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BlueMax
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10 Jan 2013, 8:30 pm

JanuaryMan wrote:

Kezzstar wrote:

I think the whole crux of the "Nice Guy/Girl" issue is a) honesty and b) a sense of entitlement.

These people aren't being honest in their friendship, the person of their affections has NO idea that the friendship is conditional unil the "Nice Guy/Girl" finally makes a move.

That's when the entitlement thing comes in. And guys and girls, just because you are nice to someone does NOT entitle you to a romantic relationship with them. Being nice is something you should be doing to everyone anyway, because it's the right thing to do. Again too, the honesty bit comes in, the "Nice Guy/Girl" has been trying to paint themselves up as this amazing supportive friend, however it's a facade, as the moment they get rejected the covers come off and the sulky, whiny, entitled brat that they really are comes out.

Imagine you are the "victim" of a "Nice Guy/Girl", this person who you thought was a great friend suddenly turning on you. Someone you trusted.

Point is, if you like someone in a romantic sense, try and let them know when you get the guts, and don't treat them like crap because they don't have to like you back. And don't treat them (or their new bf/gf) like crap/try to break them up when they finally find someone they want, whether you've spilled your heart or not.

This. Did people ever consider that guys and girls go for so-called jerks and b*****s because they aren't lying or insulting/pandering to their significant other in a psycophantic and dishonest way? This is a trait that plagues the trademark nice guy.

Also Alomiel, why did you only apologize to nessa after they said they were female?

Two great posts together. Thumbs-up to both! I think that's why so many ladies dislike the so-called "nice guy" is it's definitely less than honest. Person A wants a romantic and/or sexual relationship, Person B does NOT but still enjoys person A's company. "A" is willing to remain friends, maybe even turns it up a notch in hopes "B" will eventually come around. When they don't, "A" storms off and complains.

Unfortunately, there's a flipside. Sometimes "B" knows perfectly well what "A" wants and will happily string them along, enjoying the freebies "A" is handing out in hopes of something "B" knows will never, ever happen!

Both are certainly unfair and unhealthy.

[EDIT] It seems 1000Knives beat me to it! Said a little better though... I'm barely holding onto consciousness here. :coffee:

meems
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10 Jan 2013, 8:56 pm

BlueMax wrote:

JanuaryMan wrote:

Kezzstar wrote:

[EDIT] It seems 1000Knives beat me to it! Said a little better though... I'm barely holding onto consciousness here. :coffee:

One easy way for "B" to avoid being strung along for "freebies" is to have a clear conversation with "A" about whether or not these shared activities or whatever are a build up to a romantic relationship. If "A" agrees things are going in that direction and sees "freebies" as a legitimate incentive toward a romantic relationship, maybe "A" isn't the type of person who is going to want to build much of an egalitarian relationship in the first place.

Well, neither is "B", really. "B" seems to be pandering, and "A" seems to be taking advantage of that pandering, regardless of what direction things go. It seems like an unhealthy way to begin a relationship in general.

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Who_Am_I
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10 Jan 2013, 9:02 pm

meems wrote:

Also I think a really well circulated article named Taylor Swift as a famous example of a female Nice Guy.

A post on my Facebook feed yesterday: Just once, I wish that Taylor Swift would write a song called "Maybe I'm The Problem".

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billiscool
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10 Jan 2013, 9:56 pm

am I nice guy, well I try to be at times. But I can be jerk towards people at time. And sometimes I am too honest with the ladies, so yeah
sometimes that don't go well.

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11 Jan 2013, 3:25 am

This applies to "people"; I've found that when people hark themselves as nice, the rest of the world usually has a different term to describe them with :wink:

And I agree with a post I saw yesterday, I can understand the friendzone predicament but it's not very nice being the female who ends up hurt and uncared for. Been there a few times myself, though they never end up blowing up at me or anything, they just stop caring and make up tall stories about why they won't talk to me anymore. They (mistakenly I might add) assume they're getting friendzoned so they "acquaintance I seldom talk to"-zone me in retaliation. The fact is I'm not friendzoning them, I just like to take time getting to know them and try and get some sort of close connection going first. I guess some guys are just impatient.

Boxman108
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11 Jan 2013, 3:44 am

blue_bean wrote:

This applies to "people"; I've found that when people hark themselves as nice, the rest of the world usually has a different term to describe them with :wink:

And I agree with a post I saw yesterday, I can understand the friendzone predicament but it's not very nice being the female who ends up hurt and uncared for. Been there a few times myself, though they never end up blowing up at me or anything, they just stop caring and make up tall stories about why they won't talk to me anymore. They (mistakenly I might add) assume they're getting friendzoned so they "acquaintance I seldom talk to"-zone me in retaliation. The fact is I'm not friendzoning them, I just like to take time getting to know them and try and get some sort of close connection going first. I guess some guys are just impatient.

