would do, but I'm not entirely sure how a guy getting a woman drunk to have sex with her could be considered either kind of "nice guy" at all.

I mean, isn't the point even of a "nice guy?" that he actually does genuinely nice things, like spending time with, letting her confide in him, buy her some things now and then, etc; but with an ulterior motive? And fails to come out with his feelings, and/or once he does and is rejected, gets all pissy about it?

Or the definitions have shifted yet again while I wasn't looking...but "getting women drunk in hopes of getting sex" definitely isn't something I'd ascribe to any sort of "nice guys", not even the least savory ones.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Unfortunately, where I'm from, we're seeing kind of one of the worst cases of the "nice guy" thing. Guy I know was a virgin, spends his whole time trying the "nice guy" act on about 3 different women for the span of about 7 months. They are all genuinely too nice (or oblivious in one case) to tell him to fuck off, and stay friends with him. Whenever he's on a night out with them, he's also of course pouring alcohol down their throats. So, about 3 weeks ago on a night out, one of them actually heads home as she's not feeling too good. A friend takes her back. Then, at the end of the night, the guy in question goes back to "check up" on her. We don't know exactly what happened, but it's now the guy has a smug sense of self-satisfaction and does admit he had sex with her, and she refuses to be near the guy and has distanced herself from him, and a lot of his friends. I'm not saying it's rape, but it's got far too many of the warning signs to be comfortable. All in all it's definitely not what a "nice guy" would actually do.

Nnope, it's not what a nice guy would do, but I'm not entirely sure how a guy getting a woman drunk to have sex with her could be considered either kind of "nice guy" at all.

I mean, isn't the point even of a "nice guy?" that he actually does genuinely nice things, like spending time with, letting her confide in him, buy her some things now and then, etc; but with an ulterior motive? And fails to come out with his feelings, and/or once he does and is rejected, gets all pissy about it?

Or the definitions have shifted yet again while I wasn't looking...but "getting women drunk in hopes of getting sex" definitely isn't something I'd ascribe to any sort of "nice guys", not even the least savory ones.

It's more the way he'd aways fain it. "Oh I'm just getting everyone drinks" while getting them more than anyone else. As for reactions when getting rejected, we also found out that once he learned one of the girls had a boyfriend, he actually went home and punched a tree, fracturing one of his fingers. Didn't stop him trying the act afterwards. Another case was the year before, there was a girl he was trying so hard with, and became "best friends" with her. Once she dated someone else, he then hated her and refuses to talk to her. Still is friends with her boyfriend though, interestingly enough.

I may be wrong, but I class him as a nice guy as everything he did, by itself done by an earnest person are genuinely nice acts. But from him, with his so thinly veneered intentions. It was all so clearly done to be nice so that he could get with them, and jumped at the first opportunity he could to actually reach his goal.

 

[Ikasury]

Any guy who describes himself as `a nice guy` will usually send up warning signs to me.

Truly nice people don't need to go around telling people they're nice, and can usually find better positive attributes about themselves than the `nice` label. Nice is pretty basic.

I've had encounters with `nice guys` and you get to see how `nice` they are the second you say no to them.
So you're pretty close with number two, I guess.
But it's not `men in general` and `women in general`. It's just people in general. People who need to describe themselves as nice and fall over themselves trying to do the blandest `nice things` for you for brownie points are just fucking creepy in general.

And of course women like good looking men - are they supposed to chase guys they aren't attracted to?

this... SO TRUE!! :3

as (i'm assuming) another woman, yea, 'nice guys' are really jerks-in-sheep's clothing... they act all 'nice' and sweet to try and get close to you... its freakin' creepy... i have a natural aversion to sterotypical 'cute' and 'nice' things because in my experience people that act like that only want something from you... so i either punch them in the face if they get too close or walk the other way, mix my route up, and don't go anywhere near home till i'm sure they aren't following... yes, i'm being serious, this happens more often then i like -.-

so the assumption of 'nice' equating to 'creepy' is valid, at least in my book, though again not just for men, but women too, if someone is 'being nice' to you and its rather obvious they are BEEEEEEEEEIIIIIING 'nice' they're doing it for some reason that likely i don't like -.-

as phasmal said, truly 'nice' people don't go around telling you how 'nice' they are or try overly showing it .-.

