# The Truth About Nice Guys



## MetalRacer (Oct 11, 2011)

DragonflyBlade21: A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.


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## RiversEdge (Aug 21, 2011)

I wish you guys would stop acting like we don't like nice guys.

If we have a friend -- and -- just want him as a friend, it's usually because we just don't
find him ATTRACTIVE for more than a friend. 
You can't help who you have chemistry with. It's not the whole 'nice guy' thing at all. It's attraction. Plain and simple.

I think the biggest mistake a guy could make is coming off as being a friend, when he really has an interest in me. 

If you want to use the job reference -- then ok, the better man gets hired.


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## rdrr (Dec 31, 2008)

survival of the fittest


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## Wirt (Jan 16, 2009)

we need a new sub forum


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## Witan (Jun 13, 2009)

rdrr said:


> survival of the fittest


This is what life boils down to.


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## luceo (Jan 29, 2011)




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## heroin (Dec 10, 2010)

^ How's your sex life, luceo?


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## Peter Attis (Aug 31, 2009)

The truth about "nice guys" is neither that they were burned by girls who only wanted to date douchebags, nor that they were only pretending to be nice to date a girl.

I find that in arguments about "nice guys" or "friend zoning," both sides tend to completely misunderstand one another. Take a look at this comic:

















The girl in the comic isn't some ***** because she didn't reciprocate his feelings, but she COMPLETELY misunderstood them? Just because he told her how he felt, he automatically "just wanted some poon"? Was there no way he could have had deeper feelings?

But the general message is still true. It may not be that she only wants to date douchebags, or that she'll date a guy just like him but not him.

Just like in the comic, when it comes to nice guys not getting the girl, there is no good or bad guy here. It's a just a ****ty situation to be in for all parties involved.


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## luceo (Jan 29, 2011)

heroin said:


> ^ How's your sex life, luceo?


Patchy, but rapidly improving especially compared to last year. I like that you ask about my sex life, not my love life.


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## heroin (Dec 10, 2010)

luceo said:


> Patchy, but rapidly improving especially compared to last year. I like that you ask about my sex life, not my love life.


So being nicer than the nice guys is working out for you I see.

Yeah I asked about sex life because I feel that is a better indicator of desirability for guys.


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## Ashley1990 (Aug 27, 2011)

oh boys pls dnt generalise


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## luceo (Jan 29, 2011)

heroin said:


> So being nicer than the nice guys is working out for you I see.


Ultimately it's about being _genuine_. I'm not saying that I'm nicer than _anyone_ and I didn't mean to imply that either. I'm not sure where you're drawing that from. However, in saying that, I'm just not convinced at all that the sorts of people that complain about girls not liking nice guys are actually nice at all. It sure doesn't seem nice to blame an entire gender for your own social failings. It doesn't seem nice to be 'friends' with someone while secretly always wanting more. It doesn't seem nice to complain about how horrible your 'friend' is for putting you in the 'friend zone'.

Either way, you have to admit that the guy in that comic I posted was not a nice guy. He wasn't a jerk either. He was, however, socially inept. I guess that's really what it's about. These guys don't know how to form intimate relationships for various reasons, but instead of looking at how they can improve themselves and their interactions with people, they just choose to blame every girl ever. And the worst part is that this only strengthens their resentment towards women, making it even more difficult for them to successfully interact with women.



heroin said:


> Yeah I asked about sex life because I feel that is a better indicator of desirability for guys.


Oh sorry, I thought nice guys were after relationships with their 'friends', not just sex.

Of course none of this is new, it's been said about a billion times before in all of the other 'nice guy' threads so I'm going to just leave it at that.


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## iBlaze (Nov 1, 2011)

You can be nice, you just have to be assertive. If you want to pursue someone in a dating sense, don't be friends with them first. Make your intentions clear, then if she doesn't want you, she doesn't want you. On to the next one. It's planted in HER mind that "oh, he just wants to be friends!" you have to make it CLEAR from the start that that is not the case, that you would be interested hanging out in a get-to-know-each-other sense.

If only I could follow my own advice >.<


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## BKrakow (Jul 8, 2010)

luceo said:


>


this is rather accurate.


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## Syndacus (Aug 9, 2011)

That comic above, just saying "Waifu" is grounds to be nice guy material forever....he deserved it.


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## Resonance (Feb 11, 2010)

Peter Attis said:


> The truth about "nice guys" is neither that they were burned by girls who only wanted to date douchebags, nor that they were only pretending to be nice to date a girl.


