This "nice guys vs jerks" nonsense has to stop.

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Here's my theory: Nice guys (not just AS guys) need someone else to validate them. They put up with horrendous amounts of crap to get this validation. They emasculate themselves by becoming one of the girls, they allow themselves to get involved in other people's drama, they look for women they can fix into something that will complete them. They put themselves into situations where they're taken advantage of, taken for granted, and often taken for a ride down some misogynic trail. They're the bitter passive aggressive guys hovering in the corner, hating the human race, and praying for tragedy so they can "knight up" and make it all better.

Interestingly enough, the kinds of women nice guys are attracted to are women looking for some guy to validate them. Ironically, the nice guys are surprised to find that these women put up with horrendous amounts of crap to get this validation, even when the nice guys themselves are willing to put up with it. To these women, nice guys are a safe haven where they can complain and share stories of how broken they are, but "nice" isn't sexy.

If a woman asks you "why can't all guys be as nice as you?" maybe the best response is "because they're not working the 'pity f**k' angle." Nice guys don't say that because they're not looking for sex, they crave validation. That's probably why nice guys seem to be blind to the majority of women who aren't interested in jerks, because there's nothing to fix or save there. Jerks are at least honest about wanting sex, and often it works. No one has to be a hero to get laid.

Too many insightful posts to respond to individually (thanks everyone!) but I'll try to summarize some of the key points I noticed.

The intention of this topic was to get people using logical discussion to finally get rid of the false belief system that the dating world is divided into "nice guys" vs. "jerks". I'm not saying that this never happens, but it's not black and white like that - and also (as many people have observed in their responses) it leads to sexism. Whether or not that sexism increases a man's chance of being in a relationship is irrelevant because sexism is wrong in itself, and there shouldn't need to be another reason to try and get rid of it.

I hope that cleared things up a bit.

Ok, the "black and white" comments were interesting, because I think this black and white thinking is one of the keys to why this problematic belief system exists. Aspies (being aspies) get so obsessed with the extremes that they start hating all guys who get girls (percieving probably incorrectly them to be jerks) and then offshooting from that start hating all girls for supposedly being attracted to jerks in the first place (when in actuality this phenomenon only affects a tiny proportion of the population of women, and those few it does need help and understanding - not hate). So yes, this belief system breeds hate, ignornace, sexism, and bitterness. Nothing constructive or positive comes out of it, so it has to go.

I do think this comment was interesting too:

quote="SilverStar"]
Also, I think a lot of women (On here, and in real life, NT's and Aspies) take dating for granted, and they have a selfish attitude about it, because they have never really experienced rejection as much as men have, and they don't really understand what it's like to be alone most of their lives. If they would only put themselves in our shoes for a while, then maybe they would get it.
[/quote]

I mostly agree here, and I think this is a valid point to make. However, it is not true for all girls and guys (some girls both NT and aspie find it very hard to get into a relationship, and some guys find it easier. I personally know girls in real life who have exactly the same amount of difficulty finding a relationship as many of the guys on this forum). But in many cases this does seem to be the case, and I can see how it could exacerbate the problem.

Tis be human nature to want what you can't have and hate the "obstacles" in their way. Also the black and white views of the world
the fear of the unknown is natural in humans so by stereotyping or making up stuff is a mechanism to help subside this fear.

Divine paradox as it is that man loves the sun but fears the dark when in fact too much sun can kill you when just by being in the dark can't

I'm a "nice jerk", so where does that leave me?

^ In the nicest possible dog house, that's where.

Is it me, or do some people here think girls are able to choose the boys they date as you would select a book from a bookshelf? The idea that they'll look at the (nearly) ideal man and say, "Well, he's perfect for me except he has no confidence...I'll throw all that away and date the man who does but has little substance"? That they are able to be totally impartial to love? If so, I don't think women are getting enough credit.

Possibly, but remember they're the ones who have to turn down loads of men whom they are not interested in.

I want to say that this can actually be an equally painful as being rejected. When someone you essentially really like, especially if that someone is a good friend, asks you out and you have to turn them down because you don't return romantic feelings for them, it's a horrible horrible feeling.

Take it from someone who's experienced both sides of the equation (the rejecting and the being rejected).

A few things:

Someone earlier claimed that chauvinists and men with "low opinions of women" seem to get more women, and someone responded that that is not the case, because many people with low opinions of women DO NOT GET GIRLS. Here's what's going on with this:

There are two types of "low opinions of women," as called earlier in this forum. The first is simply an understanding that they are human beings, like men, and are not meant to be put on a pedestal. Women's needs, to these guys, do not supercede their own, because they have confidence and do not try to please other people first. This sometimes comes off as having "no respect for women," which really means, "don't have an unreasonable amount of admiration for women."

