Savage Love
Sep 29, 2016 at 12:46 pm
Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
It's honestly a mystery to me why more guys can't figure this out. There was something about that gal that drew your attention, and it wasn't how "nice" she was. Why do you imagine girls are any different?
A guy can play D&D and watch war movies and like muscle cars and still be "interesting" to some women. Women (and men) come in all different kinds of flavors. Some are rarer than others, but the bottom line is, do stuff that is interesting to YOU, do stuff that makes YOU happy and keeps YOU interesting whether you're single or not. Worry about being interested in the stuff you do before you think about what might interest someone else.
/My $.02.
-Don't confuse being a nice guy with being a doormat.
-Don't confuse being a genuinely nice guy with believing that if you're "nice" to a girl, she then *owes* you something.
-Don't confuse being a nice guy with being the guy who reminds her of a puppy following her around and trying to hump her leg.
None of those are actually nice, let alone something your average human is going to find "interesting"... but I see a lot of "nice" guys who complain that nice guys never get the girl doing them.
Also, I love the nerdy D&D guys and the sciency guys; and I'm not superficial about looks. A guy TRYING to be something that he thinks women will want just looks desperate. I do not like desperate, for obvious reasons.
And. Young dudes are into obvious superficial hot chicks, too. Usually out of their league when there are perfectly nice attractive girls out there they could date but just are not obvious and conventionally hot.
Oh. And hot obvious douche dudes also string the b-squad girls along, too. It's just usually FOR sex. So those dudes get laid. But they don't form meaningful relationships with the b-squad girls.
These dynamic are real. Millions of young people experience them. It's not an MRA plot to acknowledge this.
Why do people want obvious douche bags? It's because those are the young people who generally have less self awareness, more confidence, and they figure it out first how fit in to the ridiculous high school social structure best. It's adolescence. And these vapid attitudes stick around sometimes through peoples early to mid twenties.
Generally this phase lasts longer for many women because women hit sexual maturity earlier and biology and social conditioning rewards those attractions and behaviors and the negative consequences of dating assholes takes a while to build.
While I agree the best advice to these sad sacks is self development, but telling young guys it's just in their heads is bullshit. You also have to tell them women digging douche bags IS a real thing but that being a sad sack whiney doormat only exacerbates the problem and makes them even less attractive.
My junior year girlfriend? We hit it off discussing historical women warriors, an interest that took on a life of its own after I researched it for a D&D campaign. :)
A: I can't get a date, why won't any bitches talk to me?
B: why not ask your female friends for advice?
A: what? I don't talk to women unless I want to fuck them.
I think, most decent fellows go through their "nice guy" phase. For some, it's a lifetime. I always found it interesting/depressing that explicitly telling a woman that you're only interested in having sex with them was more effective (for both getting sex as well as making friends) than being nice, but maybe that was just NYC where everyone's soul is and endless pit that no amount of sex can fill.
And Haley explains why the direct approach is more effective @15. Nothing says insecurity and unattractiveness like someone who doesn't have the guts to be honest.
Are you kinda fat? Do you love D&D? Well then ask out kinda fat girls or girls that love D&D. As this thread proves, they do exist and sorry but that cheerleader doesn't owe you shit no matter how "nice" you are to her. It's only on TV that every schlubby mope has a beautiful wife/girlfriend.
A good place to start would be taking a long look at why this fits, in your mind, into the "not nice" category.
I think you might have some ideas about women and sex that were, admittedly, fed to you by the media, but that don't actually reflect reality.
Men, if you're genuine and kind and well-groomed, and if you spend time with people (both men and women!) who have similar interests to yours (this may mean, as Dan suggests, doing activities other than going to singles bars) you will find women who are interested in you. Really!
Dan's advice is a good start, but straight men have in the last few decades accumulated reams of intelligence - much of it evidence-based and battle-tested - on bettering one's odds of finding a woman who fancies him. Men haven't caught up with women yet in the arts and sciences of seduction, but we're no longer in the dark ages, either.
Anyone who finds himself chronically friend-zoned owes it to himself to read up. There are likely a handful of easy-to-change, subtle habits or things he does (or doesn't do) that are working against him
- failure to make eye contact
- body language that communicates submissiveness, anxiety, desperation, lack of confidence
- not flirting, smiling
- doesn't clearly convey an identity, or alternatively, doesn't convey mystery
- afraid to ask a woman out directly
- doesn't know how raise the question of romance indirectly
- doesn't see or recognize signals from women who are interested
Most of the advice he'd find isn't just applicable to dating, it's applicable to social interactions in general (especially job interviews, building professional relationships, building social networks, selling, etc.).