This.

For example:

Sometimes there is a guy who is by all accounts pretty nice, and he is interested in a girl.

She gets along with him and tells him he is nice.

At this point, if the guy has a sexual or romantic interest in the girl, he may justly misinterpret her friendly compliment as flirting and make an advance.

If she does not share his feelings, she may reject him as a romantic/sexual partner, and say she enjoys his friendship.

It is also possible that she may simultaneously be sexually attracted to someone else, who is not so "nice" as the first guy.

At this point, the guy is understandably hurt, and prone to complain about how women don't make sense because they say they like you, then don't sleep with you/sleep with someone who extorts money from pensioners for fun or whatever it is that the second guy does to make him less nice.

None of this, however, proves anything about either gender, or nice guys and women's perception of them. It does not mean that the guy only pretended to like her for potential sexual gain. Nor does it mean the girl was attracted to the second guy _because_ he was less nice, nor that the niceness of the first guy was a turn-off.


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## ToucanSam (Mar 22, 2012)

most women (at least in the U.S.) tend to equate "nice" with "boring", and therefore are attracted to "risky" men, either because they find it exciting or because they are looking for a project to work on.

Alot of SAS posters are Aussies & Brits; I assume it is the same there for you guys??


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## Secretly Pretentious (Dec 18, 2011)




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## Col (Mar 18, 2012)

^ win.

Also, my boyfriend is a nice guy. And this thread is kind of ridiculous.


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## Black And Mild (Apr 11, 2011)

RiversEdge said:


> I wish you guys would stop acting like we don't like nice guys.
> 
> If we have a friend -- and -- just want him as a friend, it's usually because we just don't
> find him ATTRACTIVE for more than a friend.
> ...


I probably completely misinterpreted what you said, but what I got from this was that *looks > everything else*


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## low (Sep 27, 2009)

MetalRacer said:


> DragonflyBlade21: A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.


Voluntary work or 'orbital' needs to be in the analogy somewhere.


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## squidd (Feb 10, 2012)

Yeah..... so am I the only ****ing guy on here that thinks men and women can actually be friends and NOTHING being wrong with that? 
Or am I the only one that thinks that and is dumb enough to look at these posts


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## Col (Mar 18, 2012)

squidd said:


> Yeah..... so am I the only ****ing guy on here that thinks men and women can actually be friends and NOTHING being wrong with that?
> Or am I the only one that thinks that and is dumb enough to look at these posts


Well thank god someone is sane, props to you


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## Black And Mild (Apr 11, 2011)

RiversEdge said:


> Hi Black and Mild -- seen you around the forums lately...
> 
> but do I really need to break it down for you that attraction isn't necessarily based on physical appearance? or note that I didn't say that anywhere in my post?
> I did mention chemistry and I think you should know, as well as I do - you can meet someone who is very physically attractive but you just don't have that chemistry together, right?
> ...


Alright, fair enough


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## squidlette (Jan 9, 2012)

squidd said:


> Yeah..... so am I the only ****ing guy on here that thinks men and women can actually be friends and NOTHING being wrong with that?
> Or am I the only one that thinks that and is dumb enough to look at these posts


:high5

In a perfect world, these would be pony icons. Because friendship is magic. And because I love a good brohoof.


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## BobtheBest (Aug 27, 2011)

squidd said:


> Yeah..... so am I the only ****ing guy on here that thinks men and women can actually be friends and NOTHING being wrong with that?
> Or am I the only one that thinks that and is dumb enough to look at these posts


You're not the only one, I'm with you. :yes


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## MidnightBlu (Jun 11, 2006)

I have guy friends that are less on the nice side too. Just because the guy isn't nice doesn't mean he's not in the friend zone.


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## BobtheBest (Aug 27, 2011)

Secretly Pretentious said:


>


Post of the day, I knew "friend zones" weren't real :yes


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## MidnightBlu (Jun 11, 2006)

Secretly Pretentious said:


>


That's hilarious!


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## squidd (Feb 10, 2012)

squidlette said:


> :high5
> 
> In a perfect world, these would be pony icons. Because friendship is magic. And because I love a good brohoof.


Did we just become bronies!??!?!?! awesome!



Col said:


> Well thank god someone is sane, props to you


why thank you



BobtheSaint said:


> You're not the only one, I'm with you. :yes


 Men for rational, decent behaviour UNITE!