The second type, which seem to show up more on this forum from what I've seen since I joined recently, is the type of guy who develops a deep hatred of women after a lifetime of rejection. These guys are the ones saying "jerks get all the girls," because this places the blame for their rejection on both other men and women--completely removing responsibility from the person in question. This person, if they were being honest with themselves, would probably find that there are a lot of things they're doing to make themselves seem unattractive, and would have to do a lot of hard work to change that image of themselves. This second type of disrespect is the easy way out, because it means that everyone else is the problem.

I kinda understand what you are saying about that. I have had a few girls that liked me, that I wasn't interested in, and they wouldn't take NO for an answer. I didn't want to be mean to them or anything, but it did get kind of annoying.

yes women are not god they are human just like everyone else its not a low opinion its the logical non sexist opinion.

If it actually were nice guys vs. jerks the problem would stop pretty quickly. The 3 truly nice guys in the world would be totally f****d because they would be outnumbered by over a billion to one.

I don't get the whole 'blame yourself' mantra, though. I don't see how that will help except making yourself feel worse. Sexist or not, some of the blame does lie with the woman (yeah, even the blame gets laid more than some of us). If the woman can't see how awesome I am, that's technically her fault.

I go out and try to talk to people frequently. It's not always that.

I don't even see how it's possible to not 'be yourself.' No matter what you do you are still you, and therefore, being yourself.

I know some single older men who are decent enough, they go out, but they just have no luck, one of them is considering getting a Russian mail order bride. My acquaintance with them has showed me that the whole 'there's someone for everyone' line is a load of s**t.

I don't think there is one cure all solution for this. It depends on the person. Success is no guarantee in this game.

that assumes your awesome.

I'm not sure you were referring to me, but I did mention guys who were very much chauvinistic and in an overt manner, especially with the women they found attractive. And they got dates, plenty of them. And I wouldn't say they match either of the two categories you describe. Not the first category, because they have either explicitly regarded women as less intelligent and useful than men or harboured a dislike of assertive women. And not the second category, of course, because they get dates.

They appear to be a minority in my age group, but given the way they flirt and how thoroughly their sexist attitudes permeate their conversations with the women they like, I suspect there may be something in it that the women they've dated found attractive. Which is quite interesting, in the sense that I'd like to know where that comes from. That's not to say though that I endorse the "nice guys vs. jerks" hypothesis, which (as I've mentioned earlier) strikes me as absurd.

I have been married to a nice guy for almost 20 years. He has never been a jerk to me or to anybody that I can see. Prior to meeting him I had a couple nice boyfriends but it just didn't work out. In between I dated a couple jerks. And when I say "dated" I mean one date, that one date revealed their jerkiness and that was it.

The world is full of nice guys who are married.

WP has a fair number of AS men who are married (just ballparking from the posts that say "my wife", no actual stats).


So I absolutely agree with Sunshower and others that this nice guys/jerks dichotomy is baloney and that it breeds sexism. I also see the dilemma of lonely men who want to be in a relationship.

It's sad to see people continuing to be lonely when they want to be paired up.

But BUT!! !! It makes me furious to see a man hone in on the hottest, sexiest woman in the room, see that she's with a jerk (which she may very well be) and then conclude that "nice guys like me never get the girl because girls just like jerks". Meanwhile he just ignored 10 plain women.

It's the nice guys who DON'T ignore the plain woman because she isn't hot enough who wind up in a relationship.

So, to all the ostensibly nice guys who feel ignored, make sure that you aren't ignoring in turn the plain women in your midst. If you are, while noting that the hottie is with a jerk, well......

Theirs such a thing as a plain women?

Looks are nice but if going for that alone is odd. I'd also would love to be with a girl I could relate to and be myself around

Yes, very true. Recently there has been a bit of a shift in that people have stopped using largly discredited Freudian ideas about psychology and started using largly discredited evolutionary ideas about psychology. There is some merit too it but there is always going to be more than one cause for a certain behaviour, so a good evolutionary psychologist will talk about how evolutionary forces combine with other factors to influence behaviour. But when it trickles down into popular culture it seems to get turned into biological determinism, which isnt what its really meant to be.

Having said that a few things that get published. There was some research published a few months ago which said that women preffered the colour pink because they have a greater perception of the red spectrum of colours, which apparantly evolved to help women forage for fruit and berries when men were out being manly killing animals. Apart from the fact that plenty of women dont actually like pink it was also pointed out that in other cultures pink has been seen as very masculine colour, so the report was utter crap, but still get reported as pretty much fact in most of the broadsheets.