Is the Nice Guy misunderstood or am I projecting?

webernicke · 2023-07-08T17:34:29+00:00

Yes, you were the most common version of Nice Guy.

Most men that are labeled "Nice Guys" and dragged on the internet are similar to you - a bit shy, inhibited and holding the belief that treating women like any other platonic friend might lead to a relationship eventually.

The negative stereotype of a "Nice Guy" (i.e. an entitled covert asshole that is only pretending to be nice for sex) is a deliberate mischaracterization of situations such as yours, for the express purpose of avoiding the discussion and implications around why men like yourself never learned how to flirt, are inhibited, and have an inaccurate understanding of how to successfully pursue and escalate relationships with women.

Zabadoodude · 2023-07-08T16:52:45+00:00

The term "nice guy" is really over used, so just regular shy guys get labeled by it. Spending more time with someone you're interested in is normal and everyone does it. A defining characteristic of nice guys is that they think they are superior to all those assholes, who make their intentions clear. They mislable their timidness as kindness, and believe that women are wrong for not liking them.

KayRay1994 · 2023-07-08T16:57:32+00:00

I think you’re def misunderstanding a lot - being young, innocent and friendly thinking it would lead to something (when you’re inexperienced) doesn’t make you a nice guy, nor does confessing your love to your friend. A nice guy is someone who is only nice for the sake of sex/relationships and feels entitled to it as a return. To me this sounds like you liked someone, didn’t know how to express it and ran with it - I think you realizing this his enough for me to say you’re not a nice guy.

A nice guy does, for example (if i’ll use your prompts for the sake of illustration), befriends a girl for sex/a relationship and feels entitled to having that as a return for his niceness, a nice guy confessing his love for his friend might end with him lashing out at her, or going on a “nice guys finish last” rant to his friends or online, ie. again, expecting love to be reciprocated because he was nice.

That all being said, now that you know these behaviors, you also know that it is impotent to be genuinely friendly and kind, and respectful if a friend rejects your advances. You now know how not to be nice guy, so really what i’m saying is - even though the first instances of this stuff is out of naïveté or ignorance, you must take care to not fall into those same behaviors.

AverageLuckyGuy · 2023-07-08T18:22:51+00:00

In my interpretation -- a "nice guy" is someone who's only being nice because they want something, or have some other ulterior motive. They're behaving this way not because they want to genuinely build a relationship with that person, but because they believe that by being nice, they'll be rewarded in a transactional sense.

Truth be told I've never encountered a "nice guy" IRL, and I really don't know how/why it's always became such a hot topic of discussion. In any case, what you've described just sounds like normal growing pains for a guy who's coming of age & figuring out how to date.

TheOrangeGhost · 2023-07-08T21:23:38+00:00

Nice guy is a manipulation tactic that's kind of similar to love bombing. The "nice guy" pretends to be caring, empathetic, and responsible but only to get sex and a high status relationship. They don't actually care about the person they are with, that person is just a means to get personal gratification. You tell if your with a "nice guy" or "nice girl" if they seem to be extremely friendly but everything feels very surface level and there seems to be a lack of long term bonding.

Lazysaurus · 2023-07-09T00:08:59+00:00

The "Nice Guy" is a feminist trope that serves 3 purposes:

1) it is an expression of the natural contempt women feel towards nicer/weaker beta men

2) it is a shaming tactic that keeps those betas dutifully sticking around and doing more favors in attempt to prove to women that they aren't bad

3) it is a rationalization for why women prefer bad boys over good guys. Why does she keep dating the abusive asshole who mistreats her instead of the regular guy who cares for her? Well, it's because the regular guy is really the asshole, of course! He's only acting nice because he wants sex. He's a Nice Guy. Yeah, that's the ticket. (Notice they'll never say he wants a relationship. They always say he only wants sex. That is very telling.)

In reality, most Nice Guys are just ordinary reasonable people doing things in an ordinary reasonable way - or at least what seems reasonable according to what society tells them. Their problem is that they don't understand the psychology of women. They typically lack masculine influnces in their lives to help them understand female nature. Things like why what women say and what women do are two different things. Or why women accuse them of only wanting sex when they actually want a relationship, while those same women have sex with guys who don't actually want a relationship.

This sounds like where you were at. I been there too.

pop442 · 2023-07-08T17:57:49+00:00

Here's the cold, hard truth.

