posted
I've had far too many of my guy friends tell me lately that they're sick of the way that girls only go after total jerks.
It may be true that overall, jerks tend to be way more successful with women than "nice guys." Maybe not in terms of who gets married first, but probably in terms of who's just more popular.
Here's why I think this is the case: Nice guys are far more likely to be possessive and clingy than jerks. Given the choice between someone who gives far too much space and someone who gives far too little, most girls would much rather have too much.
Am I totally off-base in thinking this is a possible reason?
And, in OSC's Homebody, Don Lark points out that many girls in his high school simply had an attraction to the "alpha male," who also tends to be a jerk.
posted
This blog (second one down, entitled "What Women Want") has the best explanation for this phenomenon I have ever seen. Plus it has a picture of Gregory House. *drools*
Okay, just kidding about drooling over Dr. House. Really.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I haven't read Homebody but the "alpha male" attraction seems right on to me. Either consciously or subconsciously, a girl knows that her man/mate is reflective of her. Guys that are popular, socially-adaptive, successful will make a girl look good because if she can win a guy like despite competition, she's something special.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote: Guys that are popular, socially-adaptive, successful will make a girl look good...
And yet this doesn't explain why a girl, faced with a choice between two equally popular, socially-adaptive, and successful men, will almost always choose the jerkier one. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I think a certain part of it is girls being self destructive, and/or they want someone they can attempt to tame.
For whatever reason, many girls like to find a messed up jerk and try to "fix" him, instead of going for a guy that's already stable. I've also found that when they're older and done with their jerk getting, women want a nice guy to settle down with, but not until they've had all their fun with the jerks.
Crappy system if you ask me.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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But I want to add that "taming" a tough guy, hooking that guy who is rude and never attaches himself genuinely to any girl, its quite an accomplishment in some peoples' eyes. Its kinda like saying to all those other girls, "Look how I succeeded, I win!" I noticed most girls are never able to reform their "bad boy" but they try anyway.
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posted
Must be the different mentality between men and women. Were I a woman, I'd want to find the nice guy who I was compatable with, who wanted to do nice things for me and shared my interests, but that also wasn't a total tool.
Then I'd brag to all the girls stuck with jerks who they have to waste their time trying to fix.
Women really are from another planet.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
In my early dating years, it was a matter of no to low self esteem and thinking I wasn't worthy of the nicer ones. Or perhaps not being able to differentiate between nice vs. jerk. As my self-esteem improved over the years, I went for progressively nicer guys.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: Were I a woman, I'd want to find the nice guy who I was compatable with, who wanted to do nice things for me and shared my interests, but that also wasn't a total tool.
Those are harder to find than you think.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I'm sitting here wondering how much the general feeling of there being a disproportionate number of "nice guys" losing girls to "jerks" might be due to a disproportionate number of guys who are in fact clingy/whiny/stalkerish, but think that they are part of the group of "nice guys" being passed over... Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
My first crushes were on nice guys, then I had one decide he liked me, and basically go into stalker mode instead of nice relationship mode, it was quite bad and i was upset for a while, so after that, jerks who won't cling are so so much better.
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posted
<-- also remembers dating "nice" guys who ended up being sort of creepy clingy/stalkery, who loudly bemoaned the plight of "nice guys" when I went on to date guys with self-confidence and less scary ideas about what relationships should be like... Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I think Zeugma has a really good point there. Lot's of people think of themselves as Nice Guys who really aren't all that nice. (The guy who made ChicksSuck.com is a prime example of this.)
One of the most glaring reason for the discrepency in the case of actual nice guys and actual jerks is that the "jerks" tend to actually ask women out, and thus get dates. Many nice guys will pine away but be too shy to ask a girl out or too "polite" to make a move.
posted
I'm a nice, funny guy who isn't a stalker and also isn't a tool. Most of my guy friends are too (well, no, actually half of them are tools). But still.
If we're so hard to find, why the heck are we all single?
Edit to add: Alright, I'll cop to also being a somewhat shy guy who doesn't ask girls out as often as the jerks do.
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posted
Enig, that's basically how this guy was, like he was shy, then I said a few really stupid flirty things, and he started with dumb ideas to get me to like him. It lasted three months before i totally blocked him out of my life.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
And always giving into someone and not having opinions or personality don't make you nice. Nor does wanting to only talk about her.
Girls don't want boring guys. Girls don't want guys who will just follow them around like a lost puppy. Girls don't want guys who will give up their life for them.
And sometimes when nice guys try to get a girl they let all their insecurities (and such show) and they then tend to do those things. And those things are not very interesting.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Zeugma and Enig have it right. Jerks often have the self confidence to make the first move. Jerks are also better at moving on, so there's less stalkerish possibilities. Of course, there's the balancing factor that they sometimes move on kinda unexpectedly...
But real nice guys are pretty rare. There are a lot of shy guys that look like nice guys, but who are on the creepy side if you spend too much time with them.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I think it's because relationships with jerks are exciting. You rarely see good, strong relationships on tv because there's no drama to it. What people want to see are the exciting relationships with lots of pain and anguish and hot sex. I think a lot of girls don't get that what is fun and makes great tv doesn't really make a great relationship.
To use my favorite example (Spoilers for Seasons 5 and 6 of Buffy): I love the Spike/Buffy storyline on Buffy. I think Spike is pretty near the sexiest man alive and their relationship makes me need. I can't think of any other word for it, it's the same feeling I get that makes me read the next book in a great series and be heartbroken when the series is done. In my mind, it's the feeling that is most directly related to good storytelling. I love watching their relationship, and specifically I love watching Spike, all the time but especially when he's being snarky. My friends are all very used to our viewing of Buffy being interrupted with statements like, "OMG I want to have sex with him right now!"
