Poll: Women like jerks?

[StatusNil]

Women do not prefer jerks to nice people. They prefer interesting people to boring people.

"Nice guys" get overlooked. Because people who get labeled "nice guy" are boring, as opposed to people who are guys who also happen to be nice. No one wants to date a "nice guy" because they are boring, shallow people whose only redeeming quality is that you don't want to punch them in the face. Now, guys who are also nice typically have many redeeming qualities, but no one calls them "nice guys". They are hot guys, interesting guys, fun guys, smart guys, rich guys, or even kind guys (kindness being fundamentally different than niceness, it is a deep character trait that causes the person to do interesting things). They have something desirable about them.

So remember this, if you ever see a woman who has to say "well, he was nice..." after a date it means he was boring, but he at least managed not to be an ass so she doesn't want to say anything bad about him. But "not an asshole" is not a reason to date someone. It is damning someone with faint praise.

And as for how jerks get dates, it is a lot easier to smooth out rough edges than completely rebuild a person to not be boring. You can work with someone to stop being an ass, we all know this because at some point we were all assholes and learned to be less of an asshole.

Have to say this is my favorite reply, since it strikes me as honest and not just a talking point.

The thing about "nice guys" is they're always trying to be nice, primarily to the woman they're trying to impress. It's just hard to respect a try-hard like that, I guess. It's one of those cruel universal ironies: caring too much about someone liking you is not going to help make it happen.

Not going to vote in the poll, as it doesn't have any nuanced options.

 

[verdant monkai]

Well yes and no. Women aren't a collective mass they are all individuals. I'd say normally they don't like men who go out of their way to be unpleasant, some do though.

A lot of the time these men who are accused of being jerks are just more masculine men, and the less confident and masculine men dislike them and accuse them of being jerks, because their confidence allows them to chat up girls more easily. So they label them jerks and shift the blame rather than attempting to be confident themselves.

 

[Foolery]

I certainly don't like jerks. And typically, the girls I have seen with jerks are jerks themselves.
So, they can be a jerky couple of jerks, jerking each other to jerkiness.
Maybe I just live in an area with a high jerk population. Or grew up in one, at least.

Pretty much this. You said what I wanted to say. Like attracts like. Let them be terrible people together, I've got better things to think about and do.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The thing about "nice guys" is they're always trying to be nice, primarily to the woman they're trying to impress. It's just hard to respect a try-hard like that, I guess. It's one of those cruel universal ironies: caring too much about someone liking you is not going to help make it happen.

Well I think the real thing about that kind of "nice" is that it's courtship behavior, not some kind of inherent kindness. And it's often very evident and transparent courtship behavior, particularly if the person in question gets courted a lot. It doesn't necessarily speak to someone's personality, or how "nice" they are or aren't. Gushing compliments at someone you're trying to get romantic attention from isn't a sign of quality character or anything.

I know when I was in my own "nice guy" phase and wondering why my overtures weren't automatically turning women weak at the knees, I was like my own hype man. "Look how nice I am, look at all these wonderful things I'm willing to do". Yeah, because you're courting them, jackass.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

These forums never really change. Can't wait till this thread goes on for however many pages.

Yeah, it's bullshit to generalize based on gender. Most people realize this, I'd hope.

 

[Something Amyss]

I find the poll results to be quite heartening.

I always thought this was a Hollywood movie trope.

One that you will see repeated by numerous folks both online and off.

It sort of makes sense, because it's an amazing "sour grapes" sort of argument. If women only like jerks, then a "nice guy" like "me" never stood a chance.

In my experience when a guy invokes the "girls like jerks" they are basically applying the term jerk to any man who isn't them.

Which can be an especially bad problem if they themselves are jerks.

I think they go for confidence?

Numerous people, male and female, have attested to the contrary on this site before.

I think talking about 'women' (or indeed any other large group of individuals) as a single homogeneous blob is never likely to be very productive on subjects like this.

Nonsense! The hive-mind is stronger than ever. I--I've said too much!

I think one of the big problems is that as a general rule, this sort of thing rarely comes up in a way that's intended to be productive. I'll leave ert out here, as he's actually attempting to test a claim (or kibosh it, though that's unlikely to happen), but usually, it comes up more in an attempt to commiserate or complain.

 

[Something Amyss]

No.

A lot of "nice guys" are "nice" with the ulterior motive that it will get them sex, which is just plain creepy and frankly not nice.

Or they're not really nice in the first place. People rarely identify ourselves as the "jerk," even if they are one.

 

[Vigormortis]

When guys say that women go for jerks, they mean that the person they want isn't interested in them

There may or may not be a fedora involved

I do believe we need to make a fedora equivalent of godwinning for internet arguments.

While I agree, I think we need to clear up the misconception first...

Spoiler

This is a Trilby:

This is a Fedora:

One is worn by "neckbeards", the other is a popular fashion from the 60's or earlier.

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE!