Young women have TONS of options in contrast to young men. It's not until both genders hit the big 3-0 where things start to balance out a bit.

Young men are generally underemployed working in retail, customer service, and part time jobs or jobless. They're usually not in a position to entice women with their resources and stability.

As a result, looks and social status relative to your environment is crucial.

The guys who get labeled "nice guys" are usually young guys who neither have the looks, extoversion, money, or social status to capitalize on to attract a lot of women in their age group. As a result, they often fall back on trying to be a people pleaser and a passive White knight to girls in hope that they'll be able to win them over with their charm and niceness.

The problem is that, particularly for girls who are 6's and above, they would much rather have a good looking, tall, and/or popular guy who can be toxic and rude at times than a basic looking, average/short, and unpopular/shy guy who overcompensates for his inadequacies by trying to play up his niceness.

This puts "nice guys" in a weird dilemma where they attribute the success to the others guys who "get bitches" to moments where they display toxic/rude behavior as opposed to the actual traits that are drawing girls to them.

Another dilemma is that, when men try to present themselves as "nice", the bar for them is raised higher than Mount Everest. As soon as the self proclaimed nice guy says anything that can be taken for toxic or bad, he'll garner a negative reputation immediately for being a "fake nice guy" and all of his other efforts of trying to be a nice person will get erased as though it never happened.

A man who comes off as flawed from the get go, though, usually has a lower bar set for him. He can get caught saying and doing foul things and it's more likely to be forgiven or even forgotten.

I've seen that happen so much too. I have a cousin who's known to have an anger issue and literally choked his ex-girlfriend once but he ended up apologizing for it and it seems as though people accepted him being a "changed man." By contrast, I have another relative who's a pastor and tries hard to be a decent man and, one time, he got exposed cursing in a heated argument with a church member who cursed at him first and some people still hold that against him and claim he's a "fake Christian."

Reverse psychology in a nutshell...

towerofcheeeeza · 2023-07-08T19:33:49+00:00

When I met my best friend she didn't have many friends. Her closest friend was a guy. She really valued his friendship and they had a lot of overlapping interests. From the very get go, she apparently told him that she wasn't interested in him romantically (she also just wasn't dating at the time), but said she still wanted to be friends and asked if he was okay with that. He said yeah of course and they got really close.

I could always tell he was in love with her and waiting for her to feel the same way but he was not even remotely her type and from my POV she never led him on. And she would express every now and then that she was not into him, and he didn't try to change things. But he did engage in very simpy behavior and was willing to do anything for her.

Things were fine until she eventually got a new boyfriend like 2 years later. When that happened he went BALLISTIC. He completely went off on her about how could she date someone like that blah blah blah and all this shit. Then he completely cut her out and said he can't be her friend unless she breaks up with that guy.

This really devastated my friend. He was one of her ONLY friends and he was her best friend for 2 years. She confided a lot of things in him and trusted him. She really valued his friendship and he only saw hers as a gateway to a relationship with her. It was really awful. He completely iced her out of his life (but then later tried to worm his way back in occasionally - she was not having it).

I have plenty of male friends and female friends with male friends, but I've really never seen anything like that. I don't think Nice Guys are actually THAT common, but they do exist. I think it's possible that a guy could approach a girl in a friendly manner but also be interested in her romantically. But if you build a friendship with a woman over an extended period of time with the sole expectation that they will date you, and then light everything on fire when they reject you or date someone else, I would call that a Nice Guy.

James_Cruse · 2023-07-09T06:37:13+00:00

When women say a man is a “nice guy” it’s code for ‘undateable’ or ‘my last resort’ and it implies the following behaviour:

You don’t challenge her or you’re not hard to get, you’re too available (meaning not valuable)
You fear challenging women due to fear of loss
You have a scarcity mindset with women - again why you fear challenging women. If you don’t like a woman’s behaviour - you set your boundaries, challenge her or drop her from your life)
You allow the women you’re with to lead you more than that particular woman finds masculine = she’s not attracted to a man she can lead
You’re too agreeable (same as the others above - fear of loss, scarcity of women in your life, she’s leading) If you agree with anything she does or says that you actually don’t truly like - it’s very weak and she’s leading you.
You don’t establish firm boundaries for your relationship - you let her mistreat you, she takes more from the relationship than she gives
You give away all of your power and anything valuable to her without her putting any time, work or investment to get it from you.
As above, you don’t value yourself or you’re own time so you give it away to people without ever asking anything in return. Like the old saying, “it’s better to have someone do a favour for you than for you to grant them a favour”
You treat yourself as an abundant commodity and her as a scarcity (related to the above) - you’re undervaluing yourself and what you offer and overvaluing her and what she’s offering you.
You’re needy and/or desperate - for a woman, for companionship, etc. that you contact people too much, want to spend too much time with them, even if you mean well/act in good faith - it’s again, fear or loss, scarcity mindset, etc. are the motivation for your behaviour

