The Nice Guy Dileema

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This is a very generic topic that has been rehashed numerous times in the Love and Dating forum. However, I do think it is a subject very applicable to a lot of guys on here, who are generally nice and are frustrated that their romantic endeavors never seem to work out.

I talked with someone who said something to me that made a lot of sense. I was told that "nice guys" are basically guys who are generally mild mannered and pleasant in demeanor. However, romantically speaking, they feel they are entitled to be in a romantic relationship with a woman, just because they are nice. They have a sense of entitlement to women because of they believe that they are "good, kind, and friendly" a.k.a "I'm a nice guy, therefore women should flock to me instead of any other guy".

I was told that when a "nice guy" is rejected, he takes it very personally and immediately gets angry and defensive. He does not take in account the feelings and mindset of the girl that either explicitly or inexplicitly rejected him. She may have had a good reason, or maybe she just wasn't interested, who knows.

I do agree with this interpretation, and I do see my train of thought in the past to be exactly that of a "nice guy" aka the sense of entitlement, and I think a lot of "nice guys" are the same way.

Although I believe the nice guy rationale is flawed, I certainly do understand and sympathize with the "nice guy". After all, guys, in most cultures, are expected to try and devise a plan to ask out a girl if the guy is interested in her. It is a risk, a gamble, opening yourself up to the possibility of rejection, or success. No one likes to get rejected, and how one takes rejection is indicative of how much self confidence and assurance one has in themselves. I'm fairly certain with a lot of slightly autistic guys, there is a large degree of lack of self confidence and assurance in social situations.

Since the problem has been diagnosed, the question is, "How do nice guys learn to adapt to become more romantically successful without relying on their perceived entitlement by being "nice"? I would like to hear what the rest of you think.

As for myself, I have my solution already picked out. The Mystery Method. It explains how to find places where women naturally hang out, how to open up to a woman in a group (set) or by herself, and how to keep her interested in you by subtle manipulation, like pretending to leave when you're not, creating a sense of loss, and other things.

After all, as John Lyly best said "The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war." Finding love and relationships isn't a fair game, you have to learn how to adapt and create advantages for yourself.

For the most part it is a game that we Aspies have to learn how to play. The problem with nice guys is that they try to understand the game instead of just playing it. What an Aspie has to do is accept that he will never understand it and just learn how to do it. Absolutely nothing about the game makes any logical sense but very few NT women think logically. Learning to play the game will get her to notice you and be interested. After that your positive nice guy qualities can be used to keep her interested provided that you don't go overboard with it. To much nice guy will eventually drive her away. I don't undertand the game at all either but I have learned how to play it.

i quite liked your post, until i got to this part. women do not like, nor deserve, to be manipulated. nice guys dont manipulate. manipulation is lying. trying to build a romantic relationship on a foundation of lies will leave you buried in the rubble when it collapses.

i think part of the problem for "nice guys", is that many of them really are not nice. they think they are, but by action, attitude, or opinion they turn women off (reference the above quote). the genuinely nice guys ive known, even the ones who were not attractive men, did not have any extraordinary problem finding girls.

From a book I read for young adults with an ASD, the author Jed Baker says that "the worst thing they can do is stay no. Even though it still hurts a little bit, you still get to ask someone else" (Preparing for life, pg 257). Plus its just between you and the person you fancy. Its not like their are gonna say no to you in front of the whole school. The best thing is to keep trying cause if you don't, you will never get a date. If it makes the person feel better, the person they fancy, and plenty of other people (NTs included) are afraid of being rejected. So nice guys aren't the only one with the problem.

"Also for most people, it takes asking someone out many times before someone says yes. This does not mean that there is something unlikeable about you, its just takes time for you to find someone who is also like you"(Preparing for life,pg 257). I'm a nice guy too, so I'm still learning how to step up my dating experience with girls. One way for a nice guy to get a date make some good moves and hope that the girl they fancy can read those moves. The only moves I can think of is impress them with something your good at or keep them interested by looking happy and continue to show an interest in them through conversations. That's all I have to say. Like I said, I'm a nice guy too, so I need advice for this as well.