I can understand how that can be painful, especially for someone who also takes some time to make a real connection. But I feel I can offer perspective from the other side of things. For me, being rejected has still caused pain regardless of how hard I try not to care, and instead of getting angry I've found that a better alternative has been to try and distance myself from them. I don't think that I could stay at that same level with someone without feeling perpetual emotional pain. I suppose I also have to factor in that I'm a very private person and only feel comfortable sharing everything with those who are particularly special, and I can't help but feel regret about telling some things to those who have not felt the same way about me.

I had a misunderstanding about this sort of thing with someone at the end of last November. She thought that I didn't care about our friendship anymore and that I hated her when all I was trying to do was protect myself from being hurt, and I didn't know how to convince her that that wasn't true, so we stopped talking for a month. I'm not sure what we are now, exactly. I had no intention of contacting her again, as I felt that she must really hate me after all I've put her through, but she contacted me again so she must not think I'm too terrible of a person. Either that or she's just bored and desperate, kind of like me...maybe it's not such a good idea to talk to her again after all but we'll see. I don't know how desperate she could be with already having a boyfriend and 50x more friends than I do. At the very least this might be a decent learning experience as to how to get over someone.

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11 Jan 2013, 3:49 am

Just another thought, it kinda sucks when people think you can be "bought" with kindness and favours. It makes you feel more like an expensive object in a store than a living, breathing human being with their own wants and needs.

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The_Face_of_Boo
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11 Jan 2013, 3:57 am

I never use the friendship policy to approach a girl, If I want more than friendship I say it upfront and make it clear from the begining.

I am a self-proclaimed jerk, aka a Jerk Guy

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11 Jan 2013, 4:49 am

blue_bean wrote:

This applies to "people"; I've found that when people hark themselves as nice, the rest of the world usually has a different term to describe them with :wink:

Word.

It's only made worse by a lot of them, when after you actually reject them because they finally actually told you or showed you (often in the worst possible way, I might add) what they wanted - and then go and try their best to trash your reputation by spreading rumors and lies, just for rejecting them.

I can't count how many have done that to me.

And Box - it's behaviour like the above - malicious behaviour because of their entitlement attitude that is what gives these types a bad name. If you're not being malicious - then none of this applies to you.

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blue_bean
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11 Jan 2013, 5:18 am

Boxman108 wrote:

blue_bean wrote:

This applies to "people"; I've found that when people hark themselves as nice, the rest of the world usually has a different term to describe them with :wink:

Well for me the only person getting rejected in the end was me. In fact it felt like I was putting all the leg work into trying to move things along (as well as trying to keep the friendship afloat). All they had to do was reciprocate; put in a bit of care and show interest in me as a person, which would have been as simple as talking to me more often (like, once a week, not a clingy or high maintenance frequency by a long shot), and if they asked me out after doing that I would have said yes. There was no rejection by me to even perceive, it was their own complex and friendzone bitterness which sabotaged it for themselves. One guy I was talking to even said in his PoF profile that he was specifically looking for friendship only, what was his excuse to get upset about being friendzoned? Seriously, some guys out there shouldn't even be pressing the register button on OKC/PoF until they sort their s**t out. Otherwise it's just gonna be like a stuck record of hurt, rejection and confusion with every girl they meet.

I've always been clear and consistent with my intent; friends first with view to relationship, but I guess for the sake of guys like that it's the wrong approach. Either I have the wrong dating approach or I should just avoid guys like that in future. My approach is kinda uncommon and seems to attract a certain shy type who needs time to warm up. The majority of dating sites seem to be filled with the meet one day and coffee date the next types. I'm too introverted to do something like that myself.

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11 Jan 2013, 7:16 am

"Nice guy" tries to be the best friend of a girl, and then he complains he has been "friendzoned" :lol:

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11 Jan 2013, 7:33 am

blue_bean wrote:

The majority of dating sites seem to be filled with the meet one day and coffee date the next types. I'm too introverted to do something like that myself.

Spot on. That is me to a T. I don't do dating the way many people here seem to do it.

abyssquick
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11 Jan 2013, 10:04 am

I have a particular disgust towards Nice Guy™ types, especially since I now understand it as something relatively arbitrary. It seems most of the women out there by adulthood carry baggage obtained by an interaction with more extreme forms of these types of men. In early stages (school) it may seem innocent enough, but aspects of it can become ugly and damaging. The non-genuine personality approach can really blossom into selfish, emotional disconnection.

