Manosphere: Nice Guys (Part 3)

1. Glamour explains why nice guys are the biggest turn-offs, but just don’t quite get how they’re contributing to the problem:

Sigh. There are few things that are a bigger turn off than the guy who constantly proclaims himself to be “nice”and laments why girls just don’t go for him. Just a few of the obvious flaws in this argument:

• Being nice, while a good thing, should be standard behavior, not a guarantee to get a girlfriend.
• Similarly, if you are only being nice with the goal of getting a reward for yourself and then vowing to stop doing it once you realize it isn’t getting you what you want, you’re not actually being nice.
• Much like proclaiming yourself “classy”, if you feel the need to constantly declare how nice you are (instead of you know, just actually being nice), you aren’t…

Although science has now given us an excuse to go for bad boys, recently Buzzfeed has finally acknowledged a trend that drives me up the wall: Those dudes whose profiles are entirely composed of “nice guy” rants and complaints that women aren’t responding to his messages because they’re too busy with “jerks.”

These self-described nice guys spend a lot more time being nasty about the women who they think snubbed them than actually… you know, being nice. Because that always works. These are the guys who hold the door open for you and then spend the rest of the night calling attention to it (and expecting sex in return). Just a hint, guys: chivalry works a whole lot better when you don’t yell about it.

2. M3 analyses the crime of being nice:

I’m pissed because i see a bunch of ignorant privileged princess’s rushing off to pillory and malign a lot of guys who simply for the sake of not being really high on the attraction level, are not successful with women and are simply venting about why it seems that ‘when they do what women say they want’ they get no traction, but see the same women who says what they want, continue to go after the complete opposite.

Sound familiar? Yeah.

And it chaff’s my balls to no end that the only reason.. THE ONLY REASON, these guys are being mocked is because they had the fucking audacity to actually see the women they were trying to speak with as human beings with interests and feelings rather than walking vagina’s and pump and dump bait. That’s right. They’re being portrayed as the misogynist’s. Only in the fucking land of feminism does Tucker Max end up looking like an honest decent stand up guy because hey, he wasn’t being an misogynistic NiceGuy trying to get laid. Because Tucker dispensed with any ideas of actually.. you know.. wanting to look at these women as human beings with feelings and interests and anything other than a walking pussy. Those fucking evil NiceGuys.

3. Free Northerner analyses a comment left at Dalrock’s:

I’m 32 years old and have never been married. Unfortunately (or fortunately I’m not sure which anymore at this point) I have no kids. I am single and alone and not dating anyone. I live in Los Angeles. My income was $120,000.00 in 2011. Income is projected to be $170,000.00 in 2012. I’m exactly the kinds of “independent man” women claim they want. I drive a luxury car with an amazing apartment in Los Angeles directly on the beach…

My parents met and married in college. They have been married for 39 years. And it hurts me to the core to be 32 and unmarried. Alone. Without a loving wife. I feel pain from it every single day. It’s like a sharp invisible dagger constantly stabbing at me. But perhaps I’m part of the problem listed in the graphs above. Let me explain why:

I went to the same college my parents met and married at. I was hoping to meet marry and settle down. Instead I was met with hundreds young college aged women who were NOT interested in marriage. They were interested in: 1) Partying 2) Having sex. College was 24/7 fuck fest. At first I was able to begrudgingly “socialize” in this element. What do I mean by “this element” within this context? College: Extreme social promiscuity, cheating, drama, drugs, and parties. I was an observer but NEVER a direct participant because my heart would not let me. This eventually caused me to stick out as a third wheel observer on campus. Someone who was always “not mixing” or “participating”. As a result I never enjoyed the benefits. I rarely dated. Instead I was sneered at. Cute girls flicked their fingers at me. I was used by women as a person to tell their problems to. I was passed over. I was seen as “weak “lame” and “boring”. I was ignored in the hallways, library, classes, by these women. And it didn’t help I was cash strapped broke working a minimum wage job and eating Raman noodles..

The vast majority of these young hot girls vigorously pursued college life sex like you would not believe. They had sex with a large variety of guys. What I personally call “lily padding”. These girls did anything and anyone in the name of “fun” (fun=parties, fun= sex with new people, fun= drugs, fun= raves, fun = frat party etc… As time went on I was labeled “husband material” by the girls on my campus. This phrase continued to plague me into my late 20′s. This label resulted in ZERO DATES all through college. I wasn’t “down with it”. I wasn’t “participating” etc (sex, drugs, parties, etc.) My heart wasn’t into it. So I wasn’t entitled to any of the benefits (having sex with young attractive girls in their prime etc.)…

Now at 32 and successful these women are hitting me. In my mind these are the same women who rejected me. I’m not interested. The Bible says something to the effect of “don’t forsake the wife of your youth” or something like “remember your young wife”? Something like that. How am I supposed to remember something I never had?