More often than not, these "nice guys" are judging a woman's worth strictly by looks, while lamenting that these "hot chicks" aren't dating based on personality (which may or may not be true).
Maybe. They'll also go home with toads if the toads have oodles of money and or some sort of social cache or power.
@15 Are you sure you didn't ask for those favors - or at least heavily imply you needed these favors? Because it was my experience, albeit very briefly, that getting taken advantage of was not a totally imagined event. It was basically teenaged natural selection taking place. And the fact is EVERYBODY wants to get laid all the time when their young so it's not like a surprise of ulterior motives is really being sprung on anybody.
Like I said it didn't much to me because I was pretty okay looking, had shit to do, and didn't put up with bullshit long. But I sure saw it.
I totally agree that stating what you want is the best policy.
But they don't teach boys that. It flies right in the face of the conventional way most of us were (and I assume ARE taught) when we were teenagers (so, so long ago). That girls want "nice guys." They really don't. Teenagers and even many college aged kids are really fucking savage, socially speaking.
It was a helluva revelation to me at 19 to just come out and say "I want to fuck and that's pretty much all I want." And that it would actually get me laid.
It's contrary to almost everything you read about how to behave at that age. In fact that is how I met my wife. I did all the "wrong things." Walked up to her while she was reading in a cafe (oh my god the number rules invented to tell young men NEVER do this!). Eventually asked her out. Ten minutes into a date, that I brought my roommate to because I wanted a fallback, I told my roommate to hit the bricks asked her if she just wanted to go home and fuck. We did. And twenty five years later here we are.
What's missing from all this is the simple truth: Three are no hard rules. That you have to have basic social skills. And there are nonverbal cues you can't really teach people how to read that let you know when somebody is interested. That comes from experience. And some of that experience is ending up being an asshole.
Of course this discussion is probably academic since now the kids have apps to handle all this.
The vast majority of young men and women (boys and girls, really) are terribly naive and stupid. They make stupid decisions in who to pursue, who to date, who to stick with, and who to dump.
They learn with time and hopefully they also learn that the opposite sex also went through the same stupid phase.
yeah. nerdy, But really I'm interesting...
I wasn't attracted to douches or to men who treated me poorly because they were douches or treated me poorly; I was attracted to men who were confident and who pursued me in unambiguous ways and who were objectively and fairly conventionally attractive, and since I was young and conventionally attractive, I was, to a limited extent, able to pick and choose--for casual flings or sex that is, not for real relationships, a situation I bemoaned.
Because I wasn't beautiful enough or hot enough or too intellectually or emotionally complex (read difficult) to attract more conventionally attractive, confident, assertive (read "a tiny bit cocky") men to anything more than an extremely short-term sexual relationship. Which means that I was used and dumped a lot. Which means that from the outside it might have looked like I preferred douchebags over nice guys.
The truth is that nice is always good; interesting combined with nice is better; interesting plus nice plus interested is better still, decent-looking in a conventional way is likely to appeal to the majority, and all that without the sense of being a doormat or a man who only knows women from a very far distance is the very best.
At any age,"attractive" is somewhat subjective (for example, personally, I prefer distinctive and large noses, which I realize isn't the cultural preference), though things like stringy, greasy hair, horrific acne, gross obesity, and offensive body oder or bad breath are pretty universally not preferred. Confidence is attractive, but confidence generally arises from past success, so there is a sense of self-reflexiveness and I can understand why it seems to an awkward and unconfident person that women only like douchebags and mean guys who mistreat them.
@20 Most people don't have a good compass about works for them in relationships until they get crapped on. Some people take a few goes around the track before they find it, sometimes they never leave the track and are in an emotional death race. It's not a gender thing, it's a human thing. I've witnessed a lot of my guy friends do stupid things and put up with stupid shit cause A. they didn't know there would be more relationships later and B. they had no frame of reference on how to have a meaningful and positive romantic relationship because they were 18
@
One tip: if a woman truly only goes for men who are assholes, you do not actually want to date her. At best you will be the bad relationship that gets her into therapy. Skip it. But this is not a large percentage of women, and if you see it that way you might take a look at who you're attracted to.
