The Bad Boy and The Nice Guy

I wrote this almost 2 years ago, and it has formed the basis of my entire pick-up philosophy since. I meant to post it on my local lair’s forum, but never did. I see the principles I wrote here underlying post after post here on seddit – both the good and the bad. Re-reading this, there’s some pretty deep social dynamic theory here, so I thought I would share it. What follows is that post, only slightly edited.

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I’ve been struggling with the following question: Why do bad boys get laid, while nice guys don’t? We all know that this is true. But why is it true? Many explanations have been offered to explain it. But few get to the root of the answer, I think.

First let’s define the nice guy. A nice guy tries to buy a woman’s affection, with cards, flowers, dinner, etc. He over-compliments. He tries to establish rapport, and is scared of losing the girl if he breaks rapport. He tries too hard to please girls, and doesn’t care about what he feels.

Why are these things bad? Lots of explanations are offered:

• It’s bad because a confident guy wouldn’t do them.

But if a guy is confident, can’t he get away with whatever he wants to get away with? If George Clooney showed up on a date with flowers, because that’s what the fuck he wanted to do, wouldn’t he still get laid? Wouldn’t that be romantic?

• It’s bad because a guy who gets lots of girls wouldn’t do them, and therefore, by doing them, he subcommunicates a lack of preselection.

But this is circular – a guy doesn’t get laid, because he doesn’t get laid? There has to be something more foundational.

• It’s bad because nice guys are boring. They only generate one emotion in women, and women want an emotional roller coaster.

Are women really that different than men though? I mean surely there are different biological needs, but why would women need so much more emotional stimulation than men? There’s no biological or evolutionary reason for that. And why can’t nice guys be interesting too? Why would women only get an emotional spike from a guy being mean, and not from romanticism or humor or something else?

I’m sure other people on here can throw out lots of other reasons too, I surely can’t list them all. Whatever the reason, we’ve all learned that nice guys finish last, and it’s better to be a bad boy. But there are some serious contradictions in the traditional PUA philosophy on this subject. The biggest one I’ve run into is in qualification. We’re told that qualification is extremely important, and my personal experiences have confirmed over and over again that qualification is critical. But it’s difficult to understand why it’s so important. There’s some confusion over what exactly the purpose of qualification is, so I’m going to clarify what I think the purpose of it is.

Some guys think that qualification is all about screening out girls who don’t meet your standards. Under this theory, your qualifications should be tailored to what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a long term relationship or marriage, the qualifications would be pretty significant – the right religion, the right political leanings, the right upbringing, the right financial situation, etc. If you’re looking for something casual, then you should be screening for that – are they adventurous and promiscuous?

Guys who believe in this argue that qualification is important not just because you’re screening girls, but because you have to give off the impression of having an abundance of women in your life, and one of the easiest ways to do this is by screening – or at least acting like you’re screening.

One of the common questions n00bs ask is, what happens if the girl doesn’t meet my qualifications? What if I say, “do you cook? Cooking is important to me,” and the girl says, “no, I hate to cook.” It’s almost impossible at this point to maintain your “frame” of being a guy who has so many women coming at him that he has to be picky. The girl has just disqualified herself – you can either cut her lose, or continue to pursue and implicitly acknowledge both that you’re a liar and that you in fact do not have an abundance of women in your life.

There are a couple of ways to respond to this – only pick qualifications that really matter to you, raise your standards, etc. But these responses are only applicable if you’re looking for a LTR. If you’re not, then what to do? What if you just want to hook up – many girls won’t explicitly acknowledge that they’re open to having casual sex, especially with a stranger trying to pick them up. If you try to qualify them based on how adventurous/sexual they are, they disqualify themselves, and you walk away, then you’ll be leaving some very high quality pussy on the table.

Perhaps qualification isn’t important to SNL/ONS/hookup game. Let’s table that possibility for a second, and look at a different view. A second group of PUA’s argue that the true purpose of qualification is validation - you validate a woman by telling her that you like her, and why you like her. This is human dynamics 101, straight out of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” We only care about ourselves, and we really only like other people because of the way they make us feel about ourselves. Why do people want to have lots of friends? So they can feel popular and loved. Why is the idea of a slutty girl a turnoff when considering a LTR? Because if the girl is easy to get with, then there’s not much of a challenge in getting her, so there’s no validation in getting her. Why is it not that great to sleep with a hot hooker, but it’s amazing to sleep with a hot model? You get the point.

I think this same principle applies to females. Women want to be desired by high value men because it’s validating. Women are put-off by man-whores – no matter how attractive – who will sleep with just about any girl because that’s NOT validating. THIS is why qualification is important – qualification is not about fake hoops, it’s about telling a girl that you like HER.

How is this in conflict with the bad boy archetype? Well, bad boys are assholes. Isn’t it fundamentally at odds with the asshole archetype to compliment other people? After all, if you compliment, you’re being nice.

When I hit on this contradiction, I first thought that the solution was that badboys must just be SO high value that women will sleep with them regardless of whether or not the badboy qualifies. Thus, in the end, qualification is actually only useful for LTRs, and not for one night stands and casual sex. I’ve heard this explanation offered before: if you want same night lays, it’s all about attraction, emotional spikes, and being a prick – using negs, takeaways, etc. The idea here is that a woman usually thinks she can have sex with any man she wants, so if she meets a man that she DOESN’T think she can just sleep with (because he’s just SO attractive AND not interested in her), then suddenly the same night lay becomes a challenge, and if she ends up sleeping with him, it’s validating. (This is also why women will casually sleep with high value men – rock stars, actors, etc.: it’s a CHALLENGE to get the attention of men like this.)