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## BobtheBest (Aug 27, 2011)

squidd said:


> Men for rational, decent behaviour UNITE!


*fist bump* :high5


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## _AJ_ (Jan 23, 2008)

squidd said:


> Yeah..... so am I the only ****ing guy on here that thinks men and women can actually be friends and NOTHING being wrong with that?
> Or am I the only one that thinks that and is dumb enough to look at these posts


I know!! what the hell is wrong with being friends!!!

you be their friend, you meet their friends!


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## squidlette (Jan 9, 2012)

squidd said:


> Did we just become bronies!??!?!?! awesome!


You were already pretty high on my list of favorite SASers because of the mutual squid love and the fact that you were my first friend on here..... you have now become 20% cooler than you already were. :b


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## Milco (Dec 12, 2009)

I do think you guys are underestimating (or rather denying) the influences our genetic nature has.
Genes far from control everything and and they do not work on a conscious level, but I don't see why we should deny them completely either.

I can understand the appeal of saying that we're all the same and that we have no innate drives/wants. It seemingly makes for an even playing field were attraction is some unexplainable quality that cannot be quantified and thus is assumed "fair", but all evidence points to the exact opposite.
It just seems to be a "truth" we insist on to end uncomfortable discussions about our human nature on a basic level.

Attraction is a mixture of genetically programmed preferences and socially learnt ('rational') preferences.
Studies show that for short term relationships the former has quite a large say, while for long term relationships the latter becomes more important.



RiversEdge said:


> You can't help who you have chemistry with. It's not the whole 'nice guy' thing at all. It's attraction. Plain and simple.


Wouldn't personality be part of what decided attractiveness and not something completely separate? 
I don't know what you're attracted to, but I do know that there isn't anything mysterious about whatever it is.
Attraction is a selection mechanism and it selects based on different things, not all of which are as we would ideally want them to be. If it were all rational there would be no physical attraction.


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## babylemonade (Nov 24, 2011)

I also think genetics has something to do with this. The aforementioned 'survival of the fittest' thing that has been discussed. You're a nice guy, females appreciate your good values, but they certainly don't want to have relations or a relationship with you, because on some sub conscious level they aren't interested in carrying your child because nature is trying to weed you out.

Anyway, what a timely thread for me. Doesn't matter if you 13 or 113 (or 28, for that matter). Two pretty female friends of mine were in some conversation about how horrible their boyfriends were. Deep down I'm thinking these guys treat these two girls like idiots, but it can't be that bad because they still stay with them. Anyway, after the main talk had finished, one turned to me and said....yep, wait for it....no prizes for guessing-

"all boys are horrible except you. You're the only nice one left"

If I had a dollar everytime someone said that to me... To me that's like a girl saying "I wouldn't go out with you because you're somehow inferior and I sense it". I just said back "yeah yeah..." and she said "really it's true.", probably unaware at how much more she was twisting the knife. I then responded "that's cos I'm a man, not a boy". I didn't sound bitter, but to me there was some in there. It can be frustrating to listen to the umpteenth story of a guy not treating his gf well, calling her a ***** or not taking her where she wants to go, but doing what he wants and going where he wants instead.

Why do girls like give guys who are bad to them multiple chances, yet us good guys are told how nice we are but we are not what they want?


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## Cletis (Oct 10, 2011)

That whole _you're a nice guy BUT... _is just a nice way of saying---"You're a great person but you look like a freak and I would be embarassed to be seen with you in public, but if you weren't so ugly I'd jump your bones. But since you're not up to my standards you have no chance in hell of getting me."

But you're a nice guy. Really.


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## Frunktubulus (Jan 8, 2012)

I think the problem 'nice guys' have is they don't complain about women not liking them enough, if they spent more time telling women their feelings are shallow and wrong, maybe the women would realise what they want in a man is self pity and poorly concealed resentment.


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## lonley (Apr 22, 2012)

I have seen, experienced and read alot about this infamous (Friends Zone). My conclusions (and they are very strong and proven) is that when there is a one on one relationship between a boy and a girl (excluding group friendships altogether), there is two possible reasons that arise, and only two, this only applies also to heterosexual subjects.

The boy is attracted to the girl and is hanging around, always hoping for more (a guy's identity and friendship group is almost always based around male counterparts, he DOES NOT want a female friend that he is attracted to, he wants her as a mating companion, period.) Or in the rarer occasion, the girl is not that attractive to the male and he sees her as a friend, but this time the girl is the one who wants him as a partner. 