binne21 · 2023-07-08T16:39:41+00:00

I'd say you were an innocent Nice Guy. You didn't do anything bad, just didn't flirt correctly.

Nice Guys are usually misled by romcoms and movies to believe in friends to lovers scenarios. Unfortunately; that just doesn't happen, and in the cases where it does happen there's always a level of "tension" beforehand.

Whenever you see an attractive girl, flirt early on. That makes your hand clear: you want a relationship. If she says no then you can either move on or keep being friends. If it's a yes then go on a date lol. You can't usually make a woman go from thinking of you as a platonic friend to a romantic partner. That just doesn't work; their brain is already deadset on you as a friend. You need to be clear about your intetions early on.

Lonely_23_1997 · 2023-07-08T17:29:12+00:00

The issue is there’s a difference between nice guys, “nice guys” and kind men. These things get conflated often and cause a lot of confusion. Nice guys are socially awkward men/boys who have trouble expressing themselves and asserting their boundaries. When men think of nice guys this is one variant they’re thinking of.

They’re genuine and fairly harmless. “Nice guys” are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Theyre men/boys with ulterior motives who’ll pretend to be kind, helpful and friendly to get women to lower their guards so they can strike. If their plot doesn’t work they get angry, sometimes violently so. When women say “nice guys” this is who they’re talking about.

Then there are nine men/boys. Like group one they’re also genuine. They’re kind and sincere simply because that’s who they are. They also are confident, self-assured and good at maintaining and asserting their boundaries. Both men and women acknowledge those type but men tend to call them nice guys while women call them kind men.

3 different types for one label is why things get confusing. So it’s not really that nice guys are misunderstood it’s just that three different types of people are being labeled the same in discussions.

sayittentimesfast · 2023-07-08T18:04:39+00:00

I am not sure you made a definitive claim here so not even sure this is an SMV. Asking for input is really a discussion, but anyways, I'll try and post here and see what happens.

The term "Nice Guy" has been weaponized and is a more cordial way of saying "creepy fucking guy". Some of the Nice Guy complaints have merit. Others are rooted in socially acceptable sexism against men. Let me explain.

If a guy is overtly doing things ONLY to get female approval and doing so in such a way it's painfully obvious, he's pointing out to society (and women) that men do things to make women like them and have sex with them, and society (and women) do not like to be made aware of that. They want to believe the lie that human sexual interactions are spontaneous and benevolent and not based on transactions. Thus, they use the Nice Guy^tm term as a slur (shaming tactic) for men who can't operate covertly in the sexual marketplace.

"Good Guys" know how to get women to like them and sleep with them without making society (or women) think sex is transactional and that he's simply acting in a genuine honest way and not doing nice things just to get "nice things" from her.

It's all under the guise of "doing anything that makes me aware of my own part in the game of sex is a very bad thing no man should ever do".

So, being a Nice Guy is not so much based on your behavior, it's based on two specific things.

Are you high value. If you're high value, you will never get accused of being a Nice Guy or a Creep. Never.
Are you perceived as being a creep or a Nice Guy.

This can be confusing because guys can be "too nice" and too supplicating and pussy-begging in their behavior.

"Don't be NICE be GOOD" is a female expectation that you must covertly make her like you by impressing her without her thinking you're making her like you because the fact you KNOW you need to actively make her like you is offensive to her. The REALITY is that if you're an average guy and you wait around for some women to LIKE and PURSUE YOU, you can die of old age before you share a cup of coffee with a woman.

Nice Vs. Good is just shaming of male sexual approach and pursuit methods.

Think of movie stars laughing at the quality of the poems and artwork their fans give to them in large piles and you'll understand the psychology behind it.

Kind of an innate narcissism, if you think about it.