[Probably wouldn't include that lookist/body-fascist bit about joining a gym if I were responding to that kid today—because all bodies are equally irresistible (but still, exercise is good for you!)—but the rest of it stands, especially the "actually be interesting" part.]
I wouldn't tell people to join a gym because too much time in the gym makes Jack (or Dan) a dull boy, but all bodies are equally irresistible??? Where the flip did that come from? and this from someone who thinks partnered people are obligated for their partners' sake to remain in reasonable shape? Someone's been making the political personal...
But then this always triggers and eyeroll for me because often time 'jerks' are really just confident, happy, people. Any jerkinessnish is usually assumed by the bitter Nice Guy, but I know that's not always the case.
I think Dan's old advice stands even more now for straight dudes than it did a decade ago, expectations of grooming and fitness have gone up for straight dudes, body fat gone down.
In gay land, kinda depends, in general more body conscious than ever, but I've seen an uptick in hipster millennials with some significant belly fat at 20-something gay orgies in the last year compared to 20-something gay orgies, cough cough, of 15 years ago.*
*[Oh what am I gonna do when my baby face finally goes and my hair falls out? Sandman's a comin'. Gotta run. Kindly pretend I changed my screen name to Logan for this post.]
Has it never occurred to any of these whining "nice guys" that the women are attracted to men who are hot -- just like they are attracted to women who are hot? Try going for a woman who's about as attractive as you are. Watch your chances improve.
This is, fortunately, a problem that tends to resolve itself when girls become women and see that the hot guy can sometimes be a full-of-himself asshole, an inconsiderate lover, and that maybe there's more to good relationship than looks. And that's where X is right, being interesting comes into it. And being confident. Your attitude needs to be "I'm someone who's worth dating!", not "Please date me, I'm desperate."
What the hell does it even mean to become interesting? Dumb suggestion implying one lives one's life for others' approval.
Taking care of and empathizing with others, that's different.
https://twitter.com/me_irl/status/135248…
Bro-code-
"Slut: someone who will have sex with another but not me"
"Jerk: someone more interesting (or at least engaging) than me"
"Nice guy: person who fixates on a girl and tries to keep her dependent on him emotionally because he's looking for a pay-out he's entitled to because he had to listen to ALL HER TALKING (ew gross, friendship, what's that good for anyway?)"
Alternately everyone dates emotionally immmature people "at some stage" because most teens are emotionally immature, and well, society is pretty misogynistic to begin with. Being a jerk to a woman to "save" her from all those other jerks, what a charmer.
There's a world of difference between living your life for other people and changing behavior that makes you more magnanimous and social. Too often young people think their personalities, tastes and preferences are set in immutable stone. Well, if its beneficial behavior that yields happiness, sure dont change. but thats not who is writing in.
There's a shorter description for the phenomenon @15 describes, and it's called 'covert contracts'. Men think deductively, and assume that if they do A and B, then C result (sex) will happen. But that's not the way women think about attraction.
Dan's old advice about telling teenage boys who aren't getting laid to build a multi-year plan and to go hit the gym rather than feeling sorry for themselves, is totally spot-on. For one thing, women physically mature faster, and the average 17 year old girl is closer to the beauty ideal she will become than the average 17 year old guy. For another, girls socially mature faster, and have better game than the average guy at that age. Guys eventually get more competitive at flirting, but it's damn awkward for a while.
There are people who will shame others who point out the fact that women (and for that matter men too) are attracted to men who are strong. People who are disability advocates and want to shame people for being able-ist have a point. But if you're not wheelchair-bound, and you have all of your limbs, get off the couch, put down the video games, and build your body. Strength is about the only genuine male superpower, and chicks dig guys who can get things off the top shelf, open that pickle jar, pick up their children, have sex without having a heart attack, etc. Any man who has every been swollested will attest this is real. Look up pictures of Dan's husband, and then imagine how many hours Terry has spent working on his arms.
What a stupid, useless point. It's not a universal thing, straight or gay that everyone needs a "beach body" to be attractive to another.
I'm not surprised that the topic draws in these quality persons, though.
I have no idea what that means.
