Too Good a Rant Not to Share

[brynndragon]

It's not that nice guys finish last. It's that Nice Guys finish last and with good reason. Read further: No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Comments

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Hurm. Not all Nice Guys are obsessive and have never experienced rejection. However, I would agree that they tend to finish last.

(Of course, I claim not to be a Nice Guy. For one thing, I have a Sports Vice.)

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Uh. . . did you read the article and observe the difference between "nice guy" and "Nice Guy"? Cause your statement seems to conflate the two.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Mmmm--okay, probably guilty. I'll re-read them in a bit. (divalion's rant triggered off a few unpleasant memories of my own early socialization disasters.)

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing you didn't get to the part where Nice Guys can become nice guys with a bit of effort ;P.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

(btw, from what I can see, you're a nice guy, not a Nice Guy)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

This may be why I am only a Nice Guy some of the time.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

And having gotten to the end of the article, god DAMN if there aren't entitlement-laden Nice Girls who do exactly this dance in reverse; except instead of male-stereotype issues (looking for sex too hard, neglecting hygiene), they're doing the same sort of disrespectful things from the opposite perspective . Both sides are looking for control; the "alpha-wolf" bit in the middle is very telling. Maybe I'll write a counter-rant.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Why is it a counter rant instead of a complementary rant?

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

'cause I wasn't clever enough to think to type that?

[gothfather.livejournal.com]

Kaz said something similar to me once, so I pretty much agree with all of this. I have had friends that tried to play the "Nice Guy" card and failed miserably, and I have even, on occasion, expressed bewilderment as to what I am "lacking". Of course, it's taken a good chunk of my life to understand the difference between nice people and Nice Guys, but it's actually there.

Only one sentence in that entire thing strikes me as inaccurate, however:

Body language and nonverbal cues are not that hard to learn to read.

For a lot of people this is true. However, as someone who cannot read body language and nonverbal cues without intense concentration and study, I'd like to make a point that sometimes, just once in a while, a person simply cannot tell you are looking at them, or flirting with them, or standing in an inviting way.

Sometimes it really does take a whack from the shoju mallet to get a point across to someone like me. :) Almost no one wants to go through that trouble and assumes that my lack of response to the "cues" indicates uninterest. Likewise, my own lack of proper non-verbal cues makes it difficult for me to express myself that way.

Just $.02 from a geek :)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

The inability to read body language and nonverbal cues is part and parcel of Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism whose most notable symptom is social impairment.

I'm probably an undiagnosed Aspie; I had severe social impairment through Grade 12, when a bunch of the "popular" kids in my high school took it upon themselves to teach me that much of the inscrutable body of knowledge called "social skills" is really a set of rules that can be learned and hacked. (Bless their fuzzy little hearts, they actually understood how geeks learn stuff.) I still haven't gotten the "nonverbal cues" thing down, and likely never will.

[gothfather.livejournal.com]

A few good friends have suggested that I may be an undiagnosed Aspie, and I did start to look into the possibility before my new job began despite the repeated and adamant objections of one friend; I will have to start researching doctors again when my schedule evens out a bit.

Unfortunately I never had anyone actually "show me the ropes". I learned through trial and error... and if I've never succeeded at some social expression, I've never learned it. I can pass for functional at this point in most situations, but throw me inot an social arena I have no serious success or experience with... like flirting... and I fall over and die.

[friode.livejournal.com]

You might want to do a google search for faceblindness, which refers to not identifying which person is which using their faces; a closely related problem is having difficulty reading facial expressions.

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

God damn it, I'm glad I'm married (and to a nice guy at that), and don't have to deal with any of this anymore, 'cause I've dated Nice Guys who are guilty of EVERY SINGLE THING she gripes about. Boy that brought back some bad memories. It was like I was reading something I'd written.

Damn.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

Fantastic essay. I just un-locked this post, which talks about some of it from the Nice Guy's perspective...

And yes, I too am an Aspie and it took me a long time to learn to "read" people and size up social situations. It can be done, but one has to want to do it for the right reasons. "I want to be able to read body language so I can pick up chicks" is not the right reason. "I want to be able to read body language so I can better get along with everyone I meet" is much better...

[shogunhb.livejournal.com]

Long ago, I decided to sematically differentiate between Good and Nice. In my lexicon, Good = (lowercase) nice as defined in the rant.

Nice is the outward appearance. Nice is acting like a good, attentive, wonderful human being. Good is actually BEING a nice, attentive, wonderful human being.

One can be Good AND Nice, I know numerous people like this. The Nice Guys villified in the rant are Nice but not Good. I have been accused of being Good but not Nice.