"Nice Guy" is a weaponized term to socially police men into keeping up specific facades that women need to not feel uncomfortable about certain shitty realities of mating rituals in the SMP.

Think of business development.

"Let's go for lunch so we can discuss your needs and possible win win relationships."

"I need to buy people lunch to get clients".

You could behave exactly the same way at each lunch, but if your mindset was made known, the first guy would be a Good Guy^tm and the second guy would be a Nice Guy^tm.

Know this. Men who are "nice" to women and NEVER stand up against shit tests and needless drama are doing themselves a great disservice. Women test men regularly to see whether or not they are doormats. Many times, Nice Guys simply lack confidence and are conflict avoidant.

Ever wonder why men who "treat women like gold" can also suffer from loneliness but men who seem consistently "difficult" and are always arguing if not fighting with their partners are rarely single? This is why. Women tend to prefer confident men who are not afraid to speak their minds and stand up for themselves - men with backbone. Women have no issue arguing or even fighting with a man who they respect. Men learn from simping fathers that deferring to her with 'happy wife happy life' nonsense is somehow a good strategy. It might get her to stay, but it's never a good strategy.

Women often say "The sex was great and we fought a lot."

The tension is necessary. Nice guys don't like tension.

Just-a-Pea · 2023-07-08T21:30:29+00:00

As a woman, my definition of NiceGuyTM is the one who is ONLY nice because he expects to gain something. A truly nice person is good without expecting to get anything. So when a guy says “she chose to date that asshole instead of me when I’ve been the perfect gentleman” implies he was a gentleman only with the expectation of her getting interested in him. The nice person is happy being friends forever with someone, and is ok seeing her date other guys as if a guy friend was dating girls, then he wouldn’t complain that the friend is choosing to date assholes instead of himself. Then the friendship is not conditional on the potential for romance. If you found out that a friend of yours (who is not your type) was only your friend hoping you would fall for them but would withdraw their friendship when you would reject them, that wouldn’t feel nice.

Rhinosaur666 · 2023-07-08T21:31:36+00:00

The best definition of Nice Guy I've found is by Dr. Aziz Gazipura. He describes it thusly. Most people believe their niceness comes from virtue and morals, but the reality is it is motivated by fear of displeasing others or gaining their disapproval.

So yes, you were being a nice guy because deep down you were interested in these women and wanted to express that to them directly without any excuses. You thought by becoming g their friend and not expressing sexual interest you were being virtuous and chivalrous, but the reality is you were afraid that they would be displeased with you because you dared express your interest in them directly.

wtknight · 2023-07-08T23:11:01+00:00

I wasn‘t nice to get sex, but I didn‘t show any sexual or romantic intent either because I didn‘t know how or was too inhibited to do so.

Men who are like this still desire sex. I think the difference between benevolent nice guys and the nice guys that are denigrated is how they react when the woman only wants to be friends and not reciprocate on their attraction. The benevolent nice guy quietly accepts their lack of interest and remains friends with her, while the nice guy who women complain about does not do this.

Wattehfok · 2023-07-08T16:39:18+00:00

Kinda; but it’s a little hazy and a matter of intent.

A lot of guys end up sending the wrong signals because - like you - they lack the confidence to be up front about their romantic interest.

Women can - justifiably - feel deceived in this situation.

You weren’t being sleazy, it’s just a matter of experience. I’m sure most dudes will have similar stories from when they were younger.

AstronautLoveShack · 2023-07-08T17:18:30+00:00

A nice guy is fine. They are generally decent guys with good intentions. A Nice Guy is not a nice guy. A Nice Guy only pretends to be nice to extract sex or a relationship from women, and if the woman does not return his interest the Nice Guy can very quickly show his true colors and be rude, angry, bitter, and not so very nice indeed. Editing to say that you don’t sound like you were a Nice Guy, just a young and inexperienced one.

Ill_Inspection5225 · 2023-07-08T18:44:01+00:00

Vast majority of self proclaimed nice guys aren’t all that nice. The actual nice men I know never refer to themselves as one, they just act like one.

The ‘nice guy’ trope refers to men who think that acting like a normal, decent human makes them entitled to sex, and then they get nasty when they don’t get it. Actually being nice doesn’t have an ulterior motive.

Sounds like you just had bad luck with women, it wasn’t because you were nice.