It is so rare to have two friends that are heterosexual, and PURELY friends. Both of them at the same time...it is almost impossible. It just does not make sense...nor have I seen any such case in my experiences.


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## hmnut (Aug 8, 2011)

lonley said:


> It is so rare to have two friends that are heterosexual, and PURELY friends. Both of them at the same time...it is almost impossible. It just does not make sense...nor have I seen any such case in my experiences.


They are rare but they do exist.

In my life I have had 2 female friends who were both "good friends" and also nothing more than friends to me. IE if they told me "I am madly in love with you." I would be the one saying "I don't want to ruin our friendship."

And they are both very attractive girls... when we go out guys usually hit on them, and this does not bother me because I don't want to date them. They are "just friends."

So I do believe that men and women can be "just friends." But I also think we have to cut the bull ****. We have to learn to separate the stuff from the stuff.

if a guy is spending all his time with a girl, and following her around like a puppy dog, and is at her becken call night and day, and listens to her complain about how there are no good men out there while she won't date him but dates a string of loser... they are not friends (or at least not good friends).

They will both claim how they are best friends and so close. But that is a cover for the fact that they are both using each other and lying to each other. The boy wants to be around her without risking her rejecting him and the girl likes having the attention and support without having to give anything back...

ironically this state of affairs is known as the friendszone but when you look at it, friendship has very little to do with it.

Take gender out of the equation. If the above relationship was between two heterosexual males, it would appear very odd. You wouldn't really call it friendship, you would call it an odd co-dependant relationship... because that's what it is.

Friendship with a member of the opposite sex is possible, but friendship with someone you are attracted to is... unlikely at best, or rather unhealthy at best. Either date them or don't date them, trying to be their friend as a subsitute for a romantic relationship is both manipulative and rather dumb (as it never works). Denying your true feelings is just dumb.

The thing about guys like that, I'm one of them.


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## lkkxm (Apr 11, 2012)




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## Dissonance (Dec 27, 2011)

This thread again. How marvelous.


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## Peter Attis (Aug 31, 2009)




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## Dissonance (Dec 27, 2011)

I say just work out and turn out to be attractive through physical means, are guys who are really attractive ever friend zoned?

That or make a lot of money.

Or learn how to be attractive by being a interesting person and a smooth talker.

Being a good honest person leads you nowhere in terms of relationships, you don't have that "edge" girls are looking for. There's nothing wrong with being nice, but trying to be a good person and attract the opposite seems impossible unless you have money, power, good looks(good genes) , etc. Being nice just doesn't cut it.


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## Starstuff13 (Feb 14, 2012)

it does seem strange that a lot of girls are attracted to a-holes. but not all girls are like this. i would ask you, if you are interested in a girl who doesn't like nice guys, then why do you like her? don't waste your time on people like that, because those are not the only ones out there.


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## Selbbin (Aug 10, 2010)

ffs. Just because you're shy doesn't make you a 'nice' guy.

Real nice guys actually care about the feelings of the person they allegedly 'love'. (and don't just want to bone.)

'Nice' guys that complain about friendzoning are not nice guys, they are just weak and timid guys.

I'm getting really sick of always seeing shy being equated with nice. And that guys who are not shy are automatically a-holes, simply because they get the girl and the so called 'nice' guy is jealous and bitter.

A lot of the self-proclaimed 'nice guys' on this forum are just timid jerks._ That's_ the truth about nice guys.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

Selbbin said:


> ffs. Just because you're shy doesn't make you a 'nice' guy.
> 
> Real nice guys actually care about the feelings of the person they allegedly 'love'. (and don't just want to bone.)
> 
> ...


This is a bit blunt and off the mark. It is true for some, but I have met a lot of people on this site. A lot are not as bad as you are saying there are - and this is coming from a moderator.


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## BeNice (Jan 2, 2004)

MetalRacer said:


> DragonflyBlade21: A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. *In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.*


So, you don't hang around with her anymore. I've been there myself. I got used. I learned my lesson and I went through the whole "women like jerks" stage. Humans are flawed and it doesn't necessarily boil down to the modern woman being this sort of enemy where feminism ruined everything for men, although I do understand much of the male bitterness displayed on message boards and Youtube videos. Part of it is just plain old biology and being humans with different body parts. Another part is, well, some other s--- I can't explain. It doesn't make any sense to keep repeating why it sucks. It just makes us look like a bunch of whiners.


