The "Nice Guy" Syndrome

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Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
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Dags90 said:
sravankb said:
Seriously though, why do only the guys ask the girls out? Have you ever heard of the opposite happening? Maybe a few, but it definitely isn't the norm.
Women who actively pursue relationships are often considered to be overly aggressive or promiscuous.

We don't really encourage women to break traditional gender roles expect in some narrow cases like careers.
Well things need to change all around. I think the "well we're a whore" excuse is tad overused this day and age. It's not the 50's. Women need to start asking if they want to be happy, and they should be expected to take on a more equal role during dating. Men need to stop thinking women are whores for merely approaching them and showing interest.

I'm very progressive I guess; when I date men, even those who are in the traditional "female role" even ask other guys out, but I get very annoyed when suddenly I have to behave in a manner that became obsolete 40 years ago when I date women. I get a lot of flak for not putting up with it. Of course that's from my perspective, which is a bit different from a lot of people.
 

Altorin

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May 16, 2008
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Father Time said:
So can someone explain to me what nice guy syndrome is?

Is it the idea that all you need to do is be nice to get woman or what?
"Nice Guy Syndrome" is when guys who think that they're nice get passed over by women and they blame it on the fact that they're nice, and girls only like jerks
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
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Father Time said:
Altorin said:
Father Time said:
So can someone explain to me what nice guy syndrome is?

Is it the idea that all you need to do is be nice to get woman or what?
"Nice Guy Syndrome" is when guys who think that they're nice get passed over by women and they blame it on the fact that they're nice, and girls only like jerks
That's it? ...No that can't be it I've seen too many people write freaking essays trying to explain it. It can't be that simple.
It boils down to this:
-nice guys don't ask girls out and become bitter and lonely
-women don't ask the nice guys out, and get angry the "nice guys" don't approach them after dating jerks
-"jerks" are among the only ones (along with the "normal guys") asking women out, and make things bad for everyone, resulting in these discussions
 

Dags90

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Oct 27, 2009
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Nurb said:
I'm very progressive I guess; and when I date men, even those who are in the traditional "female role" even ask other guys out, but I get very annoyed when suddenly I have to behave in a manner that became obsolete 40 years ago when I date women. I get a lot of flak for not putting up with it. Of course that's from my perspective, which is a bit different from a lot of people.
One of the reasons people have trouble with characterizing homosexual relationships is how much they muck up traditional gender roles. Oftentimes in mainstream media they're pretty much shoehorned into appropriately heteronormative roles, regardless of how gay couples actually act.

It's not just men perpetuating this, women have a lot to do with it. Women just as readily slut shame other women because they're stuck in this system. We have status quo enforcing jokes about how feminism is tied to aggressive lesbians so even the women stay in line. The greatest failings of modern civil rights movements is the lack of cooperation. Homophobia is one of the biggest things holding women's equality behind.

My captcha was "ignorance coubeet"
 

archvile93

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Sep 2, 2009
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Man a lot of these threads have been springing up recently. Okay look, it's not that they're jerks, it's that they have confidence. Women seem to love that, so they fall for the guy, at least until they get to know him and realize he's an ass and therefore dump him.
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
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Dags90 said:
Nurb said:
I'm very progressive I guess; and when I date men, even those who are in the traditional "female role" even ask other guys out, but I get very annoyed when suddenly I have to behave in a manner that became obsolete 40 years ago when I date women. I get a lot of flak for not putting up with it. Of course that's from my perspective, which is a bit different from a lot of people.
One of the reasons people have trouble with characterizing homosexual relationships is how much they muck up traditional gender roles. Oftentimes in mainstream media they're pretty much shoehorned into appropriately heteronormative roles, regardless of how gay couples actually act.

It's not just men perpetuating this, women have a lot to do with it. Women just as readily slut shame other women because they're stuck in this system. We have status quo enforcing jokes about how feminism is tied to aggressive lesbians so even the women stay in line. The greatest failings of modern civil rights movements is the lack of cooperation. Homophobia is one of the biggest things holding women's equality behind.

My captcha was "ignorance coubeet"
There are actually men who take on what would be considered the old male and female positions in a relationship, and there's just about the same number who don't act that way and are equals in behavior and status, so SOME of the media's representation of homosexual relationships is correct. Though yes, they use the stereotype often because they have no idea how to write for anyone else. Rare exceptions are the gay nerds in the Sarah Silverman Program are hilariously accurate (if a bit over-blown for comedy's sake) for a lot of people. One of the best relationships I had was sort of like that... just not so much the fattness and grossness.

