PERSONAL: I AM PROUD TO ME A NICE GUY

I am a nice guy. There are some women who want the nice guy because they understand that nice means good and not nice means bad. However, most women seem to have the concepts confused. She may believe she wants a nice guy, but in reality, she doesn’t want a nice guy. In her eyes, nice is weak – it’s boring. She wants excitement. She wants mystery, surprise, drama. She wants a bad boy. Until she gets stuck with one, of course. Then all of a sudden logic swarms back into reality and bad, once again, means bad. Understanding why women go for those bad boys isn’t difficult to understand. The essence of a bad boy is isolation, carelessness, self-indulgence, selfishness and attitude. When you put it this way, it’s difficult to understand why it is that women go for these kinds of guys.

Bad boys seem more manly – which is an awful way to think as it teaches guys that being bad is more rewarding than being good. If being a bad boy gets you laid while being a nice guy gets you either ignored or abused, then guess which type most men choose to be. Because women see nice guys as being weaker than those who flaunt their “strength” – if you can call it that – they feel that it’s okay to use them and then leave them hanging. I think every guy who ever started out as a good guy had their ass handed to them. I know that I have. Every guy at one point was silly enough to think that being nice to the woman he has feelings for is a good idea. He would go out of his way to be nice. He would hold doors open for her. He would help her with simple tasks. He would smile and be courteous. If he took her on a date then he might have even bought her flowers, paid for her meal, paid for her drinks, paid for the cab. But only until he realized that the girl had absolutely no interest in him. She liked the free food and drinks, but not the guy who was paying for them.

Not all women are so heartless, but a few are. I believe nearly all women go through their bad boy phase – some earlier on, some much later.What it ends up being is a lesson learned. No woman has ever lived happily ever after with a complete bad boy. Why? Because once bad boys settle down, they are no longer bad boys – they’re nice guys. You need a nice guy to settle down with because that’s the only kind of guy who is willing to actually settle down. So the truth is, ladies, that you don’t want a bad boy. You want to turn a bad boy into a nice guy.You want to change that reckless, untamed man and you want to put a collar on him. You want to tame a beast because it makes you feel strong, makes you feel good about yourself. You did the undoable. Who doesn’t like a challenge, right? Maybe we should take a look at the word challenge… Challenges, by nature, are difficult. If a challenge isn’t challenging, then it isn’t a very good challenge to begin with. By making your relationship a challenge, you are literally making it difficult to be with a person. You are creating space between you and the prize. Weird.

So maybe it’s that the women who go after these bad boys don’t actually want a relationship. They just want to enjoy the thrill of the chase. A pseudo-relationship that is more flashy than anything else. Relationships require a great storyline, with lots of drama and the constant possibility of loss – like in the movies. Maybe we should put the blame on Hollywood. With time, all women come back from the dark side. They learn firsthand that bad guys are bad for them. They realize that being treated as if they were worthless and spending most of their time either alone or feeling alone isn’t part of the relationship they now want to have. All the excitement turned into a migraine. All the drama turned into painful memories. Now she wants a nice guy who will love her, treat her with respect and spend time with her because he wants to. Unfortunately for them, by the time they realize the mistake they’ve made, there are only jerks left.

“Nice guys finish last.”  I don’t even know who began the expression but they obviously had some personal vendetta against a seemingly nice person who ended up having sex with their sister on their dining room table, because otherwise I don’t really see it. I prided myself on being a nice guy for many years, long before I started seriously thinking about dating and relationships. I have integrity and a strong sense of justice, and I aim to be the type of person you can trust with your life, your life savings, or your reputation. I’m genuine, and I won’t keep you around if I don’t like you, nor will I pretend to care about you if I don’t, but if you want to talk about your problems anyway, I’ll listen and do my best to be non-judgemental. I am reliable in that when I say I’ll do something, I make a commitment to doing it.I do all of the things that Nice Guys do. I’m polite, hard working, trustworthy, non-confrontational, dependable. I don’t go behind people’s backs. I don’t belittle people. I don’t find humor in the suffering of others.

I know why dating is so hard for me,. It’s because I have interests not often shared by women; it’s because I’m only interested in relationships that have the potential to lead to long-term stability and commitment, and it’s because I believe the only worthwhile monogamous relationships are the ones in which both partners prefer each other, as they are, to all other potential partners.You believe that the nice guys can’t throw you up against a wall or on a shag carpet.  You think that the nice guys are the ones that constantly ask you, “What do you want for dinner?  I don’t care what we eat, whatever you like.”  No.  Let me rephrase.  N-O.  Sorry people, but that isn’t even close to what the Nice Guy is about.  The Nice Guy is the closest thing to what women call “A Real Man.”  A Nice Guy cares about your options, but knows when to take over the decisions.  Why?  Cause he knows that sometimes you don’t want to have to figure it all out.  A Nice Guy is sometimes gentle, and sometimes aggressive in bed because they understand that doing things in one way is just BORING.  A Nice Guy knows when to take charge because they understand that sometimes a woman likes to be taken care of.  Nice Guy knows how to fight, but will fight only when they know that there are no other options, and to protect the people that they love. The difference between me and the "take no prisoners" guys,  is that to me, my fangs are a last resort, not a first line of fight.And any last resort is the one with the most power behind it. It's a last resort. Keep in mind that we all have lines we’d rather not cross.  Some of us just have a higher tolerance to the things that drive lesser men over the edge.

The thing about the modern guy is that the old-school romantics like myself are dying out.  We most certainly do not have a culture that endorses us.  As shallow as men can be, women are no better.Please stop complaining  about how bad guys are. Guys are jerks because the nice guys just give up after a while and choose to be alone rather than get their hearts broken more and more, and you are choosing to just go with the guy who looks good rather than the one who will make you feel good.  You make the choice, selling out your standards, and I have no sympathy for you.  The nice guys are out there, you just have to work at it.  You don’t want to do that, so whenever I hear some woman complain about how romance is dead, I tell her to look into a mirror to see who is killing it.

Not especially uplifting, I know, but I so sick and tired of hearing from women about how bad all guys are.  We don’t all have our minds on “one thing.”  Some of us want something more, and if you can’t get that, your loss.