though as a point of debate, while yes women like good looking guys, a woman will choose someone 'funny' over 'hot' for a long term partner, they're just more interesting... also beautiful people have such bland/flat personalities because they never had to develop further social skills, so honestly i find sterotypical 'hawt' people boring... give me funny and will cook and i'm good~ :3

 

[Colour Scientist]

though as a point of debate, while yes women like good looking guys, a woman will choose someone 'funny' over 'hot' for a long term partner, they're just more interesting... also beautiful people have such bland/flat personalities because they never had to develop further social skills, so honestly i find sterotypical 'hawt' people boring... give me funny and will cook and i'm good~ :3

It's so stupid to assume someone will have a bland/flat personality just because they're attractive.
It's an assumption people who aren't particularly attractive seem to console themselves with.

 

[Ikasury]

though as a point of debate, while yes women like good looking guys, a woman will choose someone 'funny' over 'hot' for a long term partner, they're just more interesting... also beautiful people have such bland/flat personalities because they never had to develop further social skills, so honestly i find sterotypical 'hawt' people boring... give me funny and will cook and i'm good~ :3

It's so stupid to assume someone will have a bland/flat personality just because they're attractive.
It's an assumption people who aren't particularly attractive seem to console themselves with.

considering i deal with more then 3 of these 'attractive' people on a daily basis, and that's just counting the new ones that pop up and try to 'hook up' with me, and all of them have the same inane type personalities of 'i'm hot therefore you should hang with me' and their mental capacities consist of 'oh this is so hard, its stupid' and they have no concept of empathy because they're 'hawt' and therefore people just 'pay attention to them' so they don't HAVE to develop social skills... no, no... i'm just going to leave it there...

there has been a scientific study on people that fall under the terms of 'attractive' and those that don't, there was a distinct pattern that people that were naturally 'more attractive' had less verbose personalities, which would crash for them as they hit around 30~40 range when beauty fades, while people that were considered 'less attractive' from the out set had shown more developed personalities with social skills better geared for essentially dealing with other people and the world around them, so even when they hit the point of 'looks fade' they were still interesting enough to maintain and keep ties with others... scientific fact~ people who are 'hot' and 'popular' have all the personality of a cardboard box :3

... and say what you will about my supposed 'attractiveness', i care little for personal appearance, but as stated previously, when people constantly come up to you with expectations/desires/wants of furthering 'relations' i have to assume i'm somewhat more then cursorily attractive...

 

[Daystar Clarion]

though as a point of debate, while yes women like good looking guys, a woman will choose someone 'funny' over 'hot' for a long term partner, they're just more interesting... also beautiful people have such bland/flat personalities because they never had to develop further social skills, so honestly i find sterotypical 'hawt' people boring... give me funny and will cook and i'm good~ :3

It's so stupid to assume someone will have a bland/flat personality just because they're attractive.
It's an assumption people who aren't particularly attractive seem to console themselves with.

considering i deal with more then 3 of these 'attractive' people on a daily basis, and that's just counting the new ones that pop up and try to 'hook up' with me, and all of them have the same inane type personalities of 'i'm hot therefore you should hang with me' and their mental capacities consist of 'oh this is so hard, its stupid' and they have no concept of empathy because they're 'hawt' and therefore people just 'pay attention to them' so they don't HAVE to develop social skills... no, no... i'm just going to leave it there...

there has been a scientific study on people that fall under the terms of 'attractive' and those that don't, there was a distinct pattern that people that were naturally 'more attractive' had less verbose personalities, which would crash for them as they hit around 30~40 range when beauty fades, while people that were considered 'less attractive' from the out set had shown more developed personalities with social skills better geared for essentially dealing with other people and the world around them, so even when they hit the point of 'looks fade' they were still interesting enough to maintain and keep ties with others... scientific fact~ people who are 'hot' and 'popular' have all the personality of a cardboard box :3

... and say what you will about my supposed 'attractiveness', i care little for personal appearance, but as stated previously, when people constantly come up to you with expectations/desires/wants of furthering 'relations' i have to assume i'm somewhat more then cursorily attractive...