ANYWAY, I agree, there are plenty of "family values" women out there bringing down those who want to be progressive, but they have to overcome that by dealing with them directly as a group; we just can't give the women who do want the traditional wife role a hard time, and there's plenty who do that aren't raised in repressive religious homes.

The ones I talked about are the "modern women" who are progressive up until they want to be treated like a princess, then get angry when called on the double standard. Those are the ones really causing problems. I ran into a lot of them in LA, usually from upper-middle to upper class homes. I think they're called lipstick feminists.
 

VivaciousDeimos

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May 1, 2010
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BobDobolina said:
Women generally (surprise!) prefer confidence, good looks and/or charm (at least two out of the three, you can get by without good looks) to the prospect of dating some passive-aggressive nebbish who thinks they deserve a cookie for "respecting" them. Guys who don't meet any of the three major criteria often construct a fantasy narrative in which they're "nice" and the guys outflanking them are "jerks" and the women who like the "jerks" are ungrateful sluts and stupid whores. As @Father Time notes, they'll write whole essays justifying this vicious, hateful, cowardly fantasy to themselves. If they've stewed in this bitter misogyny for long enough, some will eventually hit on the idea of becoming exactly the "jerks" they've been imagining the more successful males to be.

That's it.
There was an open letter once on Craigslist that was rather hilarious, called "What Happened to All the Nice Guys?" that's pretty much exactly what you described. One of the links I wanted to post in regards to the topic is actually a different guy ripping the letter apart in regards to how incredibly wrong the author is. That can be found here: The Internet Nice Guy Rears His Ugly Head Once More, and is definitely worth reading, mostly for the pure hilarity.

But I wanted to quote a pretty insightful blog I once found from a woman's personal experience with the Nice Guy, <a href=http://divalion.livejournal.com/163615.html>No More Mr. Nice Guy, because it's important to learn to recognize him in order to stay the fuck away.

2) The assumption was made, by all the guys including him, that because he was a Nice Guy, I was obligated to place that above any of his other qualities and to date him for it, regardless of whether or not we were otherwise compatible.

3) My feelings or desires did not seem to matter nor enter into the equation; he liked me, ergo, I must go out with him-- because who in her right mind would pass up a chance to date such a Nice Guy?

4) When his feelings were not returned, even with a rejection delivered as gently as possible out of consideration for those feelings, he and the other guys turned on me. All my good stuff turned to bad stuff and I was to be reviled.

There are a lot of Nice Guys out there, and they are incredibly insidious, because on the surface they SEEM so sweet, so misunderstood, so very different from the boorish asshole who cheated on you or told you that those pants do, indeed, make your ass look fat. But in the end, they turn out to be using their "niceness" as an excuse to hide behind, much like medieval aristocracy used cloying perfumes to cover up the ass-stank of their unwashed bodies.

The guys I have met and known who could legitimately be called Nice Guys were, for one thing, almost invariably bitter. Either they have never gotten over being picked on in junior high/rejected by the popular girls in school, or they haven't gotten laid in a long time, or they've gotten dumped sometime in the last few years and are still licking their wounds. Whatever it is, they have a huge chip on their shoulders about it, and in their eyes the women of the world owe them for it. They don't usually verbalize it, but oh how the resentment seethes.

They tend to befriend women in order to date them. Nice Guys don't usually just ask a woman out and at least make a pretext of friendship to use as a springboard. This is where they can get confused with actual nice guys, who tend to also befriend women before dating them, but the difference is that the genuine nice guy appreciates women as human beings and enters into friendships mostly for their own sake rather than working them as an angle. The Nice Guy, on the other hand, sees women mostly in sexual terms (although he will deny it or call it "romantic terms") but doesn't have a lot of success with the direct approach, so instead he puts on a charming, harmless face in order to befriend women with the expectation that she will reward his niceness and friendship with sex. It can be a subtle difference, but there are clues-- the Nice Guy tends to come on pretty strong as a friend, and often makes "joking" sexual comments that can be dismissed as not intended seriously if the woman doesn't respond to the come-on implied in it. He will hang his belief that you would make great friends on the smallest of compatibilities-- for example a shared interest in a band, which he makes an awful lot of hay out of. He may talk a lot about how victimized he's been by cruel ex-girlfriends in a ploy for sympathy.