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## Dissonance (Dec 27, 2011)

I'm not nice, but at least I'm honest and try to do the good for all people.


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## Selbbin (Aug 10, 2010)

millenniumman75 said:


> This is a bit blunt and off the mark. It is true for some, but I have met a lot of people on this site. A lot are not as bad as you are saying there are - and this is coming from a moderator.


It's blunt, but I don't think off the mark. It's only meant to apply to some, not all. You can be shy AND a nice guy. But being shy does not MAKE you a nice guy.


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## ToucanSam (Mar 22, 2012)

Selbbin said:


> A lot of the self-proclaimed 'nice guys' on this forum are just timid jerks.


I like that phrase!!

I would imagine that many of the "timid jerks" on this forum are nice guys in real life. But, Internet anonymity gives them the confidence to speak up and vent their frustrations, which many of us (me, you?) have trouble doing in real life.


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## Rachmaninoff (Apr 21, 2012)

Oh yay.... it's this thread again


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## TPower (Feb 3, 2011)

Reading some of you is quite funny, it's as if a nice guy has to accept everything people do to him (like girls rejecting him) without ever growing frustration about it. He has to smile like an idiot, no matter how life is a ***** to them.

If they ever get bitter because of their experience with the opposite sex, it makes them jerks.

Yet, I can assure you most guys who post about their frustrations wouldn't cheat on you with your best friend or beat you up.


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## ohgodits2014 (Mar 18, 2011)

TPower said:


> Yet, I can assure you most guys who post about their frustrations wouldn't cheat on you with your best friend or beat you up.


Yeah, they just stalk you and call you names if things don't go according to the plan. They also present themselves as victims and act like you should appreciate their willingness to do dumb and pointless things as if you REALLY would need them to do any of that.


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## TPower (Feb 3, 2011)

There are truly kind people who ended up doing school shootings. 

That's human nature. You are how other people treat you.


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## scum (Jun 30, 2011)

TPower said:


> There are truly kind people who ended up doing school shootings.
> 
> That's human nature._* You are how other people treat you*_.


Human nature = nature over nurture is myth


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## Vincent Law (Apr 25, 2012)

Women find them(nice guys) BORING 




Sad but true.


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## Vincent Law (Apr 25, 2012)

Women only start to show interest in nice guys when they are about to reach their expiry date ( age 35 ). 




once they get knocked up with several kids they come crawling back to the nice guys for emotional, romantic, & financial support.


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## John316C (May 1, 2011)

scum said:


> Human nature = nature over nurture is myth


sry it didnt copy the whole quote on quote...
Originally Posted by *TPower*  
_There are truly kind people who ended up doing school shootings.

That's human nature.* You are how other people treat you*._

this is right. ive seen women complaining about men being a certain way. and they have the right to complain however in response to a response written somewhere on this thread...
when i hear or read something like "how do you expect people to love you if you dont love yourself"... this isn't intelligent advice, its hearsay. and almost completely biased. the reason why people dont love themselves is because others dont love them (or show them love) and they never learn to love themselves properly/enough. You cant love someone IF they would only love them-self - this isn't love/charity - this is greed and/ vanity, wrath...
im not talking just about dating now.. im talking in general including romantic interests. people who arent shown love become defective socially as animals and hate themselves because of GENES. its in your GENES to work for the greater good(the social group), if your not included you are told by your genes that you are not worthy. you dont need to hear it, you just know because the information is already encoded in your genes. look at all the people hating themselves all the time, where do you think they learned it. why do you hear people saying all the time "its my fault!" they say it too themselves and then they say it too others. the ones who say it to others say it out of fear, and some of them say it as an attempt to cover up their insecurity about what they dont want to face.. for a pointer on my sources wikipedia: 7 heavenly virtues. i think thats what people should be striving for in a healthy growing relationship. if you look at the most successful people your going to find they demonstrate some degree of these virtues.


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## guppy88 (Nov 12, 2010)

MetalRacer said:


> DragonflyBlade21: A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.


Bad jobs hire bad people.

Besides, most guys get rejected because they act to clingy. Not because they're nice. So the whole nice guy bad guy should just be reworded to clingy guy/*******.

Guys are the sameway we just don't turn down women to much. Are you going to turn down a girl who goes ape**** about you. Calls you every night and bugs you every second versus turning down a girl who's generally mean to you all the time and makes fun of other people. Most guys are going for the latter.


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