It *is* unfortunate that some of these things are close to self-fulfilling, because as nocute said, it's mostly about confidence, which is hard to get without some success. Telling "nice guys" to be more confident probably isn't helpful (nor is it helpful to say to the equivalent class of young girls, desperate for a real boyfriend, and they certainly exist). But I think that's very often what it's really about.
I also agree with Haley at @15, as well as the people who said that often the nice guys are upset that they aren't able to date women who are way out of their league in terms of physical attractiveness. That's been my experience with (some proper subset of) nice guys.
On a related note, I just *HATE* seeing the derision for the 'nice guy' - he (and I) was just doing what we were explicitly taught to do by our parents, teachers, tv/movies, etc. if you weren't the biggest, strongest, best looking guy around, and explicitly that being nice would earn you the companionship and sexual validation that almost everyone craves. Deriding people like this is like blaming women with eating disorders for being so dysmorphic. Most of these guys are just products of their environment, and even if they aren't being explicit about their sexual desires or perhaps downplaying them, that isn't hurting anyone.
There's no friendship in the friend zone.
Men are victims of toxic masculinity, but have some responsibility for your actions and (instilled) misogyny.
Kids should be more aware of their behavior than the '80s Meatballs sex romp comedy days.
"Nice guys" are victims and victimizers all the same.
Secondly, you still go on to explicitly hold boys accountable for their own societal victimization in a way that I can't imagine you'd do for women or girls - the body dysmorphia/eating disorder example I proposed still feels like a good example. Could you ever see yourself telling someone who was vomiting up their food to crack the 90-lb barrier "although you are a victim of toxic femininity, you still have some responsible for your actions"? That sounds insanely callous to me. It makes me even more annoyed in that the nice-guy thing isn't hurting anyone or putting anyone (even themselves) in danger, but comes from almost the same place (attempting to fit into societal ideals of what is a worthwhile companion/love interest) but there seems to be a separate standard of self-responsibility.
And as far as I understand, we all have a beach body, it just may not be one we happy to show at the beach.
Winter can sure brings some extra weight along. I must get exercising now the sun is shining beach bright.
Agree ciods@61. A good looking jerk is much easier to fall for than an ugly one.
no excuses @42. Yes of course one must learn to adjust one's social behaviour, if it is awkward or inappropriate, that's a given.
And while eating disorders are certainly a syptom of society, they are a legit mental disorder. Being a frustrated, horny young male ISN'T. So the comparison doesn't quite add up.
I lost my virginity at 28, and it didn't happen until I learned to love girls for who they were, not for what they could do for my ego.
I don't hold them accountable for how they hurt themselves, I hold them accountable for when dudes seek to hurt women through "friend zone" and similar cargo cult beliefs. Malintention/malaction deserves calling out.
If a guy truly wants to be good and nice, being good and nice requires some responsibility for how you treat others. It's not fair that guys get taught terrible lessons by their associates and society, but the best way to perpetuate abuse is to ignore one's own contributions to systemic problems.
The snotty comparison to female self-abuse like cutting or eating disorders is interesting, because it definitely reflects your current feelings of entitlement and how self-hatred is gendered.
Girls apparently tend to reflect their self hatred inwards and towards themselves, and boys may take it out on the objects of their desire. Not that guys don't also suffer from eating disorders, but less commonly.
@62: "Having a healthy and nicely defined body is not a bad thing"
You misread my statement.
Caveat: My high school and college classes were entirely filled with overachievers. So we geekily established our pecking order on grades and academic achievement [and looks, obviously], not social cruelty.
In any case, you aren't restricting yourself to just "hold them accountable for when dudes seek to hurt women" - you seem to believe that Niceness is inherently bad (@41) by definition.
In any case, it's gauche to blame boys from the 80s and 90s for listening to women who said they didn't want some meatball with hyper masculine behavior while simultaneously holding that 80s-meatball-hyper-masculine behavior is superior because at least it's honest.
Why yes I am. Hence the quotes around "nice".
Fuck your gauche, fuck your victim-blaming.
Yeah, women really told men that they want someone to treat them like shit.
God, manchildren really are shameless.
It's likely that women go with your "womanizer" because your idea of "nice guys" treat them as bad or worse.
It is also true that a lot of the media from the 80s applauded the male friend who held out for the object of his affection, who eventually came around to seeing that he was the one for her all along. And vice versa.