Thats the same problem I have with my two friends. They both seemed like very nice people until they broke up. One started to go Dr Jackell and Mr. Hyde while the my best friend starts to have a touchy feeling with girls that really turned them off and they started to avoid him.

in my experience men who actually describe themselves as 'nice guys' are the worst ones

Yes! They are treating "nice" as a form of currency that they should be able to use to buy women. When women don't respond to being bought with niceness, they rant about how horrible women are for not accepting that they have been purchased with nice niceness tokens. They also rant that society is horrible for not going along with this niceness currency system. The things is, true niceness is a core part of somebody's personality. It isn't nice to use it as a currency system. It's manipulative.



Yes again. That's why I went with the money metaphor. It treats the girl as an object he can purchase with niceness, rather than a person with her own wants and interests that don't necessarily align with his. He reacts the way somebody would react who thinks he has bought something and then looks in the shopping bag and discovers it is empty. He acts like he has been tricked or screwed over by her. Why isn't she in the shopping bag? Doesn't she know she has been purchased?

It's mean and not genuinely nice.

What do these so-called jerks have that gets them in relationships? Many of them aren't jerks at all. They are just men who are who they are with no need for a facade- including a facade of faux "niceness". Women like that honesty.

Except for the Pickup Artist Community types. Those guys really are jerks. But it's because they are pure facade, no honesty.

Everyone gets rejected, or turned down. The odds that one person's interest will be returned aren't all that high. The thing with the jerks is that they mostly don't care; they figure the person who rejected them has made a foolish decision, and figure they'll get the next one, so they move on quickly to the next one. Or, maybe, they have a better sense of who might say yes, before even offering the question. Either way, their ability to shield themselves gives them an advantage. I honestly do not believe they are liked more frequently, or accepted more frequently; they mostly are a lot less afraid to ask.

The first post in this thread, however, assumes that each incident of rejection is a huge stab to the heart. Maybe some guys invest too much in that first question? Pick too carefully? So that the rejection is much more personal? I don't really know. But I will say that it seems unlikely a post like would be written by a man who accepts the fact he's got to be rejected 10 times for every success.

And I remember quite specifically turning down all sorts of guys when I was single, for simply not being right for me.

This looks like a topic on how to "catch a woman".

If you're looking for short relationships, or some sex, by all means, the manipulation (mystery?) method has many websites and books for sale explaining exactly how to do it. They all call it something else, and those books cost alot of money. By all means, go for it. You'll definitely be able to catch the ones looking for 'a good time' by those methods and grab some sex. But you'd probably be safer with a prostitute who knows how to maintain her health as part of her profession, rather than some random woman who falls for the "mystery" trick (if she falls for it once, she's likely fallen for it before - with a 'bad guy'). Miht be easier and cheaper too.

Your definition of a good guy suffers one fatal flaw: The woman's perspective. You aren't a nice guy unless a woman defines you as one. And a woman defines a nice guy as someone who's looking for a long term relationship and someone who'll take good care of her.

Azurecrayon,

I do understand where you are coming from with "Women do not like, nor deserve, to be manipulated. Nice guys don't manipulate. Manipulation is lying. Trying to build a romantic relationship on a foundation of lies will leave you buried in the rubble when it collapses."

What you said is true, manipulation is lying, and women shouldn't be manipulated. In a perfect world, using such methods would be unnecessary, and guys could ask out girls and girls could say "yes" or "no", and the guy would be just fine with that. However, this is not a perfect world, and "love" or the search for a relationship is complicated and biased affair. Human love is so incredible conditional and dependent on so many things.

For instance, have a physically attractive gal walk past 15 guys, and see how many of them check her out lustfully and possibly hit on her. Then have a girl who isn't physically attractive, but has a great personality and is kind, walk past the same 15 guys, and see none of them pay attention to her and blatantly ignore her.

Have a guy who is playful, friendly, and cocky talk to 10 girls, and see how many of them become attracted to him and will date him if they ask him out. Then take a guy who is shy, quiet, and reserved, who is as kind and sweet as can be, and have him talk to the same 10 girls. He is either going to be "friend-zoned" or ignored, because he isn't "exciting" enough and to them, he has no romantic possibilities.