Da_Famous_Anus · 2023-07-08T21:10:14+00:00

They’ve now made it so that any interpretation of ‘being nice’ to a woman means you’re an awful ‘nice guy’ stereotype demon of some kind. The only solution I see is to do no more than take them at their word and stop being nice to them. 🤷🏼‍♀️

y2kjanelle · 2023-07-08T18:35:57+00:00

Well the point is that the lines can be kind of blurry and that’s okay, it happens. The main things are this though.

When you do develop feelings, you need to tell them. Hiding it makes it uncomfortable for that person to realize that you may be perceiving them romantically or sexually when they just want to be a friend.
Don’t act kind or nice just for sex or to date. Kindness should be equally given to everyone because that’s what kind people do. They don’t just act kind to get something.
If a woman does end up rejecting you, if you actually respect the friendship, you’ll understand her side. Because you also see the value she saw in the friendship. She’s losing a friendship that was real to her while you are losing a potential relationship and a friend. There should be a mutual understanding that ending friendships should be painful if it was a true friendship. Men who don’t understand that are nice guys, because they never respected the friendship in the first place and had ulterior motives, which is why they cannot see how ending a friendship would be hurtful to the woman. They never wanted to be friends.
Any attraction romantic or sexual towards that person needs to be addressed. If you’re already attracted to that person and want sex or a relationship with them, then address that before becoming friends. If you ask them out and you’re not friends, and they say no, if you’re friends with them after that you absolutely need to be acting platonically, no complaints at all. Being hurt by being rejected is okay, but don’t start acting like their friend when you’re still interested.
This is just a social awareness thing. I would recommend that people make their intentions clear right away. If you’re going to be someone’s friend, stay their friend. Separate friends and romantic interests, it just makes it easier. Your friends are your friends and your romantic interests are just that, you go on dates with these people. Within the dates, you can build a friendship, but it should be established that you guys are going out on dates.

It’s really not easy. But for the most part, nice guys try to be friends to get sex Or relationships out of it. Even when rejected or not shown any interest, they continue to push for those things. They hover over their friends other relationships or romantic or sexual relationships in hopes that they’ll one day “realize” they’ve had “the one” in front of them instead of making it clear that they want that.

Most situations outside of that are usually not considered nice guys, just an unfortunate situation of falling for a friend over time and the uncomfortableness for both sides with one getting rejected and the other losing s friend.

BunnyFlopped · 2023-07-08T20:41:17+00:00

You are not a nice guy.

Nice guy = becomes antagonistic toward women when they are not interested in having sex

You = spoke to women to see whether or not you would be compatible and did not threaten to hurt them

There is nothing wrong with liking people or demonstrating romantic interest

There are things wrong with stalking, threatening abuse, verbal abuse, saying you’ll rape or kill a woman, and doing all of things simply because she said she was not interested in having a romantic relationship with you.

Miggmy · 2023-07-08T17:00:28+00:00

It's normal and natural to form a friendship and then develop a crush/romantic feelings.

The nice guy phenomena is people who are doing favors, being friendl, etc, only in the hopes of eventually being rewarded with sex or romance.

This is criticized because according to women they feel betrayed. “They thought they had a friend but he just wanted to fuck her.” Like damn, I thought this was a surprisingly cynical interpretation when I first heard that. I didn‘t get why being friends and then eventually confessing your feelings was perceived this way but it sure as hell kept me from ever doing that

You're talking about being someones friend genuinely and hoping for more. A nice guy is someone who has no interest in friendship and became your friend purely in the hopes of dating, and stops being your friend if you reject them/sees your reciprocal friendship as leading them on.

For a long time, there was this counterpoint rhetoric in defense of that behavior that ofc if you want a romantic relationship you won't want a friendship and it's fair to withdraw, completely disregarding the false friendship started before. The point of 'they thought they had a friend but he just wanted to fuck her ' is responsive to this.

HelloTornado · 2023-07-08T18:55:10+00:00

Nice guys tend to put their (desired or actual) partner's needs before theirs.

That's their main driver, because this is how they've been conditioned to think, both extrinsically, but also by themselves.