There is a problem in society, wherein a large number of men can't seem to befriend women without allowing sexual desire to run the show. Most women I know are social creatures, they just want to have fun doing what they like in the company of others -- and balanced, good-natured people of both sexes do appreciate this in general. I can't tell you how common it seems, that a man will befriend, and eventually proposition a girl who thinks she's having a perfectly legitimate interaction with another person -- but she tolerates it and even begins to expect it, because every other guy seems to do this. Women may be accustomed to it, but IMO these males are on already their way to becoming womanizers. It's selfish, and it's a personality flaw.

It's one thing to notice a person's attractiveness. It's quite another to befriend and pursue them under false pretenses of personality or common interest. If you can't interact with a woman without having ulterior motives, there's a problem with you. The extreme developed end of this Nice Guy™ spectrum is just pure garbage. The types who pretend to be "nice" and actually manage to attract the girl - many of them are actually just womanizers covering for their crappy personality. These are the smarmy types of men who put girls into sexually coercive places. It's a serious problem -- and it all stems from that beginning of a non-genuine personality. If you have to pretend to be a decent person, just to be accepted by girls in any sexual way, there's something very wrong with you.

The rationalization for it all goes something like "well, humans wouldn't reproduce if men weren't tricky or aggressive like this, and women weren't lonely, oblivious, or gullible" or similar such nonsense.

This may be overly simplistic, but it's been my experience and observation thus far.

I also recognize that the problem isn't one-sided. There are types of women that good-natured men need to avoid. There is a similar problem with Nice Girl™ types, who use actual good men like doormats. That's a different issue. I think we have to look at each under it's own light.

Last edited by abyssquick on 11 Jan 2013, 10:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

hyperlexian
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11 Jan 2013, 10:25 am

abyssquick wrote:

I have a particular disgust towards Nice Guy™ types, especially since I now understand it as something relatively arbitrary. It seems most of the women out there by adulthood carry baggage obtained by an interaction with more extreme forms of these types of men. In early stages (school) it may seem innocent enough, but aspects of it can become ugly and damaging. The non-genuine personality approach can really blossom into selfish, emotional disconnection.

There is a problem in society, wherein a large number of men can't seem to befriend women without allowing sexual desire to run the show. Most women I know are social creatures, they just want to have fun doing what they like in the company of others -- and balanced, good-natured people of both sexes do appreciate this in general. I can't tell you how common it seems, that a man will befriend, and eventually proposition a girl who thinks she's having a perfectly legitimate interaction with another person -- but she tolerates it and even begins to expect it, because every other guy seems to do this. Women may be accustomed to it, but IMO these males are on already their way to becoming womanizers. It's selfish, and it's a personality flaw.

It's one thing to notice a person's attractiveness. It's quite another to befriend and pursue them under false pretenses of personality or common interest. If you can't interact with a woman without having ulterior motives, there's a problem with you. The extreme developed end of this Nice Guy™ spectrum is just pure garbage. The types who pretend to be "nice" and actually manage to attract the girl - many of them are actually just womanizers covering for their crappy personality. These are the smarmy types of men who put girls into sexually coercive places. It's a serious problem -- and it all stems from that beginning of a non-genuine personality. If you have to pretend to be a decent person, just to be accepted by girls in any sexual way, there's something very wrong with you.

The rationalization for it all goes something like "well, humans wouldn't reproduce if men weren't tricky or aggressive like this" or some such nonsense.

This may be overly simplistic, but it's been my experience and observation thus far.

I also recognize that the problem isn't one-sided. There are types of women that good-natured men need to avoid. There is a similar problem with Nice Girl™ types, who use actual good men like doormats. That's a different issue. I think we have to look at each under it's own light.

very interesting points! about the bolded part, i came across this article a while back and i think it may relate:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... st-friends

Quote:

The results suggest large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships. Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends. Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistently overestimated the level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends.

...

Males were significantly more likely than females to list romantic attraction as a benefit of opposite-sex friendships, and this discrepancy increased as men aged—males on the younger end of the spectrum were four times more likely than females to report romantic attraction as a benefit of opposite-sex friendships, whereas those on the older end of the spectrum were ten times more likely to do the same.

...

Taken together, these studies suggest that men and women have vastly different views of what it means to be “just friends”—and that these differing views have the potential to lead to trouble. Although women seem to be genuine in their belief that opposite-sex friendships are platonic, men seem unable to turn off their desire for something more. And even though both genders agree overall that attraction between platonic friends is more negative than positive, males are less likely than females to hold this view.

i don't know if these results are accurate across the population, or if they apply here, but taken at face value... it seems like somewhere along the way the concept of "friendship" got a little weird in our culture.

