4. Deception Works
It's no secret that women are fickle creatures. But women are probably the only creatures with the power to affect their environment based on their disapproval: if a woman gets offended at something minor (perish the thought) she can actually order you to leave your own house and be in the right...anybody else could actually assert ownership and property laws to overrule such a demand. No easier way is there to illustrate the psychotic fickleness of a woman that to tell her the truth; the truth--reality for lack of a better word--doesn't fit neatly into the desired worldview they possess, and their responses can be so violently extreme and final that you can end up alone, villified, and the owner of a 218,000 piece ex-action figure collection before the synapses in your brain form the phrase "did I say something wrong?" Women tend to respond rather PLEASANTLY to the things that reinforce their worldview and as long as a "nice guy" provides that without revealing his intentions, the woman who wouldn't spit on his face if it were on fire will actually treat him like a human being and be happy to see him...why let a thing like honesty get in the way? Besides, "nice guys" who have a woman's trust are prone to learn that the more they know that woman, the more they know how undesirable they are in their eyes: and as soon as they know you want to be more than friends is the day you get stripped of your citizenship application AND your Friend Zone passport.
You ever notice how when a woman's being honest or direct she's usually mad or lashing out at you? Women use honesty as a weapon, so don't be surprised if telling the truth gets you more slaps than brownie points.
This is a very well written response. You've made some solid points. However, I must counter this one somewhat.
The degree to which you can be blunt with a woman is relative to how attracted she is to you already or.... to how well she knows you.
I've had experience with both. What I like to do after I get to know a girl a little bit is "test my limits", so to speak. If she says something that's easy to make fun of or leaves her open to that sort of thing, I'll see if her sense of humor is compatible with mine by taking that opportunity to playfully rib her.
Sometimes, this works well and draws her in closer. Othertimes, it just pisses her off, but it's an important step in determining your "role", so to speak. If she's the type that gets easily offended, you're probably better off as just the "nice guy" to her. If she has a good sense of humor, then that's more like relationship material.
This is mostly true because, at least in my experience, her willingness to see it as humor is related to whether or not she finds you attractive. Granted, it's also relative to how well you make it clear that you're just being playful.
So, in a way, this is kind of like the truth angle you're talking about. Most humor is based on being blunt or politically incorrect in some way. Of course, I also tend to call bullshit more often than a lot of my friends do, which sometimes gains me respect, but other times gets me in trouble.
[5. Women Don't Say What They Want
An anthropology study actually revealed that a woman's sexual cues mimic the platonic friendship cues in males, and vice versa. So it's not uncommon for a woman to give off metric volumes of sexual hints to a guy and wonder to herself "why isn't he responding?" It's simple: because you're doing what guys do to each other all the time without a hint of sexual meaning and he can't see it. So too does this happen with "nice guys": to THEM, being a friend and being available and listening to your problems is way of forging trust and bond...for an entire gender that walks around with walls reaching to the sky, letting someone else in is a big step; the "nice guy" probably expects the girl to warm up to him and bond to him in a sexual version of the way men bond with each other over such things. But to women, baring your soul to your friend is something you do 5 minutes after you meet them, so the import that it has for men is probably lost on women. Which is probably why a guy who goes out of his way to do nice things for a girl he's got a crush on is likely to be rewarded with her bringing her new boyfriend home while he's in the middle of painting her apartment on his only day off. Why didn't he say anything before? because he thought he'd warm her up to him so taking a chance wouldn't fail as miserably as everything else usually does. Men communicate directly: if they want sex, they'd like to say so; if a woman wants sex, they'd like for HER to say so. But since women see directness as a kind of blunt and hostile instrument--not to mention "unbecoming" in the eyes of their peers--they dress up their intentions in a veil of complex and contradicting behaviors in the hopes that men will think like women and decipher them. They are just as guilty of hiding their intentions behind manipulation as the guy in the above cartoon.
That's why the nice guy who's nice to get laid gets mad when he doesn't...because he did everything right and nothing worked out. Wouldn't YOU be pissed?
Very good points here... Still, I think the trick is perceiving a "vibe" that she wants to be more than friends and then, if that vibe is there, putting her in a position where she will communicate that desire.