I would very much like to see this scientific study, because so far you've only provided anecdotes and personal bias.

Of course, knowing three 'attractive' people who happen to be vapid = all attractive people are vapid.

There's a certain level of irony at play here.

 

[Verlander]

If you need to confirm up front that you're "nice", then you're doing it wrong.

I don't think it's as sinister as that though, I do think that there are a lot of unaware guys who are frustrated that they are decent people and aren't getting much attention.

Moral of the story is "Nice should be standard. Master that and then focus on the next thing to be: Interesting."

 

[TheEvilGenius]

You want to get girls? Its really not that difficult. Be nice, treat them like people, and don't wait until they are dating someone to ask them out.

Wait, I thought that approach was the very reason we were having this discussion to begin with.


OT:

I may be repeating someone else here, but has anyone ever considered the possibility that people in general have no fucking clue what they want? It's like that one Jimquisition episode with the coffee analogy. Women say they want a "nice guy" who "takes care of them" and "treats them right" only because that's what they think they want. Then a guy comes along who takes them at their word and does all of those things in the hopes of getting with them only to be called a creep, asshole, fake, liberal, communist, neo-nazi, fascist, chauvinist, etc. etc. How about we just chalk this up to miscommunication.

Anyone? Anyone?!

 

[Charli]

But Nice Guy syndrome is more commonly a person who is overly nice to the object of their affection with the intent of sexual favors as a reward. Asinine and selfish, and I've known at least 2 guys doing this in my life, introverted, nice as friends, but really did not get how to forge a more serious relationship, so wasted weeks and months of their lives doing 'favors' for their targets and then getting all huffy and enraged at the world when said favours did not result in ...well you get the idea.

They were both smacked on the head by yours truly.

Exactly my point, they didn't know how to forge a more serious relationship. The worst part is that you seemed to know they were socially inept, but rather than explain to them how their attitude was wrong you decided to assault them.

This whole topic wreaks of picking on the kid with learning difficulties.

If you think I literally smacked them on the head and didn't think that was a euphemism for a stern talking to, you're lacking the same grace. I wouldn't just smack someone and not explain why EITHER. Come on, can you actually picture that in your head. Like the guy wouldn't even ask me why I smacked them? Just...wham and a walk off? ...Really?

Also I shouldn't have to explain this to them, I'm not their mother. I am their friend. Friendship is the thing that gets undermined by this disgraceful approach to forging relations (Which romance is not the be all, end all of).
And I'm disturbed by the number of times I've come across it and question why It should be my job to teach why this inappropriate behaviour to fully grown adults.

 

[Movitz]

You know in endless movies where the hero is a total loser with no redeeming qualities, but because he's not actually a Nazi or whatever, we are supposed to think he's a great guy, and the scantily clad love interest character falls in love with him in the end? Some people have watched too many of those movies.

Is there really a movie were the guy starts out as a loser, stays a loser and then wins ze girl? In most stereotypical "from zero to hero"-movies, the loser actually does something and accompliches some grand labour, which even in real life would open many ladies eyes to someone who was invisible to them before.

Sounds to me like an anime movie, rather than a live action/western one. Seriously, some of the male characters in anime are so bland, boring, and have no redeemable factors that you can never understand why the female characters like them. This is especially worse in the "hareem" genre. I'm not a fan of anime in general for thing like this.

-OT-
Unfortunately, where I'm from, we're seeing kind of one of the worst cases of the "nice guy" thing. Guy I know was a virgin, spends his whole time trying the "nice guy" act on about 3 different women for the span of about 7 months. They are all genuinely too nice (or oblivious in one case) to tell him to fuck off, and stay friends with him. Whenever he's on a night out with them, he's also of course pouring alcohol down their throats. So, about 3 weeks ago on a night out, one of them actually heads home as she's not feeling too good. A friend takes her back. Then, at the end of the night, the guy in question goes back to "check up" on her. We don't know exactly what happened, but it's now the guy has a smug sense of self-satisfaction and does admit he had sex with her, and she refuses to be near the guy and has distanced herself from him, and a lot of his friends. I'm not saying it's rape, but it's got far too many of the warning signs to be comfortable. All in all it's definitely not what a "nice guy" would actually do.