That may not make a lot of sense, but I just got out of a 3 hour meeting.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Actually, I rather like that distinction. I suspect I greatly prefer those who are Good but not Nice to those who are both Good and Nice. That sounds odd on the surface, but if you've dealt with one too many of the Nice but not Good variety, Niceness in general can leave a bad taste in your mouth.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's nice to have someone else's perspective on all this. As a guy who may or may not be Nice, I appreciate the diagnostic tones and advice.

[shogunhb.livejournal.com]

You're a genuinely good guy. Falling into the trap of falling for a friend (and the resulting weirdity) is nowhere near the same thing as setting yourself up in such a situation deliberately because you're Nice.

Still, it's good to read the essay as "behaviors to avoid".

re: falling for falling into the falling trap

[etherial.livejournal.com]

I do it often enough, I wonder if it's intentional.

Re: falling for falling into the falling trap

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Probably not, you don't strike me as that kind of masochist ;P.

That's not the same as doing it unconsciously, possibly to assist in maintaining some sort of defense system (if you're not dating, you'll never get dumped). But that's one of those things you can only determine through introspection and self-work, and it's not a simple process. First you need to figure out if that's what's going, and if so then you need to figure out what twisted logic lead to the defense system's creation. Then you need to reprogram the twisted logic into untwisted logic wherein falling for people who don't fall for you is no longer useful (thankfully that usually clears up the problem by itself).

[friode.livejournal.com]

The author of that rant claims that girls who are interested will always express interest strongly. But then she says that she never realized some guy was interested in her because he never expressed it. WTF? Either girls always express it but guys don't, or else she's smoking some good crack.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think what she said is girls who are *not* interested strongly express their *dis*interest. As someone who spent quite some time in a bathroom crying as a teenager because she couldn't get someone to stop groping her with nonverbal cues but if she said something outloud she would not only hurt his feelings but possibly cause him to become a social outcast and that would be mean (hello Fallacy #2), I'm going to sympathize with her a hell of a lot more than with you on this one. She also mentioned her high school experience and I could easily see someone in that situation learning that even if you're gentle you still get screwed socially for saying "no", so take it like a woman and you won't lose your friends. It would have been better if she'd included "If you don't know, *ask*", but her example with Random showed exactly that, so she might've thought it didn't need repeating.

[friode.livejournal.com]

Part of what you're saying, though, is equivalent to complaining that a blind person can't read an ordinary book by themself. Some people don't get nonverbal cues, and in some cases it's really not clear that they're any more able to learn nonverbal cues than a blind person is able to read an ordinary book.

And asking doesn't always get answers, in my experience. So that's not a trivial solution either.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

In your case, since you don't get non-verbal cues, you'll need to use your verbal skills a lot more frequently. It sucks, it's annoying, but if you want to be responsible for your actions rather than fobbing them off on a social disorder it's something you'll need to do. In the end, it boils down to do you feel bad if your actions have made someone uncomfortable and take steps to try to see that future actions don't make them or someone else uncomfortable (it'd be nice if the first bit automatically lead to the second bit, but it doesn't). If you do, then you're a nice guy, but if you don't you're heading towards Nice Guy territory. This is part of why asking is important even if you don't get a clear answer - even if the answer isn't clear you at least communicate *your* intent, which fulfills your responsibility. It's all about respecting and treating another person as a human being. Not a sex toy, not a goddess, but a human being.

BTW, if the answer to "does this make you uncomfortable" (or a variant on that theme) isn't clear, treat it as if the answer was "yes". You'll save yourself a lot of grief that way.

[friode.livejournal.com]

These days, I do do more or less what you're suggesting.

I still think you're being pretty damn insensitive, though, and perhaps not realizing the magnitude of the problem. Verbal expression of finding someone attractive at all can make some people uncomfortable, as far as I can tell. Furthurmore, I resent other people attributing my lack of understanding of all of this in the past to malice rather than ignorance.

It's also problematic when I get third party reports of having made someone uncomfortable, with no details of exactly who I made uncomfortable, even when I ask. Have you ever had people demand that you stop making some unspecified person in some vague large social group uncomfortable by doing some thing which is also not precisely explained to you?

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Look, the world sucks for everyone. You have NVLD, the person sitting next to you is on Wellbutrin so they can get out of bed in the morning, the person on your other side is taking melatonin so they can get to sleep at night, the person behind you is sticking their finger down their throat after every meal, the person in front of you is wearing a long-sleeved shirt to hide the gash they gave themselves after they got dumped. I'm unimpressed by your complaints about the cross you need to bear, especially when I know people with the same cross who don't seem to have a problem with talking about things if they get confused or are uncertain, much less *not* groping people unless they ask permission first. But it does make me sad that expressing the need for personal responsibility is all it takes to be labeled insensitive.

As for those third parties, tell them that unless they give you information sufficient for you to change your behavior by telling you who has been made uncomfortable and how, the onus for the discomfort is on their shoulders, not yours. Their demands are petty attempts at manipulation as well as expressions of cowardice and should be met with the contempt they deserve (unless you're feeling kind, in which case pity is the proper expression).

