A couple of weeks ago, I was having afternoon tea with a girlfriend, and the subject of guys came up (surprise surprise). Particularly, guys who guilt trip girls that do not want to date them. We hear it all the time from guys. Guys that are our classmates, our co-workers, our friends. “Nice guys finish last. I guess I should be an asshole, then girls would like me.” I care about you guys. I want you to win. This is why I am going to help unravel the mystery. This simply isn’t true. Nice guys do not finish last. You should not be an asshole. And even if you were, this would not make girls like you more, nor would it make more girls like you.

The fallacy of nice guys finishing last was created for manifold reasons. Chief among them is that it is a painless explanation for a painful (perceived) reality. You feel that you do not get the attention that you deserve, and you have decided that the only possible reason is that you are too nice. Out of the entire universe of reasons that a girl does NOT want to date you, you have decided it was because you are TOO NICE. Nice, as in the word that basically defines all things good and positive in the world. The thing that gets us presents from Santa, the word that is so special that Fabolous made it his tagline, and Duane Reade named a whole line of products after it. You’re saying that she doesn’t want to date you because you have this one aspirational, overwhelmingly positive personal attribute.

Right. You see what I’m getting at here? It just doesn’t make any sense. This is akin to a woman saying that men do not like her because she is just too pretty. “God, WHY?! Why did you make me so strikingly gorgeous that no man wants to date me?!” *Shakes fist at the sky*

Lies. And chances are, if you have come to this conclusion yourself, you are probably not as nice or as gorgeous as you think you are.

So what is this the real reason for the perceived lack of tail, or girlfriends, or whatever it is that you claim to not be getting enough of?

Unreasonable expectations. Let me guess, Mr. Nice Guy– this girl you’re after, she’s a knockout, right? Maybe she’s tall and slender, like Chanel Iman? Or maybe she has so many curves that you mistook her vacation pictures for a King Magazine photo shoot? Or maybe it is her mind that makes her a knockout. She can make you laugh even though you SWEAR girls are never funny, her political opinions are nuanced and insightful, or she can beat the pants off of the most seasoned techie at a hackathon.

And of course, you two should go together! Because… Because why? You loaned her a pencil, you opened a door, you don’t kick puppies… because you are super nice. Huh.

Welp, nice as you may be, women are not required to date anybody simply because they are nice to them. I mean, think about it: what an insultingly low standard! No matter what he looks like, how boring the conversation, or how little a woman has in common with a man, if he is nice to her, that man deserves a date! What is this, Toys for THOTs? Women are not charities, charged with embracing the huddled masses so long as they know how to say please and thank you, and manage to chew with their mouths closed (and yes, in this situation, the man is the THOT).

Thanks to many years of hard fought battles, women have more options than ever before. In America, most of us get to choose our own mates, or we can choose not to mate, date, or marry at all. We are independent. Got that? I. N. D. E. P. E. N. D. E. N. T. Do you know what that means? She cook, she clean, she never smells like onion rings. Sup, Lil Boosie.

This is not to be harsh. This is to help explain things so that you can stop beating your heads against the wall. Believe it or not, girls do appreciate how difficult it is to put one’s self out there and ask someone on a date. After all, even if some of us never ask people out, we have applied to jobs and been rejected, competed in contests and not won, and tried to capture the love of guys who may not have noticed we are alive. We get it, and we can relate to the vulnerability of it.
And for what it’s worth, you probably really are a nice guy, and are probably not as ugly or as boring as I may have suggested above. But the problem is, women are also nice, and because of that, even if we are often not the ones initiating dating, we deserve to be able to choose the guys with whom we feel an attraction, a connection AND whom we consider to be a nice guy, which hopefully exists for all of us.

Another reason why it may seem that women don’t like nice guys is that you may have seen your dream girl dating a complete asshole. So you find yourself in the cut humming “Hey Lover” and “Love You Better” to yourself, wearing a hat, licking your lips like LL Cool J, and thinking that being more like Mr. Asshole will get you better results.

But the truth is, girls do not like assholes. Girls like guys who are exciting and confident, and unfortunately, many assholes have this going for them. They are assholes because they are confident that they are exciting. They don’t feel the need to be nice.

If you became an asshole, there is no guarantee that this would get you girls. After all, there are plenty of assholes that get even less play than you do. And what’s worse than being a mean, bitter guy who gets no action? If there is anything about Mr. Asshole that you are going to adopt, it should be confidence– in YOURSELF, Mr. Nice Guy. Your confidence will be exciting to the right girls, and will keep you from weeping over girls that are the wrong fit for you.

All this is to say, nice guys, we really do love you, and we wouldn’t change a thing about you. We just can’t love all of you, just like you can’t love all of us. That’s why the one is called THE ONE. So keep heart. Although every girl you ask out may not be in the market for your very particular set of attributes (or maybe she’s “Taken.” Ha! See how I quoted the movie?), someone out there is, and it is with her that you will finish first.

 

Photo source: rapgenius.com