There’s a common misconception that I’m going to help clear up right now, which is that girls don’t like nice guys, and nice guys need to change into not-nice guys to get laid.
Being a nice guy will supposedly see you get left behind in the dust, while the woman you like runs away with a douchebag who will treat her badly and ruin her life, with any luck leading to her regretting she didn’t take you up on your offer to be her nice guy boyfriend.
If this sounds like a story you’ve ever been told, we need to talk, because no woman ever turned down a guy because he was too nice. No emotionally stable woman, anyway.
The problem here is that the concept of being nice has been totally hijacked by the worst kind of guys, the kind of guys who will tell you that being nice is pointless, and works against you when it comes to women.
Neither I, nor any other woman on the planet, wants this myth to be perpetuated.
Nice guys v ‘nice guys’
Nice guys, to us, means guys who are nice because they’re nice. They’re nice to us, they’re nice to old ladies, they’re nice to dogs, and kids, and other guys. This is the kind of guy we want. We don’t want EVERY GUY WHO IS LIKE THIS, because there are other factors involved, but we’ll get to those in a minute.
However, fraudulent ‘nice guys’ will lavish (sometimes completely unwanted) attention on a woman in the hope that she’ll sleep with him and then, when it doesn’t work and she gets together with someone else, he will either implode or explode in rage at the unfairness of it all, and declare women to be bitches of the highest order, and nice guys to finish last.
These are the guys who will tell you that women don’t like nice guys, and these are the guys you should get as far away from as possible – maybe after you’ve set them straight on behalf of all womankind.
There’s so much wrong with this ‘nice guy’s’ world view that I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll use a sneakers analogy instead.
The Sneaker Analogy
Ok, so imagine you’re thinking it might be time to buy some new sneakers, maybe you Google a couple of different brands and stores, but nothing really catches your eye. You get served a lot of opportunistic ads online after that, but you don’t click them because you know they’re just trying to take your money and you don’t really feel like buying any sneakers right now, nor do you want any of the sneakers they’re showing you.
You carry on with your life, and then one day when you’re out in town, you see a great pair of sneakers in a store, in your size, and your favorite color. You buy them with your own money, that you earned, because you feel like it, and you take them home.
Then, the next day, you get a knock at the door. You open it, and there’s a furious looking guy stood there. You can see from his lapel badge that he’s the CEO of SneakersRUs (imagine that’s a thing). You recognize the name as one of the brands that started following you around online after you did that Google search.
He starts screaming at you.
CEO of SneakersRUs: “DIDN’T YOU SEE MY ADS? WHY DIDN’T YOU BUY MY SNEAKERS? I LITERALLY SHOWED YOU ADS EVERY DAY”
You: “Erm, yeah, I did see your ads, but I didn’t want to buy anything from you”
CEO of SneakersRUs: “WHY NOT? I HAVE SNEAKERS, YOU WANTED FUCKING SNEAKERS, WHY WOULDN’T YOU BUY MY SNEAKERS? I MADE AN AD JUST FOR YOU, AND I SHOWED IT TO YOU 15 TIMES A DAY FOR A MONTH”
You: “Yeah I know, sorry about that, it’s not personal, I just didn’t want your sneakers”,
CEO of SneakersRUs: “WHY NOT? YOU BOUGHT PURPLE ONES, I HAVE PURPLE ONES, I SHOWED YOU MY PURPLE ONES BEFORE YOU BOUGHT YOURS, I DESERVE YOUR MONEY”.
You: “I’m sorry if you’re upset, it’s just that it’s my money and I wanted to spend it on those sneakers, because I like those ones”
CEO of SneakersRUs: “BUT MINE ARE BETTER”
You: “I’m sorry, but they just weren’t for me”
CEO of SneakersRUs: “YOU SHOULD NEVER SEARCH FOR ANYTHING OR BUY ANYTHING EVER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO GIVE INNOCENT SNEAKER SALESMEN THE WRONG IDEA”
You: “Please leave”
In this scenario, the CEO of SneakerRUs is a nice guy, and you are the woman he’s being nice to. He’s been so nice, he’s put himself out there and shown her how nice he is by how nice he’s been to her, but it hasn’t ‘worked’, because she hasn’t automatically chosen to reward this niceness with her romantic affections.
This is not how being nice works. Being nice to someone isn’t being nice if it’s conditional on them giving you something in return. It’s also very confusing for the recipient of the niceness, and it can be claustrophobic and weird as well.
I’m a genuinely nice guy though, so why didn’t she choose me?
So, about those other factors that might make a woman choose one guy over another, even if the one she turns down is genuinely nice. She might choose the other guy because of his looks, or because of his sense of humor, or maybe it just clicks in a way she can’t explain.
It could be anything, but the point is that a truly nice guy will understand that being a nice guy isn’t the bargaining chip with which to get into a woman’s affections or underwear. It’s just a baseline human trait that we should all display as much as possible.
If you’re a nice guy, and you’re disappointed because the woman you like doesn’t like you back in that way, here are some solid truths:
– Being a genuinely nice guy has not put her off
– Nobody expects you to stick around if it hurts you to do so, just don’t be a dick about it
If you’ve been turned down after making your feelings known, and you want to continue to be a genuinely nice guy but you find being around her is too difficult, that’s ok.
Being disappointed and looking out for your sanity is not the same as throwing a tantrum because you didn’t get what you want. It’s totally fine to be honest, and say you still like her but you’re going to take a little time out, or get a little distance. That’s just having some self-respect and, if anything, she’ll respect you for it too.
In summary
Be nice, be nice to everyone, including the woman you like. Be nice because you’re a nice person, don’t be nice to try and get something, because women either KNOW that you’re doing it, and are creeped out, or have NO IDEA you’re doing it because you want something, and are freaked out when you get mad that they won’t date you.
If you find it hard to be around someone you like, because she doesn’t like you back, take a break from her, but be nice about it.
Whatever you do though, don’t stop being a nice guy, because however many bad boys you see held up as the sexiest kinds of men there are, I absolutely promise you that we all want a nice guy.