All the negative feelings they feel or generate by such practice are the consequences of an unhealthy execution of relationships;

To the nice guys out there: grow a pair, speak about what you think and do what YOU enjoy. Even in a relationship. Both partners should first and foremost look after themselves, and then about their relationship. Otherwise, they can be a burden to eachother.

wuchjazz2 · 2023-07-08T16:32:58+00:00

You were a "nice guy" but a very non toxic version of it. You didn't mislead the women on purpose.

toasterchild · 2023-07-08T17:13:26+00:00

Sounds like you were the nice guy shy guy. There really isn't anything wrong with that. It's unlikely to work well for you but it's not bad.

Nice Guys are almost always covert narcissists. They don't like being direct but are constantly trying to guess what you want to hear and manipulate you. In the end when it doesn't work out they almost always lash out either at you or to others in order to hut you.

Grand-Inspection2303 · 2023-07-08T17:24:12+00:00

I agree that society has become overly harsh to the "nice guy." The phenomenon is often created by fairly decent but shy guys who have been overly influenced by rom-com type tropes. Society creates these types and then turns on them for doing what they've been conditioned to do. For their own good, nice guys need to learn that romance and falling in love are not just things that happen. You have to be a doer and make it happen.

DXBrigade · 2023-07-08T19:30:46+00:00

The nice guys that are criticized are the ones who act like sore losers: the guys who can't handle rejection and will blame women for it. The ones that think their nice acts should be rewarded by sexual favors and then blame women for putting them in the friendzone and exploiting their niceness. It's why women take on a cynical stance.

Technically you are nice guy just not the type that people hate on.

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Generally_Confused1 · 2023-07-08T17:35:33+00:00

"Nice Guy" is only really applicable with the entitlement, subversion and volatility some guys have with "I showed her basic human kindness, she should be choking on my cock!" I think it's overused but what you're describing is being a generally nice and genuine person.

Think of it this way, unless you start feeling entitled to someone's body for showing basic courtesy, you don't really fall into that category. As far as I see it anyways, as someone who has often made friends and connections from being nice and genuine. It's different from pretending to be nice to someone for self serving measures and not being ethical about it.

greedyleopard42 · 2023-07-08T18:36:15+00:00

nah that’s not really the main parts of the stereotype

Wing_Inevitable · 2023-07-08T20:47:55+00:00

but I didn‘t show any sexual or romantic intent

A nice guy( in old men terminology) is a men that doesn’t do that “he is nice one of my friends might like him”

for is confessing his love to a girl who he was friends with.

I have done this only i showed sexual intent beforehand and she knew where i stood on the topic - it didn’t come out of nowhere

So, all of this takes a close resemblance of the Nice Guy stereotype. Was I a Nice Guy or not?

Yes

Epiphanic_Eros · 2023-07-08T20:59:58+00:00

Here’s an insightful definition, and helpful explanation for why “nice guy” behavior has gotten a bad reputation.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4np1g9U29vB3LPLampn4ln?

WinchesterSXP · 2023-07-08T22:07:05+00:00

"I didn‘t know how to flirt"

curious, and I'm not trying to be funny here but were you raised by a single mom or did you have both parents in your life?

Green-Quantity1032 · 2023-07-08T22:27:16+00:00

You were considered a nice guy, whether you consider it the same or not is irrelevant.

No one cares she feels betrayed - that's just outrage culture no one cares - the point is the guy is not being attractive and she doesn't want to be in a position to have to reject him and lose the friendship.

And actually, you were nice to get sex, but I don't see what's so morally wrong with that except that it doesn't work.

I think the problem is putting the girl (or what you think the girl is/wants) on the front of your mind when making decisions instead of what you want - that's the epitome of the nice guy.

That's why guys who succeed with women are seen as 'jerks' - they go for what they want, and that seems 'selfish' to people who are so used to giving up on themselves for some invented sense or moral superiority.

EDIT: of course, from the girl's standpoint, a guy supplicating to strangers is not someone who seems very high-status or cool, even (especially?) when those strangers are girls.