See what I mean? Extremely conditional. You are right- "Nice guys don't manipulate". Nice guys try to ask out girls, get rejected almost all the time, and take it personally and wonder why they've been rejected and become depressed, or resentful of women. "Nice guys" feel they are entitled to women because they are nice, and when things don't go according to plan, they don't know what to do next.

Believe it or not, I am a "nice guy", and I will always be friendly and nice to people, because it is my natural demeanor. However, unlike most "nice guys" who wallow in self-pity and despair because they feel they are powerless to get women, I'm doing something to change that. I tell you the truth, you can be the nicest, sweetest guy around, and women will still reject you just because you appear to be spineless because you are so nice! I'm just a "nice guy" who is ahead of the curve.

And the Mystery Method, it's not so much lies as it is learning how to interact with women and get them interested in you. Women are equally capable of manipulation just as much as men are capable of it.

i think part of the problem is you are assuming you know what all 10 women want, and that they all want the same thing. stop thinking of women as a collective and consider them as individuals each with their own wants and desires. some women WILL want the shy, quiet guy, some WILL want the playful, friendly guy (altho less will want him if hes cocky too). you cant ask out everything in a skirt and get angry when a lot of them say no. find the ones that will like who you are, and you will find a lot more success.

btw, those 15 guys, i hope you arent thinking any of them are nice guys. they arent. they are shallow and superficial, not to mention downright rude if they "blatantly ignore" one woman based solely on physical looks and lustfully check out another and hit on her. no wonder they are 15 dudes hanging out together without dates.

i find it infinitely interesting that for your example, you chose physical attractiveness as something men are looking at, and only personality traits as something women are looking at. you also have the women simply walking past the multiple men, while the guys being evaluated actually talk to the women. i have to wonder whether you did this on purpose or unintentionally, and whether you think this is how date choices are made, by men considering only physical qualities on a woman they've never met, and by women considering only personality on men they've met and talked to.

Good points, Azurecrayon. Women most definitely do not all want the same things. Watch the totally trashy Bachelorette show and see how the women fight over which guy they think the woman should have picked and that becomes clear real fast.

There is one key thing to getting a date, of course, and that is that the woman has to see enough of who you are to make a decision. No one will say yes until they've been given enough information, and that can be a key reason some nice guys seem to have a harder time; it takes longer for them to share the relevant information, because that is part of the pattern of being a nice guy. A woman can't tell in a bar or party scene who the nice guys are; that information does not come out. It does not mean she isn't looking for a nice guy, it just means she has no way to know that you are one. The funny guy - that gets seen. The good looking one - also visible. The brilliant one with a stellar resume - he can probably give that information away pretty fast. But nice? Nice takes time to see and test. You can't exactly walk up to a woman at a party and say, "Hi, I'm John, and I'm the nice guy here." You would not be taken seriously.

So how do the nice guys get noticed? In my experience, the nice guys get the benefit of word of mouth: in situations where everyone knows each other (work, school, church, club), the buzz starts going, "John is such a nice guy!" As the buzz moves around, more women pay attention to him, and start flirting with him.

Apparently I stole my shy and nice guy husband from a couple of women who had been eying him from over a year. Hey, they never told HIM, lol, or he might have asked them out. Instead, my sister was in on the buzz about what a nice guy he was and told him about me, who was not part of the group (and me about him). The first time we were in the same room together, we sought each other out.

That is how nice guys meet women and get dates. We'll call it the buzz network.

In other words, don't ignore women who seem to be only offering a friend card. Male friends get introduced to female friends, who may have entirely different cards in mind.

Women can be easily bought just not with niceness tokens.

The way that the "jerks" are able to get women so easily is that they have a lot of female friends who will introduce him to a lot of other women. It's a numbers game guys! Use your Aspie math super powers and figure it out! The more women you are exposed to the more likely one of them is going to fancy you as more than a friend. It really is that simple. The "jerks" simply keep trying until a woman says yes. Again it is all about numbers.

What about those - like me who suck at math?

yeah no aspie super math powers here. Way to stereotype...

A problem I have is that I have several female friends, and I ask them to help set me up, and they don't, and I've seen them actively putting barriers between me and potential dates. What does that mean? How do I get them working with me rather than against?

I don't class myself as a 'nice guy', btw. I'm not an a-hole either.