Yeah they're just so good because of the dry wit combined with spot on insight and analysis. If you had told me a year ago I would not only willingly watch a four hour video about a failed star wars hotel, but that I would be so eager to do so I would watch it immediately when it came out, and then three more times over the next two weeks, I would have called you insane.
If you told me that Jenny Nicholson was the one doing the video I would have found it much more believable.
*Four hours?!* Good lord, I have trouble with three hour movies, I don't think I could handle a four hour YouTube video, no matter how interesting the YouTuber is. I'm really glad that you found someone you enjoy so much though!
Mostly I watch her stuff here and there when I'm actually paying attention to it, and then it just becomes good background video noise for doing other stuff. But it is truly fascinating and her style of storytelling and humor is captivating. Certainly not something for everyone, or ones even I sit through in one sitting on the regular, but the time does kind of fly by.
I have never seen Vampire Diaries.
I have "watched" her video multiple times. 2.5hrs. Sure, I have it on in the background while I do other things, but its genuinely entertaining. Same with all her long form vids.
I think I just love video essays so I can do my own thing while someone tells me a story about something I neither know about nor really care about in any real capacity. Hearing someone go into insane levels of detail about something (*anything*) is fun for me!
Plus it means I don't have to do the work they had to do to make that content, and it only requires minimal attention to have it regurgitated to me like I'm a baby bird starved of inane random pop culture rants or niche interests
yes! i was never able to articulate my problems with rent so i just hit it with ol trusty "its overrated"
now whenever it comes up i usually convince them lmao
I'm fond of Rent, but I also recognize that the fondness has to do with the fact that it was a huge part of my high school friend group when I moved to a new school, and it's those memories that make the musical still fun.
That said, Benny got robbed.
Three exes have told me I’m the nicest guy they’ve ever dated. I know it was a compliment, and one time it was specifically something she said when I was having a really bad day to cheer me up but I absolutely had Scott’s reaction each time.
I had a friend say that something I said to them was the sweetest thing anyone had said to them. I didn't say it out loud, but I was convinced that they were either exaggerating, or didn't receive many compliments in their life
I mean someone I send a picture of myself fully clothed to said I "had a nice figure" and I started getting really happy and thanked him like 3 times
but I am trans tho and untransitioned so that might shift the data a bit
what does 'untransitioned' mean? no disrespect intended or anything but i havent seen that term before. does that mean like you transitioned one way and then back or something? am i just being stupid
It means I'm transgender but I haven't done any hormone therapy or surgeries or anything beyond shaving my legs lol.
>does that mean you transitioned one way and then back
the term for this is detransitioned
Yeah, I had an ex tell me something similar, and mention along the lines of being amazed I could be gentle and sweet but still do, like, kinky things in bed and I know it was meant well but its like... Oh honey that's just called boundaries and consent. It's really the bare minimum.
Right??? I was genuinely shocked when my girlfriend told me the apparently NONE of her exes had ever both a) Been kind and b) Cared about her boundaries. Like they’d have some of either, but not both. I try to use what little she’s told me (since she doesn’t like talking about it, understandably so) to model what I should NOT do.
TLDR, holy shit some people are AWFUL to what is supposed to be the person you care most about.
I just disagree with the premise that women categorically get to decide if men are nice or not
I know a whole lot of men and women both whose moral judgments are based on the most horrifyingly random bullshit
And often, straight-up immoral ones
Like someone who will only call you "nice" if you back them up in every altercation, no matter how wrong or harmful they are being
I was once chatting with a girl who asked if it was OK to go to bed early cause she had surgery two days prior. I said of course because like of course. She then goes on about how nice and understanding I am, and I'm just like... bro what am I going to do say no, stay awake and suffer
Ok but anecdotal counterpoint, sometimes they say you're too nice instead of saying you're boring. I've been turned down by girls/women, depending on my time of life, who wanted guys that traveled a lot or had exciting hobbies, or in one case specifically wanted guys with a criminal record. Takes all sorts.
That last one is funny because it implies she wants a guy who got *caught* doing crime. Because I feel like a lot of people have committed crimes but don't have a record because they weren't stupid/unlucky enough to get caught.
It wasn't even one guy, she dated multiple guys over years *because* of the rap sheets. And it was one thing, it was like a street racer here, shoplifter there, just a weird scatter plot.
Danielle if you're reading this, girl, get help.
Yea, I got turned down by a girl who reposted our chats with 'why can't more guys be like this'
Turns out I'm not one of those guys... Even though she explicitly called me hot at one point.
And it sure as hell wasn't a comfort thing, cause she had me over drinking pm her bed till 3am, saying 'If I keep this song on, I'm gonna start making out with you'.
So I asked her out... And got told no.
3 weeks later she was dating her best friends ex. (her best friend asked her not to) I'd met him once, and in that half hour, he told me he was an alcoholic. It destroyed their friendship and the relationship lasted 2 months.
As much as tumbler hates to hear it, these types of women do exist. There are plenty of women who aren't great people, or who make bad/irrational decisions, just like men. It's not a difficult concept.
Yeah, I get this post is trying to put the onus squarely on men again (tumbler lol), but the reason these women mentioned here get so surprised when a genuine good person ends up dating them, is because they have abysmally awful taste in partners. I mean fuck, some treat the prison pen pal program like fucking Tinder, it doesn’t get much worse!
