Transitioning from Nice Guy to nice guy

[brynndragon]

I get the feeling that the defensive reactions demonstrated by some of the comments in my post on the topic of Nice Guys is because people recognized more of themselves than they are comfortable with in the rant I linked to. If you're one of those people, or you got that mildly ill feeling in the pit of your stomach when you read that rant, you might be interested in an essay on becoming a nice guy. I know I found it to be useful. . .

Comments

[randysmith]

I think my defensiveness is around the boundary between "being attracted to someone" and "only spending time with them because your trying to get into their pants". I perceive there as being a stereotype out there that's always ready to pounce (:-}) that if I'm attracted to someone then that's the reason (implicitly, the only reason) I'm hanging out with/expressing interest in them. And it's not just fear of that stereotype; I've moderately internalized it, which results in a fair amount of internal second guessing around my own motives. And that sucks.

I think I do ok at avoiding being a "Nice Guy" (tm), but at the cost both of tending to spend *less* time with people I'm attracted to and of not generally expressing attraction when I feel it. Not surprisingly, I'm not completely happy with that balance :-} :-J.

[randysmith]

Caveat on the above: I skimmed the beginning of both posts you described, but haven't read all the way through them.

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

I think there's an unspoken difference between "hanging out with someone" because you think they might be someone you'd like to date and "trying to instantly be their bestest friend." Obviously if you find someone attractive you'd like to get to know them better, it's when people jump straight to trying to be the best friend before really knowing them with the purpose of pants jumping that it's an issue.

But that's just my reading.

[dragonvpm.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.... I completely missed that particular perspective when I originally read it. It wasn't clear to me that they differentiated between normal "getting to know someone for possible friendship or romance" and "I'm going to say/do A, B, C, D, and E so they think I'm great and want to sleep with me". That distinction actually helps a lot.

[randysmith]

That's fair. If I didn't think I was overreacting, I wouldn't think I had a problem :-}. But I also think there are a range of sensitivities around this issue, for all that I suspect the average is a lot closer to what you describe than what I describe.

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

Oh most definately, as much as there's a range of any sort of sensitivity. Some people aren't comfortable with the idea of someone being attracted to them, no matter how pure and sincere the emmotion.