I don't know if this is just me, but most of the women I've been involved with were somewhat assertive. There have been a number of occasions where I'll get a good impression that a girl's attracted to me, and then I'll do something that tends to get them to... "act out" so to speak. Generally speaking, what I usually do is play it cool. Pay attention to them, but never quite give them your undivided attention. This tends to make them try harder to get that undivided attention. The funny thing is... I didn't really figure this out until after doing this by accident a few times.
I used to be really bad at even perceiving when a girl's attracted to me, and then she'd do something like lean up against me, and then I'd get the clue. But it took a little time to understand what inspired this spontaneity.
Of course, this is all still dependent on whether or not the girl's attracted in the first place -- an uncommon experience for the true "nice guy" stereotype, which is why I would guess they have this frustration and impression that deception is a big part of things.
6. Women ARE bitches who DO like Assholes*
But all this is academic. In the end, women and men are totally blind to the undesirable traits of the opposite sex. Men will date psycho hose beasts that other women will look upon dumfoundedly and say "how can he stand that bitch?!" while women will date men that other guys wouldn't trust with a pizza order and say "Jesus, how can she put up with that asshole?" What is obvious to other members of the same sex can take years to sink in with members of the opposite, and by then, such a pattern has been established that one is doomed to repeat it. And in the face of that experience, they still don;t seem to find anything appealing about the people around them who exhibit opposite tendencies. Yes, the "nice guy" might be reliable, but that reliability has absolutely zero animal magnetism, and if that "nice guy" actually did come forward and state his interest, a woman might be so put off by being propositioned by someone she never thought of sexually that she'd cut him off from her life entirely or to the point where it resembled nothing of it's former self. He treats a woman the way she complains she isn't being treated--regardless of his true intention--and in the end does the complete opposite of what she said she'd do.
So, knowing all of this now, you "nice guys" can now rest assured that there's no point in dating women and that by giving up and not caving into the other side, you keep your dignity AND our conscience without making a fool of yourself in the process. Sure, this probably means a lifetime of supplementing your intimacy with x-rated substitutes, but however unflattering porn may be towards women, it's more direct than they'll ever be with none of the venom. So the next time a woman asks "Why would you watch porn instead of dating real women?" you can pause, look her in the eye, shake your head and say:
"Well, if you don't know, I'm certainly not going to tell you."
*:wink-wink, nudge-nudge for those who don't know me well enough.
The first part is painfully true. I can't even begin to explain the assholish nature of this one guy who's dating a really hot friend of a friend of mine. This girl is gorgeous and have any guy she wants, but she goes for this guy who's been in and out of prison. I'm thinking she must have some low self-esteem, but that's not surprising given the way her parents have always favored her brother over her. Still, realizing the context behind her actions is what helps give some clarity to the situation.
I think what the nice guys don't realize is that every girl (like every guy) has a backstory that helps explain who they are. When I see a girl date an asshole, I don't hate her for it or even the asshole. I think, "This girl probably has issues derived from either her childhood or previous relationships." When you think in more comprehensive terms, it makes it easier to accept strange behaviors for what they are. Not every girl dates assholes, because a lot of women don't have that extra baggage or issues that others have. Some girls do date nice guys, but they're nice guys with confidence and style, and they're also guys that stand up for themselves.
So I guess it really comes down to the nice guy stereotypes looking for the wrong kind of women. As you mentioned earlier, they tend to be fixated on physical attraction, since they don't tend to receive attention from really hot girls. But it's this fixation that harms their chances from the start -- just like how certain women do the same thing by dating really attractive guys that treat them like shit.
In the end, it's kind of like what Rob Gordon said in "High Fidelity" -- "You punch your own weight." If you know you're an average looking guy, you keep your expectations realistic. You don't aim for the hottest girl in the room -- you aim for the one who's closer to your attraction level. Of course, the trick is first figuring out what "level" you're on, but once that's done, it's really not that hard.
Granted, if you're especially unattractive, your options are limited. I have a friend of mine that fits the nice guy description pretty well, and he does the stereotypical thing of fixating on really hot girls. I've tried to figure out a polite way of explaining that his below average looks should encourage a different approach to dating (and different expectations), but it's not easy. Every weekend, he seems to blow money on buying drinks for girls he's never gonna get with. About the only solution I've come up with is playing pool with him on weekends to keep him away from the downtown bars.
So, ultimately, it's not that girls always date assholes or that nice guys are bad people, it's just that everybody has a story and nice guys aren't looking at the big picture.
....awe Fuck that.....keep on fighting.
