Nice Guys and Love, what's your take on the issue

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We live in a culture where society dictates much more strongly what constitutes a desirable woman than what constitutes a desirable man. Culturally, men are taught to desire a women who are young and possess a set of culturally prescribed physical characteristics. Women are taught to emulate this physical ideal. However, it is no longer clear, if it ever was, what constitutes an attractive man. In the past, before the sexual revolution and the entry of women to the workforce, male sexual desirability to women was rather irrelevant; men were chosen based on more pragmatic considerations of social class, occupation, and financial ability, because most women had to depend on men for these things. However, this has changed.

The deepest flaw of the seduction community is that seduction gurus assume that just because most men find a specific type of woman attractive, most women must also find a specific type of man attractive. That is, that there is a masculine ideal, and men closer to that ideal are more attractive and men farther from that ideal are less attractive. They are divided as to what an attractive man is, but are more or less united that there is such a thing. They probably believe this because our culture defines what an attractive woman is, and they think that there must be some counterpart for men as well.

But I don't think that this is true that there is one kind of attractive man. I think that different women find different men attractive, and there isn't enough agreement among women to say 'women like this' or 'women like that'. Women just aren't similar enough to talk about them like they're all the same. If we lived in a culture that was less obsessed by the beauty ideal, I truly believe men would find a much wider variety of women attractive. Universal attractiveness is a cultural construct that only exists for women, but not for men. Women's preferences are not regimented by Hollywood or TV, but are confusingly anarchic. Perhaps as women continue to obtain economic power, men will become more objectified.

I know a girl who likes jerks (or is obsessed with one particular jerk, and probably like him more because of his abusive behavior toward her). I also know dozens of beautiful girls who are with guys that I think are tremendously nice. I know some really nice guys that are chronically single, and I know some jerks who are too. I know cute women who are with fat men and ridiculously skinny ones too. Of the roughly ten girls who I think have been attracted to me, there is almost no discernible commonality; some have been beautiful, some have not, and they have run the gamut of the population. It's been pretty random.

Generally, being a jerk is not an effective strategy in life. Other people are really helpful, and it's important not to piss them off and to be able to work together with them. So if you're not a jerk in the rest of your life, it's going to be hard to pull of being a jerk to women that you're interest in and not have it come across as strange, transparently inauthentic, and more than a little forced. So even if some women do like jerks (and in my experience, it's really not that many), setting out to act like a jerk isn't an effective strategy to develop relationships with women.

In my experience, being yourself doesn't always work, but it's the only thing that ever has.

Hello i havnt read this all of the posts on this subject but i would like to share my findings in all of my observations and experiances with females i have learned several paterns of behavior all of the women i have observed show verry little interest in men that are considered "nice guys" and they usualy always suffer harsh consequences because of this all of the women under the age of 25 that i have observed seek the alpha male types aka the alpha loser men that seem confidant on the outside because women feel safe with a confidant man but after they spend more time in a relationship with them it usualy turns bad and they get abused and manipulated i have seen it hapen so many times i am a "nice guy" myself and i have ben rejected countless times for it and as soon as they reject me soon after they end up in an abusive relationship what i have learned is up until the age of 28-32 women seek the men that will abuse and manipulate them until they finaly get fed up with being abused and manipulated and make the switch alot of the time they have a kid or 2 by then and at that point they have taken so much of a beating emotionaly and physicaly that they have a verry hard time trusting men do they deserve the torment they put themselves through? who knows but the "nice guys finish last" cliche is correct i have several difrent theorys on why women seek the alpha loser but whatever the reason they usualy realise they want nice guys in there late 20s so if u are a nice guy like me u should probably save yourself the grief and start looking for older more mature women i dont deny the posability of a younger woman seeking nice guys but i have never seen one that actualy does i have heard women say they want a nice guy but there actions show they dont

well, unlike you im not gonna wait till im 28 for women to start wanting me. Im not a plate for a second table. Im no plan B.

not quite what i ment i was just saying we nice guys need to seek older more mature women but im sure ull figure that out the hard way like i did

Several posts up summed it well - that many self described 'nice-guys' are anything but. That is, I can't begin to describe how MANY men who are absolute jerks complain that they don't get women because they're 'nice.' Do they think women are so stupid they completely missed how they ripped on person X the other week for something innocuous?