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

BTW, if the answer to "does this make you uncomfortable" (or a variant on that theme) isn't clear, treat it as if the answer was "yes".

I think that's a very good rule. In general people don't have nearly as much of a problem expressing that everything is all fine and good than they do expressing that there is a problem. If they're not comfortable saying that they're comfortable, well then chances are they're not comfortable. Sounds much more obvious when I put it that way, doesn't it? :)

[redjo.livejournal.com]

Excellent essay. It helped me realize my most recent ex was definitely a Nice Guy. *sigh* Which pisses me off in some ways, really helps in others ...

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Before getting exceedingly defensive about this essay, guys should realize every Nice Guy essay is not a blanket denouncement of all males who act insecure at some point. The assumption is no one, including women, is innocent of being insecure, controlling and passive agressive. The Nice Guy is a separate catagory of excess - constantly acting out while blaming the people he is attracted to for his own problems. To the rest of the population, the Nice Guy is our flaws writ large a reminder to check yourself.

Though not all Nice Guys are male or straight, his behavior is most frequently exhibited by misogynists. The Nice Guy belief that he has earned sexual or romantic gratification just for treating women nicely an underlying assumption that women are not normally deserving of nice treatment. That's not nice, that's hatred of women.

[dragonvpm.livejournal.com]

I'd managed to miss this post the first time around so I just now read it and I thought it made a lot of sense, although I did take exception to one statement:

If you can't be friends with a woman who's turned you down, especially if you find yourself getting really angry about it, you have no business being in a relationship until you work out your issues.

Keeping in mind that any situation where you get much angrier than is reasonable (e.g. road rage, your kids sporting events, etc...) is bad, the base statement that "If you can't be friends with a woman who's turned you down... you have no business being in a relationship until you work out your issues." seems a bit unfair and if anything it seems like the kind of thing that would engender more Nice Guy behaviour. I think a lot of Nic Guy behaviour is the result of people trying to find romance by following "the rules" without really stopping to think about what they're trying to do or even why they're doing it.

I know that personally when I've been rejected by someone it helps me a lot if I can get away from them for a while (which can vary from days to weeks or even longer) while I re-calibrate how I think/feel about that person. Immediately after rejection I have not-good feelings whenever I see/interact the person in question and I need time to sort things out so that I don't have the not-good feelings (whether I feel sad, or like I'm a loser/unworthy, maybe even annoyed at myself for misreading the other person etc...) and sometimes it's hard to get back into the same groove with someone after that's happened.

I dunno, I guess for me part of the problem is that I tend to be friends with exceedingly diverse groups/types of people and if I stop spending time with one person/group it's not that hard to start spending time with another person/group while I assimilate the new social interaction knowledge (e.g. figuring out what are or are not good signs, what might have been bad signs etc...) and more often than not it does take a while to fully sort things out.

I dunno, maybge I do have issues, but I'm inclined to think that stopping and taking time to figure them out as much as possible is a good thing.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of Nic Guy behaviour is the result of people trying to find romance by following "the rules" without really stopping to think about what they're trying to do or even why they're doing it.

Stated another way, I think it's about them trying to follow the LETTER of the rules and ignoring the SPIRIT, either because they're being willfully ignorant or because they're actually too clueless to understand the real spirit.

[eyesys.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. :P

It's so true. I tend to like aloof, slightly arrogant men physically the most. They drive me crazy. If they are too available, I tend to respond "shrug whatever" even though I *think* I want a Mr. Nice Guy. I may like them a lot otherwise, might be attracted, but it's always the ones that I'm not sure about entirely or that push me around a little or sometimes a lot that I like the most. If they have the contrast of being sweet to me between the assbeatings, etc. I like them even more. But if they were all sweet, don't think it would really work.

Note, I do NOT like this in a social setting -in fact it completely turns me off. It's only a sexual thing.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I've found that one of the things I value in a partner is being truly themselves, even if that might not be popular or something I would like. I've had show-stopping arguements with my intimate fuck-buddy, where one or the other of us end up refusing to continue the discussion lest things get *really* nasty. But the Nice Guy will try to be what they think I want, which is usually not even vaguely what I want (I want someone who thinks for themselves while respecting my opinion, for example, and it's orders-of-magnitude harder to figure that out and play along than just be like that naturally).

As for sweet guys, I've found that respect and caring are far sweeter than the saccarine service-with-a-smile attitude that is one of the hallmarks of a Nice Guy. Bending over backwards is only sexy if done bodily rather than socially ;P.

[eyesys.livejournal.com]

The kind of guys I like *like* servitude, but only because they know that they are weilding power over me, not because I'm a wus. :P

I'm still very lippy and bratty however. >:)