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

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

There is another angle on the "nice guy" thing. Even if their hygiene, self-confidence, and social skills are all up to par, sometimes a guy still can't get a date with a non-flashy girl. I have a couple of guys I can bring to mind for this.

Neither one particularly puts themselves forward, but they would both have no real problem saying "hey, wanna go out for coffee?" to a nice girl. I'm sure they have, in several cases. However, B once told me that he was the token guy organizing a PG-13 strip show benefiting a cause he's close to -- all the other people were female volunteers in the cause, most of them the ones who would be stripping down to lingerie. And I asked him, "Wow, how did you get such a tasty job?"

He said that one of the girls told him, "We wanted you to coordinate this, because we all feel safe around you."

He gives off a few effeminate vibes, but I know that he is not gay. (Neither is A, the other guy.) Yet both of them seem to radiate the "brotherly" vibe, the one that says you're safe with me, I won't grope you, and I understand your feelings... which means that attractive women who are used to being hassled will want them at their back because they won't have to worry about harassment from that direction, and the less classically-attractive "nice girls" feel like they can keep the guy as a confidant because he understands how they feel, almost treating him like one of the girls. Neither set considers the guy sexy, because he fits into this brotherly role. (Though I've harbored a quiet crush on B for years, as he's physically my type even if we're too similar to get along in a relationship. I'd ask him out if we were more compatible.)

A is clean and relatively fit, witty, very intelligent, has a good job, and while somewhat shy can still put himself forward when he wishes. He had one girlfriend in college, and I think he's had one or two dates in recent years, but that's all... and knowing him, he dislikes fast women. He's over thirty. All I can figure is that it's the "nice" vibe with a vengeance.

Lots of things working against sensitive guys. Not all of them are correctable by clue-stick.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

Well said. I think that being 'safe' does take away sexual tension, because there's nothing to get tense about.

And, as a safe guy, I find myself in amazing paradoxical situations - women who alternate between behaving as if we were already in a relationship and telling me that they're "Not interested in me that way."

Ironically enough, the person I get the most "I'm attracted to you" type response from is the one with the looks of a model that wears cleavage-enhancing clothes all the time. Perhaps because I'm capable of a conversation in her presence without having to pretend that I'm not interested.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I guess this isn't something I've experienced myself, as my brain works in exactly the opposite way: I'm more likely to be attracted to someone I feel comfortable with, and have a hard time grokking why comfortable would equal non-sexy.

Do they quite definitely consider him non-sexy, or have they just never happened to think of him that way? (I mean, would they maybe wake up and consider it if he asked, or has he asked?)

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

I can't see A asking that (definitely the non-kink, socially standard type), but I'll have to ask B next time I see him. He's much more forward.

My understanding is, however, that it is the "non-sexual" status that makes them safe, and to think of them as sexy would nullify the safety and put them at the bottom of the "all other men" pile. I've definitely found myself on the female end of this equation from time to time, and knowing that they were interested in a sexual relationship would make me retreat, perhaps even feel betrayed. Like they had just laid quiet long enough to lure me in with the brotherly feel.

I'll have to think about your question as it relates to me -- the answer is not clear. It may be both... if you have brothers, you might understand the perception. As in, you don't even think about it, and if someone else says his butt is sexy, you would blink, try to wrap your brain around it, and discard the idea. It's not that being comfortable with someone makes them less sexy -- it's that the "safe" guy is automatically sexless. This might be because they make absolutely no indication of interest, being uncomfortable with the flirtation game or having been rejected one too many times in the past. Or it might be because the woman needs them to be someone who is not stereotypically male, because she feels threatened or rejected by the male half of the dating pool.

It means they tend to have more female friends, but it also makes them progressively less likely to be seen as dating material by any of them. A paradox.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Huh. I have no brothers and don't think I've ever had that "automatically-sexless" thing happen, but I guess I can begin to see how it would. I'm still not at all familiar with the sense of feeling threatened by the knowledge that someone wants to be more than friends, though, possibly because in all the times I've had a friend who wanted to be more, they've never gone about it in a threatening way. Sometimes I felt guilty because I couldn't give them what they wanted, but I never felt like they were pushing me. And the feeling of betrayal I really don't grok--after all, I've had a lot of friendships start because one of us had a crush on the other, and that doesn't seem deceptive to me, because it wasn't like we were pretending to want each other's friendship--we genuinely did want it, whether or not a romantic relationship also happened. It seems like the "betrayed" feeling would have to arise from a "you're either friends or you're sexually interested in each other, and you can't be both" paradigm, which is very foreign to me, and even more so to some people I know who will only date people they've been friends with for a while first.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

I think the point to be made is that not every guy has this problem -- not even every "nice" guy. It is a particular subset of "nice" guys. Maybe you've just never run into a "safe" guy... or else you don't have the pigeonhole for them. I think a lot of women do.

I never date guys without being friends and comfortable with them first (those are my trust issues there). Some of them I am only attracted to once I really relax around them. But there are still the few that I pick up the "safe" vibe from, whether or not that makes them sexless to me now. Most of the time I am not attracted for other reasons, but I can still point them out in a crowd.

As for the "betrayed" thing -- it comes from having a relationship free of the stresses of sexual tension (and believe me, for most people it is stressful) suddenly shattered by the revelation that he's really been looking you over, just like any other male. It's like discovering that the nurse who's helping you undress has been checking you out. As someone to whom sex has always been at least mildly anxiety-inducing, having that one person who will never even hint at sex is a great relief. Having them turn into just another man with his mind on sex (even if it is romantic and friendly) is worse than if they had never been safe at all.

98% of the men I encounter do not fit in this category. 85% of geeks don't. But for the rest, no matter how many women they become friends and comfortable with, they never get beyond that point, and it's not for lack of interest. Next time we're both in a large group of geeks (not at a sex party, that skews things), prod me and I'll see whether I can spot one for you.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Maybe you've just never run into a "safe" guy... or else you don't have the pigeonhole for them. I think a lot of women do.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do know one or two. It's just that I'm pretty sure that's not the reason I'm not attracted to them.

It's like discovering that the nurse who's helping you undress has been checking you out.

Not really, because presumably in your friendships you don't feel sexually vulnerable in the way you do when someone's undressing you.

As someone to whom sex has always been at least mildly anxiety-inducing, having that one person who will never even hint at sex is a great relief. Having them turn into just another man with his mind on sex (even if it is romantic and friendly) is worse than if they had never been safe at all.

Okay, I can see how that would happen if either a) you knew or suspected that the guy in question would be disappointed by your rejection and always kind of be thinking of it afterward and wishing you'd said yes and perhaps actively hoping you still might (which, granted, would be true of a lot of guys--I just don't know that many of them these days) or b) the idea of sex in general was scary. That might indeed be more common than I'd figured, but in the first case it still probably boils down to self-esteem issues on the guy's part, I suspect.