Another take on the "nice guy" conundrum

[vvvexation]

A comment (and addendum) I posted elsewhere--fortunately not a propos of anything in my life at the moment, but I've been chewing on it for a while:

Dan Savage had some scathing things to say once to a disabled guy who wrote in complaining that he couldn't get chicks--mainly because, as Dan pointed out, he was only looking for "hot" chicks and didn't seem to have considered dating disabled women for a moment. I've since been convinced that what all those guys who complain that women won't date them because they're "too nice" really mean is that beautiful, bitchy women won't date them. Maybe if they actually went looking for nice girls--and bothered to include shy girls, plain girls, and nerdy girls in that pool--they'd have better luck finding a few who genuinely like nice guys.

(Okay, so I have known some genuinely nice guys who can't seem to get dates. In fact, that description fits a fair number of my closest friends. But you know what? Absolutely none of them, to my knowledge, have trouble getting dates because they're too nice. Some of them have self-confidence issues, and some of them are just nerds surrounded by too few nerd-loving women, but niceness is definitely not what holds them back.)

Comments

[ocicat.livejournal.com]

*clap clap*

I've ranted on this topic for years. You're actually the only other person I've seen discuss it.

When I was in college lots of my friends complained how they didn't get dates because they were "nice guys" and "all the girls go for jerks". When they said "all the girls" they really meant all the hot women who wore provocative clothing. They would never consider dating the shy girl in the corner. The non-flashy girl. The nice girl. They were always fixated on a handful of women who were the center of lots of other guys attention as well.

The other thing being a "nice guy" who doesn't get dates means, is having a low self confidence, which is rarely attractive. Particularly to the flashy girls. And usually they present no interesting personality. They're just nice, and kind of dull. Women don't want jerks, but most do want someone exciting. So do guys.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Y'know, revisiting this topic has just made something crystallize in my mind that I think you came among the closest to expressing: Those of us who do like nice guys still don't want guys who aren't anything besides nice. Niceness might be a necessary condition, but isn't a sufficient one--and if a guy's defining characteristic is that he's "nice," that's likely to mean that he isn't anything much besides.