In reality though, if I saw Spike I would run the other way, as would any sane person. The idea of actually being Buffy in that relationship is enough to give me nightmares, and there's no way I would have sex with Spike and give him that kind of power over me. Luckily, as Spike is a fictional vampire, this senario has zero chance of actually occurring. But there are so many guys like Spike out there. I think a lot of girls don't realize that the guys they like in books and movies and stories are not the kind of guys they really want to be with. They transfer that need into a desire for a relationship with a guy like Spike, and go headlong into that relationship without thinking that as sexy as Spike is, Buffy is miserable with him.
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posted
Jerks are confident in who they are. Women, generally, like confidence. Jerks say things that they think are amusing, regardless of what other people may think. This makes it appear that they have a better sense of humor than they may actually have.
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posted
I think one of the reasons shy guys can go into creepy stalker mode is they probably don't have much actual experience with dating. It's not that these guys are terrible people (not most of them, anyway) it's just that they have no idea how to act in an actual relationship or how to deal with the breakup. They're like 12-year olds experience-wise when it comes to women even though they're much older. Most of them just need to go through a few relationships to learn better behavior.
--Enigmatic (will not share the worst of his dating stories here)
Posts: 2715 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Oh that's exactly the case of my creepy stalker guy, though he wasn't even much older, just 17. He is now in what seems to be a fairly stable relationship with a girl who he actually was able to see more often.
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posted
See, I'm single because I have the disconcerting habit of treating women like people. If I treated them like goddesses, acting like I was not worthy to bask in their magnificence, then I could get the women with big egos.
If I treated them like crap, like I didn't give a damn what they thought about anything and like they were lucky to have me, then they'd all think I was one of those cool "bad boys", and they'd all flock to me.
But I treat them as equals; I feel that no one is actually better than me, but that I'm not better than anyone else, either. I treat everyone decently until they give me reason to do otherwise. And in my experience, women hate that.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: It's not that these guys are terrible people (not most of them, anyway) it's just that they have no idea how to act in an actual relationship or how to deal with the breakup. They're like 12-year olds experience-wise when it comes to women even though they're much older. Most of them just need to go through a few relationships to learn better behavior.
Wow, that totally describes how I used to be. My first real relationship was with a girl I had been "in love" with for years and years, and I thought that my happiness in this world depended on our relationship succeeding. So I was always nervous about how I was acting, what I was saying. Every argument was a total disaster. The thought of us breaking up was the worst thing imaginable. I was twenty years old, but with the romantic experience of a pre-teen.
Of course that made me rather pathetic, and not a very good boyfriend. So of course we ended up breaking up. And you know what? The sun rose the next day, I didn't collapse and die in a state of despair, and in fact it was in a lot of ways a big relief.
Since then, I have become quite a confident individual, and can actually experience an adult relationship in a non-desperate way. And hey, I am still a nice guy .
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I wasn't going to actually post it, because of the language and assorted filth, but now I feel bad for discussing it when there are others who probably haven't read it. So here go the LINKAGE WARNINGS: The link below has swear words. The link below has sexual language and topics. The link below has blatant gender stereotyping. The link below may be considered thoroughly offensive to some people. The link below has crappily-drawn stick figure art. The Link in Question.
Okay, actually the link doesn't have all of that, because you have to hit the "next strip" links to see all the comics. But, you know, you were warned.
posted
Also, I think a lot of the time the "quiet, shy, but really good at heart" guy wants the really hot popular girl and doesn't get girls because he's not willing to go out with the girls that are in the same social strata with him.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
I think half the time I fall into the jerk category and the other half the time I fall into the shy/nice category. This has the benefit of allowing me to get a girlfriend through self-confidence and allowing me to keep that girlfriend through not being completely mean to her. It's an excellent system, I would recommend it. As far as I know, my girlfriend of four years is a fan of the system as well.
posted
I don't know who these women are. The majority of girls I know fall head-over-heel for their best male friends. These are people they have comfortable, equal relationships with.
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posted
All I said was that they hate being treated as equals. I didn't say that made them not my equals.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: This has the benefit of allowing me to get a girlfriend through self-confidence and allowing me to keep that girlfriend through not being completely mean to her. It's an excellent system, I would reccomend it.
Aww, you sound like my boyfriend. He has a mean streak in him but he's a complete sweetheart to me. He had a certain amount of elusive confidence that made me want to chase him down, and when he did show his interest in me he did it subtly.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: See, I'm single because I have the disconcerting habit of treating women like people. If I treated them like goddesses, acting like I was not worthy to bask in their magnificence, then I could get the women with big egos.
Actually, I don't think so. Women with big egos are usually very confident. They want a confident man, because they figure they deserve it. They don't want a floormat.
Posts: 218 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:The majority of girls I know fall head-over-heel for their best male friends.
If it really worked that way, I'd have had plenty of girlfriends by now. I've certainly been good friends with enough girls over the years. But they don't think of me as a potential partner. They think of me as "one of the girls". I've actually had girls tell me that explicitly. Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I tend to fall into the same trap Verily. Five of my best friends are girls, but it doesn't really bother me cause I have no romantic attractive to four of them.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
There's a very distinct line between the "best guy friend" and the "just friend" friends. Maybe its just me, but all my male friends are guys that I would never date for a long-list of reasons but I keep around because I like the attention and the break from girly-gossping.
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