On the other hand, my love IS a nice guy and he also holds to the opinion that life is harder for nice/shy men. For a long time I felt it was mostly a myth perpetuated the pseudo-nice guys. So I can say this: shallow, or young women might go for jerks because jerks treat them in a way that coincides how they feel about themselves. They feel worthless, and feel this is all they deserve. They may honestly feel they would hurt you, and want to protect you. They could also just be incredibly shallow (in which case, why do you like them anyway?) If you are young (say 18-20) then wait a couple of years. In college women tend to learn how to discern true kindness better.

But to finish - good women love good men. I adore my 'nice guy' more than I could ever say. He has a strong sense of self-worth, which is incredibly valuable. He also gives me emotional support and understanding that makes me feel safe. I don't know if he'd stand up for me in a fight, but it doesn't really matter. He's not really the macho type in any way, but he's a man in all the ways I think count - he's true to himself, to his ideals, and he respects others. For those of you that are genuinely nice - please don't lose heart. You might find her in the next DnD game

why do i have to tailor my wants? You may have "found out the hard way" but ill teach them the hard way.

Apparently it matters , it's for the best it means you can spend more time and money on special interests, are you saying women are more important than special interests?

Seriously whatever do you hope to get out of it do you think it will change you ? are you trying to prove something to your high school tormentors? the loser gets a hot GF in adulthood well they don't care nor should you

i never really cared for others thoughts of me. But companionship is something that is instilled into my head.

Well your right it leads to baldness and smellyness , though I do realise thats not what your talking about

I don't think nice guys exist... If you're compatible he'll automatically be nice...

Wow, this thread started three years ago yet I'd never read it before. Better late than never at catching up with it.

Those who've said masculinity is a key factor are absolutely right. And it's right in a way that transcends Asperger's. Among the many Aspies I know, this is true of almost all the ones who have partners, or have habitually had partners. I know more Aspies are single but tellingly, of those who habitually aren't, mostly they are the guys with a bit of recklessness about them, a bit of danger. Or, there's another such guy who I wouldn't say is reckless, but I think he has rock star traits. Or, another guy who's been in a long term stable relationship with an Aspie girl, he's not the reckless type but at least his interests are certainly masculine, especially football and drinking.

Compare and contrast that with a couple of Aspie friends of mine who have always been single and really struggle with females. They have really immature senses of humour, one having an obsession with sexual words that were played in Scrabble, or just sex words per se. The other delights in things like sending me texts saying he is w*king, and also has the same obsession with sex words. It's no coincidence that people like that are the same people who never have partners. If they are to have a chance of girls being attracted to them, I think they have to lose their immature sense of humour.

Aspie_Chav posted a pic of a guy on page 2, presumably because he looks like a good example of a Nice Guy. Or rather, not necessarily a Nice Guy. Just presumably a low testosterone kind of guy, one who's the extreme opposite of an alpha male (beta? omega?). The pic spoke a thousand words to me. He looks like someone who would suffer terribly in trying to form a love life (as well as other life areas). Imagine, for example, someone like him in a nightclub, an environment where it's the alpha, high testosterone guys who'd exponentially do well. And imagine if he actually tried to approach or dance with girls there. They'd all be giving him the middle finger. He'd probably get his ass pinched in the club - and not by the opposite sex either, even though lack of masculinity does not in any way equal effeminacy or homosexuality.

He'd probably have male friends, and might have female friends in a limited way, it's just that any thought of miscegenation would be a bridge too far for his female friends. He'd probably be a figure of fun or occasionallty hatred for alpha males, and vilified by some females.

Page 11: Cyberman asks this:

"Do people have some kind of natural "instinct" to keep the gene pool pure? Is that why they want us to be alone, because they're afraid that we'll spread our "inferior" genes?"