Á la "Love Hina" and such, right? Haven't really watched them myself ('cept that Sage guys anime abandon episode about the movie "Love Hina"), but I get what you're talking about.

Fucked up story, by the way.

 

[ViridianV6]

My experience of what a "nice guy" is is generally someone who believes that merely being nice is great enough of a quality that they believe they are entitled to a relationship with a woman. They then become disgruntled when the woman does not reciprocate their feelings and reach wrong conclusions such as "I'm a nice guy, and I like her but she doesn't like me, therefore she doesn't like guys who are nice and only likes arseholes particularly the one she's dating".

The problem with their logic is that they are unable to comprehend that there are other factors in gaining her affection other than being nice, and can't fathom that the "arsehole" she's dating happens to have a steady job, knows how to cook, is fit and takes pride in their appearance, exudes confidence and is generally interesting to be with.

One of my mates used to whine endlessly about this especially how nice guys finish last. He would constantly say how he was a nice guy (to his credit he is genuinely friendly)and how he couldn't pull shit without taking into account that at that time he didn't have a job and was consistently behind on rent.

That whole "nice guys finish last" is true in the context of what other people have defined as "nice guys", but in terms of a guy who is nice, it is bullshit because it infers that being nice is a detrimental quality in a relationship.

As for the OT description as someone who uses friendliness as an investment for future sex, I haven't seen them referred to as nice guys, they're just dicks.

-I'm sleepy as fuck, so I have no clue if what I just wrote is incoherent garbage, but there's my 2c

 

[Xman490]

I'm quite sure that people greatly adherent to stereotypical behavior exist. There are people who have all the "nice guy" traits.

Every stereotype is a "thing" that exists, but not everyone is a stereotype. That's the point, isn't it?

 

[themilo504]

I think dating is stupid and bad so you should probably ignore my opinion.

Being nice to a girl because you want to sleep with her is perfectly fine, it?s what you do if she rejects you or what you consider to be nice that makes the difference, threating a girl like she?s a normal human being is not nice.

 

[Phasmal]

Also to say that women do not go for looks is a complete LIE.

I keep seeing people say things like this.
Is there any reason women should not go for looks?
I mean, I wouldn't date a guy I wasn't attracted to. That makes sense.

Very true. I blame our pop culture for that to a large degree.

Yes, I think movies and suchlike to a great disservice to both men and women, especially with portraying boundary-crossing as romantic.

 

[Strain42]

Hi there, Former Nice Guy Stereotype here with some chat words straight from my fingertips to your eyeballs. Now I'm aware that these sorts of things can happen to anybody of any gender, but since the more common examples are men pursuing women, I'll mostly be using pronouns to that effect.

Now I do still consider myself a nice person (as others have said though, don't go around CLAIMING to be a nice person, and don't let that be your defining quality) but here's the thing...being nice means being nice to everyone. Not just women you want to date and probably some day sleep with, and it also means staying nice in the event that she says No. Or at the very least not treating her like she has somehow committed some great offense by denying your advances.

However, being nice also doesn't mean you're a freakin' saint, as some people claim it does. If you like a girl, and she wants to just be friends, and it drives you crazy being around her...leave. That doesn't make you a jerk. That makes you a human being trying to deal with their issues and emotions. Any girl who would try to force you to go through emotional anguish like that or try to guilt you into staying around is probably someone you didn't wanna get involved with anyway as they are clearly quite selfish. They may tell you that if you truly were her friend you'd be able to stick around "just because I don't wanna sleep with you." (as if that was the the ONLY thing) but if she was truly your friend, she'd be able to understand why that might be tough. Sometimes it can be done, men and women can stay friends even after rejection has happened, but sometimes it is really hard, and the best thing for both parties is to just move on.

Now onto the "friend zone" thing. Now here's the thing about the friend zone...it exists. It does. Anyone who says it doesn't is just plain wrong. HOWEVER what the friend zone is and what it means has been so warped into a widely spread (but incorrect) definition that it's easy to see why people might think it's just something guys make up.