She wants you to do things for her - when you're her partner - before that she wants to see that you know how to get shit done for yourself, proving that you'll be able to get shit done for her too when time and need arises

maam9243 · 2023-07-09T05:09:39+00:00

I think the Nice Guy is misunderstood in the same way that things like personal finances, parenting, friendships etc. are misconstrued because there are so many variables involved not to mention the steep learning curves. One point that I think gets constantly confused is that older women tell young men to just be nice and polite to everyone in public. Young men misinterpret this point to mean that being nice and civil will make them more physically attractive to the opposite sex. What the consistent politeness and niceness will do is help turn off the part of the limbic system that screaming, "Danger, danger, danger," which will make the young men more socially acceptable for economic ventures, social status etc. Things women look for in long-term relationships. But because men are just trying to often have casual sexual experiences, they are frustrated by the time and patience it takes to find a quality long-term partner they are compatible with. I see it kind of like dog breeds where you have to figure out not only what type of dog you are but what type of dog you are most compatible with. A lot of the women that guys want to be with want a guard dog, watch dog, retrieving dog, shepherding dog etc. that have a drive to hunt for the bacon and terrorize the other dogs trying to get it. But they want to the fierce protector to be kind and gentle with them.

Gundam_net · 2023-07-09T07:35:28+00:00

Well I grew up under a rock with some degree of ASPD and badically no socializing except with cashiers and classmates and my definition of a nice guy is a literal dictionary definition if you combine the two words logically:

Polite, Kind; Virtuous, Respectable + Man, Fellow = Nice Guy, lterally.

I don't know why groups of people need to change the meanings of words into some in-group slang alternative meaning.

However, it is still my experience that kind and polite males are not sexually active at young ages. There seems to be an instinct to avoid kind males for sex at young ages. There's tons of theories about maybe why but I don't really know and I doubt anyone really does. Moms tend to like kind males after they have children, but it's weird to see a kind polite male with a sexual woman without any kids yet.

antique-inspector690 · 2023-07-09T10:45:31+00:00

Nothing wrong in being a nice guy. But problem is that females nowdays dont understand the value of nice guys. They like being ran through by abusive misogynistic guys in their 20s and when time comes for marriage, they settle for these nice guys in their 30s.

Order_number_66 · 2023-07-09T14:18:39+00:00

I hear you.

I remember feeling like this. It's incredibly frustrating not knowing why things aren't progressing or what to do to get them do progress.

The 'nice guy' stereotype is unfair IMO. Usually the guys being 'nice' to the girls they are interested in are looking for a romantic relationship and not just sex.

RevolutionaryFig929 · 2023-07-09T18:25:13+00:00

Take it with a grain of salt, what the women here write.... even 20 years ago female friends (friends i didnt have any romantic interest with, mind you!!!,),told me the "you are too nice"line as advice!

This was before internet PUA stuff or anything was a mainstrezm thibg, really

So theres definitely more to it than just some"manipulation stuff"

Yogurt_Traditional · 2023-07-09T21:12:47+00:00

As a woman, I don’t see you as a manipulative “nice guy.” They do exist, and I have met some. They have tried to buy my affection in different ways and I don’t like feeling like I owe someone for being kind. Luckily this isn’t majority of men. Also you seem like a genuinely good, kind person who was just trying to figure life out. I also think people should take rejection better if someone confesses because I had a guy friend get mad at me when I didn’t feel the same as him. I didn’t feel like I led him on either, I just genuinely wanted to be friends and didn’t see him romantically or flirt ever. I was definitely not mad at him though, I was flattered but wanted to stay friends, but he was mean to me when I didn’t want more than that. However, I DID have a guy friend that liked me who after I told him “no thank you,” was very cool about it and we are still good friends. He moved on from me romantically and has an awesome wife now, and I have an awesome boyfriend (me and my boyfriend were friends first before we dated). A lot of other dudes I know have taken rejection really well and moved on to find their soulmate. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. Trial and error in my opinion

Vanajumal · 2023-07-11T10:38:27+00:00

A lot of this Nice Guy narrative is just for gaslighting guys

Plazmatron44 · 2023-07-11T16:09:39+00:00

You were conditioned into thinking you needed to make friends with them first and that raw visceral attraction was "caddish" and not what women liked so you ended up scared to express your sexuality.

obj7777 · 2023-07-09T01:15:07+00:00

It's the guys who say "I'm a nice guy" and then turn around and say "you're ugly anyways" after being rejected.

Check out r/niceguys for examples.

Title	Is the Nice Guy misunderstood or am I projecting?
Author	Ok-Talk-4303
Upvotes	50
Comments	98
Date	July 8, 2023 4:27 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/14u8mcz/is_the_nice_guy_misunderstood_or_am_i_projecting/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/is-the-nice-guy-misunderstood-or-am-i-projecting.1224658 https://theredarchive.com/post/1224658

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