I find this an interesting question, as it's something I've thought about, but the answer is not necessarily yes. It's more like people are just trying to keep their own genes, who they miscegenate with, and their offspring as healthy as possible, for themselves. No instinct to keep the gene pool pure, unless your name is Adolf Hitler or you're someone of that ilk.

This is an issue that has caused me endless frustration! Part of it has to do with societal standards. After all which male celebrities get all the attention: those like Eminem; the missionaries you never hear of.

Part of it is just nice isn't sexy. I hate this nice guys finish last thing to the death, yet I admit, fairly recently someone tried to set me up with a nice girl and I wasn't attracted to her. Nice is the opposite of sexy, I hate to say.

Part of it is also the whole complementary nature/polarities of romantic relationships. The best romantic relationships in my view are those in which both parties complement each others weakness and strengths.

As Asperger's Syndrome goes, I have found a magnetic attraction to the extraordinarly socially confident females (i.e. those who have zero inhibitions) since Asperger's Syndrome involves an utter lack of knowledge of social things, we often have social inhibitions. And the ironic thing about polarities is that though they go on different paths, they both get to the same goal. In other words, these socially uninibited women are constantly breaking society's rules and norms (in their case, it is because they don't care), while that's what Aspergers do (in our case, it's because we have a different way of doing things (i.e. the world's way does not make sense to us).

I think the main problem is how awkward we, or at least i, am. From my shallow studying of psychology, i know that girls just want to be comfortable, and be listened too. Now i don't know about you guys/girls, but i'm a great listener. "Listen to many, speak to a few."-William Shakespeare. Unfortunately, it takes tremendous courage to talk to a person of the opposite sex, knowing that you mess up every other conversation you try and have, what makes you think you could talk to this person, if you couldn't talk to anyone else. That's my reasoning, and, although poorly put, it's enough to get across the point. But at least if we can get the girl, we can keep the girl, having long term relationship traits, rather than traits attractive for the first five weeks.

Have managed to have a skim through the whole 63 pages of the thread now. Seems it's generally accepted that when people talk of "nice guys", such guys are in reality weak males, and pushovers. I agree. It's also generally accepted that it's definitely not attractive to females, who are attracted to assertive, confident males. Especially from an evolutionary point of view, again I completely agree when you get down to it.

But now and then in this thread, nice guys are labelled. Nice guys are labelled as being necessarily not nice, or unpleasant (this can't really be true in every case?); that they are douches, or pricks, or whatever other labels have been stuck on them now and again in this thread. While they are weak males and pushovers, which I don't doubt for a second, I suppose that some of you are just trying to act hard and bully them. The weak are going to be bullied, but that doesn't make it right, I see them more as unnecessarily vilified males who may be traumatised enough without some of the labels some of you are trying to stick on them such as "douche".

I suppose that this vilification is more likely to come from people who feel they have their s**t together in terms of their ability to be in relationships, who are quite happy to try to bully the weak out of the gene pool, as if to bruise them or suck the life out of them emotionally or something; who are quite happy if that person is traumatised.

Tying in with what I posted above, I have edited to say I like MikeH106's post, on page 25. (q.v.)

Interesting opinion, and being attracted to the real socially confident females is quite normal, Aspies or not. And I would think the type of women you describe being reckless themselves are attracted to the more reckless, devil-may-care but socially skilled guys - who tend towards being alpha males. However, have you had success with the socially confident females yourself?

Other than that I would theorise that it's more common for Aspies and certain other types of male - which I'll call non-alpha male, rather than "nice guy" as typed with double quotes or other contemptuous terms that some people seem to want to use - to have more of a chance (if any) with relatively less feminine females or simply those considered to be less attractive females, because they are considered less masculine themselves not being alpha males. These types of females might include those in poorer physical or mental health for whatever reason, or bisexuals as this might be seen as less than totally feminine. This is because both types of male or female are left over in the gene pool, within their sex group, once the more highly-prized genetically (attractive etc.) are taken.

The question is, are both left-over types of male and female going to be attracted to each other? Not necessarily, I suspect.