See, when most people hear the term "friend zone" they think "Oh, a so called nice guy is whining because a girl he wanted to bang turned him down, so now he's using that as an imaginary shield to explain his problem rather than blahbity blah blah blah." That's just wrong. This is what the friend zone actually is, and since it can happen to anyone, I'll avoid using gender specific pronouns

Person A meets Person B. Maybe Person A was already at least somewhat interested in Person B when they met, maybe feelings developed throughout the course of their friendship, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that now, Person A has romantic feelings for Person B. Person A informs Person B of those feelings, but Person B just doesn't feel that way about them but would like to stay friends.

That's it. That's what the friend zone is. It's simply when someone you have romantic feelings towards does not share those feelings but would like to stay friends. That is as far as it extends.

The biggest problem with the stereotypical nice guys is that they read that scenario and probably think Person B is a total bitchdick. Which isn't true. Someone not returning your feelings doesn't make them a bad person. The sooner people realize this, the better off we'll all be.

Now I'll confess that since abandoning a lot of the negative nice guy stereotypical traits, I haven't exactly been any more successful with women than I was before. I may be more confident, direct, open, and mature...but I'm still not exactly super attractive, I'm still pretty weird, and I still have a lot of self-esteem issues and self-loathing that probably show a lot more than I think they do, so I still get turned down a lot.

But here's the thing...that's okay. Once you stop treating every rejection as some sort of personal attack on your character and realize that "Hey, maybe I'm just not that person's type. Let's move on." dating becomes a lot easier. Focus on being yourself, rather than being the person you think she should be dating, and don't act like they're just in the wrong for not wanting to date you.

This post ended up being a lot longer than I expected it to, but I hope it's helped someone. If I've helped at least one person, I've done my job.

 

[DementedSheep]

Hrm, I definitely understand where the hate comes from here. Seems like these "Nice Guys" are definitely doing something that's not good for them or anyone else.

Most of this topic makes me feel pretty bad, or at least self-conscious, since I've done some of this kinda crap at least in private. Mostly the part of wondering "why do people who seem to be terrible asshole people get girlfriends?" Thankfully I did that in private for the most part, although I can think of a few times where I've said it to others. I'm also happy to note that the last time I knew a woman who I was friends with and we went out and things basically misfired and she wasn't interested, we were and are still friends. She's not a ***** or only likes assholes or anything else. We just didn't click (and I kinda blew it, but that's another story) and that was okay. When my ex told me she's dating another guy (we're still friends, which is apparently weird to everyone I know), I figured he was probably a good person (which, after talking to him over several games of League, he is.)

But as much as I understand I violate certain conventions of this personality-type, I still feel bad since I recognize some parts of it in me. Thankfully I stopped wearing fedoras. Thinking I might hit a proper hat store sometime soon and see if they can tell me what will actually work for me.

I have to ask, though: Everyone here certainly has a right to decry how awful this is and everything, but what do you say to people like me who notice themselves in at least some of what you're saying? What do you tell someone who says "Wow! I never realized I was acting like such a douche! How do I become better and break this habit?"

Don't feel too bad about it. "Nice Guys" get a lot of hate but people are usually talking about the extreme multiplicative jerk who knows exactly what they are dong and literally only wants sex when they talking about it which I think is fairly rare. Most of the time its just down to social anxiety, hormones and putting a bit to much stock in having a girlfriend. A lot of people go through a stage of doing this and then get over it when they get a bit more secure. Girls do similar btw. I've seen many other girls complain guys are threatened by success and strong personality or only interested in tits and I've done the same thing as well. It, like "girls only like assholes" is mostly bullshit. Perceived failure in relationships and having someone you like not return those feelings hurts and its normal for people to lay blame and try to justify when hurt. Just so long as you recognise the thought process for what it is you're doing ok.

This might not be relevant to you but I have also found that people tend to think everyone else is doing better with their relationships than they are. You get people freaking because their 18 or in their 20's and they don't have significant other or they still a virgin but its not actually that uncommon.