4. Heartiste includes a link from a scientific study which shows that nice guys are always unappealing and sexually unattractive:

The more recent research of McDaniel (2005) and Urbaniak and Kilman (2006) suggest that women find “nice guys” to be socially undesirable and sexually unattractive, contradicting the previous findings of Jensen-Campbell et al. The researchers also found that “bad boys” (operationalized as “fun/sexy guys” by McDaniel and “cute, macho guys” by Urbaniak and Kilman) were highly desired for both short-term and long-term committed relationships, whereas “nice guys” were not desired as sex partners within either relationship context, contradicting the previous findings of Herold and Milhausen. McDaniel writes:

First, being suitable for high commitment dating alone is not enough (by a long shot) to increase a nice guy’s likelihood to progress into or beyond the experimentation stage of relationship escalation. Second, young women who are interested in frequent casual dating are not going to select a nice guy as a dating partner because he cannot meet her recreational dating needs. And, because the fun/sexy guy seems to be more suitable for low commitment dating, he is going to be chosen more often for it, which provides him with an increased opportunity to progress well into and beyond the experimentation stage.

5. Dr Jeremy Nicholson from Psychology Today analyses why nice guys (and girls… though it is nowhere near the same applicability) finish last:

1) Nice People Do Not Make Their Partners Invest

When we do nice things for others, we invest in them and the relationship. Those investments of time, effort, and money tend to build up over time. Those investments also make us feel that our date or mate is valuable, that we love them, and we are committed to that relationship. This is called the principle of “sunk costs”. Doing favors for others and treating them well, leads us to value and love them.

However, the reverse is not true. The receiver of good treatment does not always feel love for the giver. In fact, they may feel manipulated, burdened, or just generally ungrateful. Love cannot be bought or earned.

Given that, whoever is doing the favors will fall in love. But, whoever is receiving the favors probably will not fall in love. The person that invests feels love. The person receiving the investment may not feel anything. Get the picture?

Moral of the story – don’t be “nice” and do everything. Make your partner invest in you and the relationship too. Remember, when they DO FOR YOU, is when they fall in love. If they refuse to invest in the relationship, however, then they may never love you back.

2) Nice People Reward Bad Behavior

People learn from the consequences of their behavior. When they perform a behavior and are rewarded, they tend to do the same thing again. In contrast, when they perform a behavior and are punished, they tend to shy away from that behavior in the future. Pretty simple…

Well, nice people tend to treat their dates and mates very well. All the time. EVEN, when they don’t deserve it. No matter how a partner is treating them, the nice person will continue to treat them well.

The nice person often “thinks” that such good treatment will one day be recognized. That it will snap the partner out of their bad behavior. Turn the other cheek and all that. But, they fail to recognize what they are TEACHING their partner by treating them well under all conditions.

In essence, by being nice all the time, they are rewarding their partner for bad behavior. If you cook him dinner on the nights he disrespects you, then you have rewarded and encouraged that behavior to continue. If you take her out on the nights she is grumpy and nagging, you have ensured that she will do it again.

Not-so-nice people have better boundaries. They only reward partners when they earn those rewards. They also ignore partners when they are disrespectful or bad. This teaches dates or mates what they will and will not tolerate. It lets them know what is expected of them.

As a result, nice people get walked all over. By being nice all the time, they actually encourage others to treat them badly. They reward those who mistreat them and make the behavior more likely in the future. If they were selective in their rewards – and occasionally withholding – they would receive better treatment in return. They would also be more respected by others.

3) Nice People Are Too Available

We all have mental shortcuts that help in our decision-making. One of these shortcuts is the rule of scarcity. Generally, we believe whatever is scarce, or requires work to obtain, is valuable. Whatever is easy to get, or common, is probably cheap. While this is not always true, it is true enough of the time that it becomes a common, unconscious assumption. It is applied to everything…even people.

Unfortunately for nice people, they are anything but scarce. They are eager to please. They are always agreeable to dropping their life and rushing over to their date or mate. They make time, dote, acquiesce, and try to be as convenient and easy as possible.

Their hope is that this behavior will lead to gratitude and respect. By making themselves available to a partner and removing inconveniences, they hope to make love easier. Instead, however, they come off as needy, get taken for granted, and become overlooked. In other words, they are the opposite of scarce and hard to earn. So, all of the available behavior actually makes them seem low value and worthless.

Summary

Does that mean you have to be a jerk or diva to find love? No. But, it does mean that you need to be selective with your time, attention, and niceness. It means you cannot be eager to please, needy, overly-available, or endlessly nice. To create a loving, respectful, and appreciative relationship, you have to know the rules of the game…and play by them.