I watched all those movies too, and the guy the prize... excuse me, girl was with at the beginning of the movie was always a jerk. That's what made the audience comfortable with the "nice guy" breaking up an established couple, or with the girl so quickly rebounding to the "nice guy." So if 80s movies taught a generation of men that niceness is rewarded, didn't it also teach them that asshole-ness is also (at least initially) rewarded?
In other words, it's not that women are into assholes. It's that "nice guys" define any man a woman is with as an asshole.
Apparently! Grown-ass people seem to think that self-ascription is all that matters.
just because a young woman defines herself as a feminist doesn't protect her from getting hooked in by a guy who could be described as a jerk. It's taken me many years to work out what sort of men I should have got with.
Bit bloody late now.
Best advice I ever got in this area was from my grandfather of all people... Make a list of all the things you want in a GF/BF/Whatever, then go out and be that. You want someone who's good to his family, be good to your family (however you define it). You want someone who is passionate about things, find something you're passionate about and pursue it. You want someone smart and educated, read a book or go back to school. You want someone hot and fit, get your ass to the gym. Opposites rarely attract and never for very long. Be the kind of person, you want to date. The rest will work itself out.
2nd tweet: Bitches be like... Bitches [this] and bitches [that]! Bitches, man! This bitch over here smh
Yah, reeeaaaal nice guy
*****
M? Angels - "Opposites rarely attract and never for very long"? I suspect that works best for people very near the middle. It does, though, remind me of a lesbian couple I used to know, both named Susan, who were more than once mistaken for identical twins. But all my serious beaux of lengthy duration (and certainly more reciprocity than Miss Steele could ever boast) have been absolutely sweethearts, and I'm sure nobody among the assembled company would ever accuse me of that.
Sorry; you'll have to tawk amongst yourselves without my giving you a tawpic.
Part of confidence is just finding that base of identity, what are you but a synthesis and pastiche of your influences, intellectual and cultural? Who are you?
I have known guys who are genuinely nice people. In fact, most of the men I know are genuinely nice guys. That's not a character flaw--that's a good thing. Some of them wanted our relationship to turn sexual, and some didn't, as far as I can tell. I had sexual relationships with some of those guys who wanted me that way, and not with others. To my knowledge, no one sulked about it if we didn't have sex. No ever seemed to be pretending to be nice. No one ever offered to do things for me with the obvious agenda of getting into my pants. I pretty adamantly insist on doing things for myself anyway. If I want to have sex with someone and he seems to want to have sex with me, I often make the first move. Of course, I have never uttered the phrase "friend zone" in my life, either.
I've had guys that I was friendly with and honestly liked make passes and I've told them I didn't want to take our friendship that direction and we've stayed friends. I never thought that was unusual.
Believe me, I wish I could control who I am attracted to, but I can't. The last guy I fell in love with who thought I am the cat's pajamas but just didn't feel the same level of physical attraction to me as I felt for him wished he could control his attraction, but can't, too. I assume that holds true for most of us.
Smokey Robinson had it right:
"You Really Got A Hold On Me"
I don't like you, but I love you
Seems that I'm always thinking of you
Though you treat me badly, I love you madly
You've really got a hold on me
I don't want you, but I need you
Don't wanna kiss you, but I need to
Though you do me wrong now, my love is strong now
You've really got a hold on me
I love you and all I want you to do
Is just hold me, hold me, tighter.
I wanna leave you, don't wanna stay here
Don't wanna spend another day here
Though I wanna split now, I can't quit now
You've really got a hold on me.
Should read but if you see an "asshole" or a "bitch" getting lucky with the person you want, it is undoubtedly because that person you want is more sexually attracted to that "asshole" or that "bitch" than they are to you.
So I guess I was something of a "nice guy", but without the entitlement or misogyny usually associated with the type.
First, women are supposed to be more emotionally and spiritually evolved than men and to value less superficial qualities.
Second, women have been soothing male egos a long, long time. Hence the old "size doesn't matter" concept.
Certainly some women, like some men value looks above all else and some not at all and the vast majority have a level below which they can't be attracted to the man or woman in question. That threshold and the specific requirements to clear it vary from person to person. But everyone wants their partner to be attractive to them.
In a similar way to how people have expressed a preference over the Nice Guy for Mr Blunt, one might compare the Nice Girl to the Entitled Princess (like the one who went on one date with a world champion in Magic the Gathering and then wrote an article trying to nerd-shame him) who makes it plain from the outset that she's not tolerating X.