 

[Fdzzaigl]

I think the people who are saying: 'The guy who got the girl you were looking to hook up with instead of you seems like a jerk." Are probably right.

That said, all the real successful "womanizers" I know and witnessed came across as fairly arrogant. I guess it's not so much the jerk thing as it's the "being super sure about yourself" thing. Many jerks are jerks because they disregard others exactly because they're too sure of themselves though, imo.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

No I don't think women actually prefer men who are jerks, or assholes, or really anything negative. There are a few things though that I have noticed though which I consider the "jerk dynamic".

The Jerk Dynamic:
[li]Nice guys a lot of times only act nice because they want sex.[/li]
[li]Jerks tend to be more noticeable in social situation[/li]
[li]Some women see jerky guys as a project.[/li]
[li]Some women are attracted to the "bad boy" stereotype, especially when they're younger.[/li]
[li]Guys who are jerks generate drama, which a lot of women find attractive.[/li]
[li]Acting like a jerk is easy to mistake for confidence, which most people find attractive.[/li]
[li]Acting out generally makes someone more noticeable, which is attractive to people what to be noticed.[/li]

Still though most women really don't want a jerk of a guy, they might go out with such a guy, but long term I've never seen such a relationship be successful. I've seen such relationships turn into long term dysfunctional codependency, but never actually seen such a relationship flourish. Well there is an exception, if both parties in a relationship are terrible people, they tend to work quite well together, reinforcing the terrible nature of each other.

On the other hand I'm a trans woman and I don't like guys who play the jerk, or men who exude toxic masculine bullshit. Most of the cisgender women I know feel basically the same way, they want a guy who is balanced, secure, and generally pleasant to be around. Still some guys are kinda charismatic about being jerks, so are some women, so that can cause being a jerk to be easily mistaken for being confident and strong.

Still I've spent time on occasion watching Pick Up Artists(PUAs) at work and I found something really funny about them. They talk about negging[footnote]Using a negative compliment to get their foots in the door.[/footnote], and various other kinds of bullshit where they're total jerks to women. I've seen that it's not actually successful by itself, they usually go around in a bar for hours getting shot down over and over. The funny part is that eventually a PUA succeeds and I've only seen it happen for two reasons: They find a target dumb, or drunk enough to buy into their bullshit, which rarely happens. On the other hand, they look so desperate and sad that someone goes with them out of nothing more than pity, which is the typical way they finally get someone. That's it. When PUAs talk about how being a jerk gets them women, they're kinda right, they succeed eventually. That though only happens after hours of abject failure to pick up a woman, or them getting extremely lucky with a "target". They actually get shot down more often and harder than other guys, the difference is that they simply don't give up. So perseverance apparently is what can get you some nookie, if you're desperate and sad enough of a human being.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think they go for confidence?

Numerous people, male and female, have attested to the contrary on this site before.

... they go for lack of confidence?

 

[Valiance]

I feel that the user-base of this site is in no position to answer such a question as yes or no.

The short answer I can give without sounding like a complete idiot is that such a general statement doesn't apply to all of one gender or the other.

 

[renegade7]

No, jerks like jerks. Some women are also jerks.

It's also entirely possible that, irritated at rejection, you're inclined to feel that the person she finds more attractive is a jerk.

But I assume in this case we're talking about people who actually are jerks. In that case, there are two reasons that jerks can appear to have the most relationship success. The first is that they're not picky and just want easy, shallow relationships, and if that's all you want then you can guarantee never being single again with only a minimum of effort. The second possibility is that they're the kind of person who can't function without a relationship, and they're good at getting into relationships because they quite literally need to be good at it since it's the entirety of their sense of self-worth on the line.

Simply put, nice guys finish last because they're not interested in doing the things that bad boys do to finish first.

 

[Ambitiousmould]

To me (a man), it appears that girls generally prefer chaps that I dislike, but the thing is that I know that those chaps are good people. I just generally feel negatively toward nice, happy, sociable people. I understand fully that this is because I am a mardy, miserable **** and that my dislike stems from bitterness at my own inability to conduct a normal conversation.

TL;DR: I'm a **** and women go for the opposite of me, disproving (at least in my experience) this 'women prefer arseholes' thing.

Say what you want about me, at the very least I'm self-aware.

 

[madwarper]

Some do. Others don't.

If no woman liked any jerk, then day talk shows like Jerry Springer (trailer trash tussles), Maury Povich (baby daddy DNA tests) and/or Steve Wilkos (child abusing polygraphs) wouldn't have any guests to fill their schadenfreude programming.

 

[Rahkshi500]

Not really. Big difference between confidence and being an asshole, though the two can overlap. And as some have said, the word "jerk" is usually used by someone to refer to someone else who they just don't like, which leads to the one making the claim to have issues of insecurity and/or entitlement. In all honesty, no one really wants to be treated like shit from the person they're interested in... though like some have also said, unless you and your other like to be jerks to other people.