There are two problems with this type of game for us mere mortals, however. First, the only type of woman who could actually believe that you’re not interested in a same night lay are ugly women and women with low self-esteem (the two groups, unsurprisingly, often overlap). To convince an attractive woman that you don’t want to sleep with her, you’d need Oscar-caliber acting skills.

This isn’t even the main problem though. The main problem is that when you’re cold approaching, you’re automatically conveying the fact that you are, in fact, interested in sleeping with the girl. There is no way around this – why else would you approach? Why else would you talk to or dance with a girl one-on-one for an extended period of time? Unless you resign the decision-making process to the woman and let her be the predator (which includes not approaching, not trying to pull, and not initiating sex), the façade will crumble. This is a rather inconsistent method of getting laid – basically, the male-female roles have to be reversed.

So, I ask again – HOW DO BADBOYS GET LAID?

Obviously the bad boy has to qualify. But then why do girls find them so attractive, if it’s not about being hard to get?

The answer hit me the other night like a frying pan in the face.

The key, the answer, the fundamental element, is: manipulation.

I struggled to come to this realization because I thought badboys were manipulative. After all, badboys are assholes, and assholes are manipulative. Badboys cheat and discard girls, and the girls always go crying to their nice guy friends.

But I was missing the point, failing to separate out behaviors, and failing to acknowledge that humans are not always consistent.

The reason girls like bad boys is that they DON’T manipulate. The reason girls don’t like nice guys is that they DO. HWHA?!

What is manipulation? It’s trying to trick another person into liking you. When we feel inadequate, like other people won’t like our true selves, we try to trick them, in all kinds of different ways, into liking us.

Manipulation is being nice, hoping that another person will like you for the fact that you’re nice, rather than for who you are. Manipulation is bragging about something you’ve accomplished – a job, a hobby, other girls you’ve slept with – hoping that another person will like you for that, instead of who you are. Manipulation is trying to be funny, hoping another person will like you for being funny, rather than for who you are. Manipulation is trying to impress. Manipulation is being insincere – for example, when you tell a girl how pretty she is, when she really isn’t that pretty and you just want to sleep with her.

The opposite of manipulation is genuineness or authenticity. Genuine people speak their mind. They are sensitive to the feelings of others, and they aren’t mean for the sake of being mean, but they do not lie to get what they want. People obviously respect themselves more than they respect a stranger, and genuine people do not fake kindness or respect in order to curry favor or avoid discomfort. Genuine people might lead very interesting and accomplished lives, but they do not brag about it hoping to get people to like them. Genuine people can be very funny, but they do not try to be funny in order to get people to like them. Genuine people do not give approval, hoping that another person will reciprocate that approval.

These are very tricky distinctions. It mostly comes down to your motivation for doing something. In the false atmosphere of a bar or a cold approach, however, we have to be very careful about the message we are sending. Girls are used to guys trying to manipulate them into liking them or sleeping with them. Girls expect such behavior. For example, going direct (i.e., you’re pretty/cute/hot) on every girl I approach has never worked for me. I think I am a good looking guy who should be able to get away with such directness. But I don’t. Why? Because when I compliment on the approach, it is manipulative – I am giving approval, in the hope that it is reciprocated. Or at least that is the perception. The perception in that situation is that I don’t view myself as worthy of the girl, so I am trying to manipulate her to get what I want.

Complimenting clothes is a big no-no too. We’re guys – do we really care about what kind of designer she’s wearing? Or are we talking about something we know she finds interesting, hoping that it will lead to her taking her dress off?

But being funny is good, we are told. And it is, when it comes from a place of relaxation and self-amusement. It is bad when it is used to impress. This is why offensive humor can be good – it shows that you are unconcerned with whether or not the person you are talking to likes you, and that you are not being funny to impress them. But it can be bad if it just looks like you’re a social retard.

Even being TOO funny can be bad, if it looks like you’re trying to impress. Humor can also get in the way of making a connection, but that’s a different topic…

Having an impressive job is good. Using the job to impress is bad.

Being nice or pleasant all of the time is bad. You aren’t always happy. No one else is perfect. Everyone has flaws that you don’t like. If you don’t verbalize how you’re feeling because you are scared that other people won’t like you for saying it, that is manipulative. Genuine people do not run from such unpleasantness – they are confident that their true selves will be accepted.

Why is being genuine attractive, while being manipulative unattractive?

Manipulation comes from feeling insufficient. It comes from a core belief that you are not enough, as you are, without all of your accomplishments or niceness or whatever. It is a signal of limited resources – a lack of preselection, a lack of love, a lack of approval, a lack of sex. In a world of misdirection and deception, we are constantly looking for reliable ways to judge other people, and what better way to judge someone else than by what they think of themselves?

The reason girls like bad boys and assholes is because they do not manipulate. If they don’t like someone, they do not keep it a secret, and they do not care whether they are disliked. They do not try to be someone besides who they are. Then, when the bad boy tells a girl that he likes her, the girl does not doubt his sincerity or motivations, and she receives the validation that comes from qualification.

Thus, this solves the puzzle of how qualification fits into ONS/SNL game. Studies have shown that women engage in one-night stands because it’s validating – it’s validating to a woman when a man is so attracted to her that he has to sleep with her that night. If you want to have one night stands, you have to make the thought of having a one night stand with you be a source of validation. You do this through complementing and expressing your extreme sexual desire for a woman – i.e., by qualifying. A one night stand will NOT be validating unless the woman feels that you have a very strong desire for her.

But in order for this type of qualification to be validating (or, indeed, any type of qualification), it must be perceived as genuine. If you’re perceived as a man who has no standards, the girl will feel no validation, because she won’t be special anymore. This is why authenticity is so important – you must be trustworthy when you express your desires, and you cannot be perceived as a man who will sleep with anyone.