On the subject on "jerks." Just because a woman you are attracted to is dating a man other than YOU it doesn't make the other guy a jerk by default. And you know, I think that yes, there are girls who do date jerks, but I don't think it's for the reason a lot of people assume. Most of them don't enjoy being treated like shit, it's about the idea of having the power to change someone. The jerk/bad boy acts differently around you because you're special to him, until he slips up and falls into old habits, that is; nice guys (not Nice Guys) are nice to everyone so how do you know you're special to them? We see this thing happen a lot in fiction, and it's a common fantasy, but it sometimes takes girls to figure out that what works in fiction doesn't always work in real life.
 

Samurai Goomba

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Oct 7, 2008
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Scott Pilgrim is a good example of "nice guy syndrome," especially in the movie. Fake nice guys are usually passive-aggressive, fixate on what they can't have, don't think about how the girl feels, are often attracted to somebody based solely on looks and don't care how they treat the people around them who they aren't interested in.

A big part of Scott's journey as a person was him realizing he has these qualities and working to overcome them. One could argue, however, that he never would have moved past himself if he hadn't met Ramona, who had him figured out pretty much from the start.
 

shadowstriker86

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Feb 12, 2009
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Oh ive got a bit of a doozy for you as far as being a nice guy goes;

I'm the type of person who when a person is in need of help, i'll do everything i can to help them, but everytime this happens i get crapped on in the end because the person either ignores me completely afterwards or treats me like crap.

you'd think after 23 times i'd learn...

Take this as an important lesson in life: Don't pour your heart and soul to anyone who asks for help because the depression is NOT WORTH IT, just offer an "oh im sorry, that sucks" and some helpful advice.
 

the rye

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Jun 26, 2010
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Hmm i think i was a nice guy or most likely an inexperianced boy who was simply infatuated, although i never belived i was the ONE or RIGHT CHOICE for the girl i liked.
I would also find it odd for any real nice male to have an intent to simply ACT nice to get a girl.
 

TriggerOnly

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Oct 18, 2010
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sniddy said:
Hazy said:
Syrus Vikeruce said:
It is a problem faced with many an acne faced teenager across the world of the Internet but can anyone man here say they haven't been faced with this?
Sure, I can. Because you can still be a nice guy without being a doormat.
This is true - but there still comes a time when you are faced with one of those true moral dilemmas.

Trust me you face the classic very attractive and drunk girl inviting you up for a nightcap.....not falling down drunk, so you can't be 100% certain how much is booze and how much is interest....

That's when you can truly face the 'nice guy' syndrome.

...or if your definition of nice guy is fawning after bitchy women who treat you like dirt....well that's just desperate and stupid two very unattractive qualities
I love toughs moments i see it as helping the drunk hot chick sweat out the alcohol before she sleeps with some loser....
 

Amy Sorel

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Nov 17, 2010
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"nice guy syndrome" Sounds good. Most guys who say they are the nice guys who finish last, are just bitter angry jerks that hate all women for not seeing that they are actually 'god's gift to women'. They can't get a date and blame it all on women.

All else has been said here. Pretty girls want pretty guys. Shallow? yes, but nature. Ugly guys want pretty girls too, but because they don't get any, they get mad. Ugly girls can't get pretty guys also, but ugly girls don't complain so much about it as guys do.
 

WingedIncubus

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Nov 5, 2010
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MassiveGeek said:
There's a difference between being a "nice guy" and being a "spineless naive guy".
Both are the same in my book. As soon as you act in a supplicative manner toward a woman and place yourself as someone needing her validation, be it for getting something in return, spare offending her womanhood, or putting her on a piedestal, you are a "nice guy".
 

WingedIncubus

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Amy Sorel said:
All else has been said here. Pretty girls want pretty guys. Shallow? yes, but nature. Ugly guys want pretty girls too, but because they don't get any, they get mad. Ugly girls can't get pretty guys also, but ugly girls don't complain so much about it as guys do.
Very good point. It's staggering how many guys think they can magically get an attractive girl without putting too much work to be themselves attractive. It's not like hitting the gym and bulking up is THAT hard, but yeah it takes time, dedication and discipline. Additionally, redoing one's wardrobe to choose clothes putting oneself in an advantageous life isn't too complicated, just take your most fashion-aware girl friend with you on a shopping spree and let her dress you and groom you.

If you look like a dork and dress like a schmuck, you'll be seen as a dork and a schmuck as a first impression, and it's very hard to come back from that.