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Boxman108
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11 Jan 2013, 10:58 am

blue_bean wrote:

Well for me the only person getting rejected in the end was me. In fact it felt like I was putting all the leg work into trying to move things along (as well as trying to keep the friendship afloat). All they had to do was reciprocate; put in a bit of care and show interest in me as a person, which would have been as simple as talking to me more often (like, once a week, not a clingy or high maintenance frequency by a long shot), and if they asked me out after doing that I would have said yes. There was no rejection by me to even perceive, it was their own complex and friendzone bitterness which sabotaged it for themselves. One guy I was talking to even said in his PoF profile that he was specifically looking for friendship only, what was his excuse to get upset about being friendzoned? Seriously, some guys out there shouldn't even be pressing the register button on OKC/PoF until they sort their sh** out. Otherwise it's just gonna be like a stuck record of hurt, rejection and confusion with every girl they meet.

I've always been clear and consistent with my intent; friends first with view to relationship, but I guess for the sake of guys like that it's the wrong approach. Either I have the wrong dating approach or I should just avoid guys like that in future. My approach is kinda uncommon and seems to attract a certain shy type who needs time to warm up. The majority of dating sites seem to be filled with the meet one day and coffee date the next types. I'm too introverted to do something like that myself.

I think that last part you mentioned could be part of why this happens; it's more common to just go on a date right then and there without building a connection. Perhaps they assume disinterest if nothing happens immediately, since that's what seems to be the norm? Personally I seem to be conflicted with that I don't want to act on physical attraction alone and think that that is wrong to do to someone, but then I also get discouraged easily because it seems most throw out the idea of being anything more than friends if you've known them for too long. Not that being friends is a bad thing in and of itself. I've got plenty of friends regardless of their gender. Just that it's taken so long to really get to know people that rejection seems more of a big deal and makes me feel it's not worth it to even try.

I also feel that if I went around telling new people I met that it "takes me a while to get comfortable around new people and I may or may not possibly have deeper feelings for you in the future" would pretty much alienate everyone, or at the very least create some distance anyway and the friendship would not be able to grow in a genuine way because they would act based on the assumption that I would definitely grow to be attracted to them. I guess I don't really now how to go about this at all.

But yeah, I haven't thought about that; if you haven't actually rejected them, then I suppose it is just their fear and insecurities holding them back. For me it's been a problem with those who've already rejected me and I need to learn how to control that. It's been hard to tell if some have been deliberately stringing me along or if I just don't understand some innocent social things and overthink them. It can be especially confusing as everyone is different and has varying boundaries.

abyssquick
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11 Jan 2013, 11:19 am

hyperlexian wrote:

very interesting points! about the bolded part, i came across this article a while back and i think it may relate:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... st-friends

i don't know if these results are accurate across the population, or if they apply here, but taken at face value... it seems like somewhere along the way the concept of "friendship" got a little weird in our culture.

I think it's all very interesting, if a bit of mystery to me why men seem so oblivious to female intention -- but then I've always been a bit of an alien looking in. It's been obvious for some time that women's interest in men is vastly different from men's interest in women. Identifying the quality of interaction was never too difficult for me - my own obliviousness to the advances of a few women was due largely to the first motive (friendship) being so pervasive, and actual romantic interest seeming like the exception. Women find men interesting in more ways than their sexuality.

I have also always appreciated the emotional literacy I glean in listening to female perspectives - I did this often throughout my adolescence. I do know that men & women are capable of having friendships -- but perhaps stipulated that this is only possible if the man isn't oblivious to the overall dynamic of each gender. There is also an inherent social boundary that says "you can't be friends" (as would be indicated by the existence of the article above) as well as boundaries in new romantic relationships, which do of course change the dynamic depending on one's partner's views on the male/female friends subject. There is also the problem of men who have an array of female friends, due to masculine insecurities -- i.e. the type of men who will cheat on their loved one. Of course, this only adds to this idea that m/f friendships aren't possible. (I find I don't like to use the word "platonic" because in our culture it would seen to imply that sexual interest would be the default mode.)

I think women like being social creatures, often more so than men -- I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's for the quality of energy of they find with their friends - happy, enthusiastic, energetic. In general, gender doesn't seem to be a big distinction for them. Men are a bit different, a bit more tribalistic.

My biases may be this: my own emotional constitution is itself androgynous. So, that may be a factor as well - but at the same time such things appear so obvious to me -- it's difficult to think others wouldn't know. (I believe it's obliviousness -- because if men did understand the m/f dynamic, it could actually indicate even further levels of gender-interaction pretenses - and that's a scarier thought, really...)

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