Sunday, December 16, 2007
Over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, there's an interesting discussion about the pathology of the Nice Guy™. The Nice Guy™, to be distinguished from nice guys, is the guy who is convinced that his gal pal(s) only fall for jerks, and if only the gal pals were more intelligent, less superficial, and more perceptive, the scales would fall from their eyes and they would realize that they belong with the Nice Guy™. There are a lot of problems with this kind of thinking, but the biggest problem for me was that I can see myself agreeing with the argument... I mean, really, isn't it true that the jerks get more girls than the good guys? Isn't it true that being a pushy, arrogant, and inappropriate alpha male is a surefire way to get dates? I honestly don't know if that's true, but I could see myself nodding in agreement to those opinions. The problem with the Nice Guy™ way of thinking is that, just under its surface, it's assuming a number of pretty terrible things about women. The most obvious not-very-hidden assumption in Nice Guy™ thinking is that gal pals and women in general are too stupid or foolish to make good decisions in their own love lives. In fact, not only is gal pal not able to make a good, rational decision about whom she should date, but Nice Guy™ is a better judge than the woman herself regarding the man she should date and why she should date him. Another assumption is that Nice Guy™ is entitled to a woman's love simply by virtue of his niceness. In other words, niceness, rather than being an admirable quality in and of itself, is a toll to be paid for love. It's the same line of thinking as religious people who assert that a person can't be moral without the promise of palaces in Heaven awaiting him or her or, conversely, the punshment of fire and brimstone in Hell for breaking the rules. It's a pretty heavy indictment of one's own moral thinking to believe that the reason for morality is the promise of tangible rewards rather than the intangible reward of bringing joy and happiness to those around you. Another problem with Nice Guy™ thinking is that it leaps from the isolated case of the one girl who rejected his clumsy, stumbling advances hidden in the guise of friendship to a sweeping generalization about all women. All women, according to Nice Guy™, want to date jerks, and all women deserve the pain and heartache they get from dating those jerks. The final issue with Nice Guys™ is the hypocrisy inherent in their thinking. The women who Nice Guys™ chase are inevitably not the shy, awkward, not-conventionally-attractive women who probably most closely mirror the personality and physical qualities of Nice Guys™. The women who Nice Guys™ chase and who ultimately reject him are the pretty, popular women. Therefore, at the same time that Nice Guys™ accuse women of shallowness and superficiality in their choice of dating partners, Nice Guys™ do the same exact thing. I'm not saying that only pretty people deserve to date pretty people. But if prettiness is your main standard for whom you choose to date, you shouldn't be surprised when others apply that same standard when deciding whether or not to date you. At the end of the day, I think the most accurate thing that can be said about love and dating is that it's complicated, mysterious, and unpredictable, and that nobody is entitled to or deserving of someone else's love. The sooner men and women learn to accept that, the more likely they will be to have a happy, rewarding dating life.