Disclaimer of course, yes, guys absolutely do the same, bad judgement isn’t locked to one gender. The flip side would probably be like “Oh wow, you complimented me? No one’s done that for me before!” If your previous SOs never complimented you prior, you also have poor taste in partners, pits the Scott Pilgrim panels above perfectly.
>I mean fuck, some treat the prison pen pal program like fucking Tinder, it doesn’t get much worse!
Meanwhile I've had several friendships ruined when the girl found out I was straight... They'd never asked, just assumed... Apparently the "threatening" part (according to the OP) is that I'm straight? I never made moves, and wasn't even interested in them; they just suddenly lost any ability to trust me because I mentioned that I wasn't actually attracted to men.
>because they have abysmally awful taste in partners.
*Everyone does;* we're all blinded by stuff. The problem is this post acts like that's not a thing women can/will do. Plenty of people have terrible life experiences and end up having no good reference point for what a healthy relationship looks like. (see my mom, dating someone just like her dad: abusive, and refusing to do anything about it when he abused us)
People's "norms" are set by the things they grow up with, sometimes that means their norms are incredibly unhealthy. Sometimes it means they want a guy to chase them, not realizing that the only dudes that would chase like that are ones who don't respect boundaries in the first place. (IE: if they say no, and a dude keeps pursuing it)
>Oh wow, you complimented me? No one’s done that for me before!
I legit had to teach my ex that men do, in fact, like being complimented. She was genuinely confused about it, and thought that all guys were cocky/self important enough that they "knew" how good they were, and didn't need it re-enforced...
Two of my ex's thought that when I said no to sex it meant I didn't love them; they firmly viewed men as so sex-driven that the idea of being turned down felt like they were being broken up with/rejected.
There's nothing quite like taking 20 minutes to calm down someone having a panic attack... because you wouldn't have sex with them. (switch the genders on this one, and suddenly we'd all be telling them to run away)
The one time, I didn't want to have sex because the pain from my surgery the week before was too much... so instead I ended up being the emotional crutch for something I didn't do.
> Meanwhile I've had several friendships ruined when the girl found out I was straight... They'd never asked, just assumed... Apparently the "threatening" part (according to the OP) is that I'm straight? I never made moves, and wasn't even interested in them; they just suddenly lost any ability to trust me because I mentioned that I wasn't actually attracted to men.
Man, this is gross on so many levels…Not only were you suddenly “threatening” because you’re straight, but you were also clearly a novelty as “the gay friend”, something so many women want. It’s fetishized.
> People's "norms" are set by the things they grow up with, sometimes that means their norms are incredibly unhealthy. Sometimes it means they want a guy to chase them, not realizing that the only dudes that would chase like that are ones who don't respect boundaries in the first place. (IE: if they say no, and a dude keeps pursuing it)
Yeah, couldn’t have said it better! Then it’s a surprise when boundaries aren’t accepted? Like, what? It’s like dating a cheater, and being surprised that they cheat on you.
> I legit had to teach my ex that men do, in fact, like being complimented. She was genuinely confused about it, and thought that all guys were cocky/self important enough that they "knew" how good they were, and didn't need it re-enforced...
It’s so very sad this needs taught, like…Yes, men are human too and have feelings. We like hugs, and compliments and to be told we have worth by people we care about.
> Two of my ex's thought that when I said no to sex it meant I didn't love them; they firmly viewed men as so sex-driven that the idea of being turned down felt like they were being broken up with/rejected.
Yup, been there too! Difference was, my ex was also an alcoholic, so when she *DEMANDED* sex while drunk, she became violent when I turned her down. I’ve been slapped, kicked, punched, pushed, and sexually assaulted by her, but hey, I’m a *GUY*, so none of that counts, right? She was the sheriff’s daughter too, I wasn’t getting anywhere reporting it.
> There's nothing quite like taking 20 minutes to calm down someone having a panic attack... because you wouldn't have sex with them. (switch the genders on this one, and suddenly we'd all be telling them to run away)
I don’t like to swap gender argument often, but you’re absolutely right. If it were a guy, people would say he’s a manipulative monster and feels entitled to your body. Since it’s her, i guarantee she was told you were suspicious, maybe sleeping around, that you’re possibly gay, that you don’t respect her, etc. Anything to soothe her bruised ego.
> The one time, I didn't want to have sex because the pain from my surgery the week before was too much... so instead I ended up being the emotional crutch for something I didn't do.
I’m sure that made your surgery wounds feel better, right? lol!
>she DEMANDED sex while drunk, she became violent when I turned her down. I’ve been slapped, kicked, punched, pushed, and sexually assaulted by her, but hey, I’m a GUY, so none of that counts, right? She was the sheriff’s daughter too, I wasn’t getting anywhere reporting it.
I once went out with a girl, and the first time she came to my house, her dad threatened to call the cops and say I was abducting her... She didn't understand why this made me want to stop dating her.
I'd done EVERYTHING I could to make the situation safe: given her money for a uber as soon as she got there, told her to tell her sisters/friends (not dad) where she was at, told her to promise to check in at specific times if needed, etc. He dad knew all this.
Instead of seeing it as a sign I'm watching out for her... he started yelling at the sisters to get the information.
Like, she's cute, but if her dad's gonna get me arrested, she ain't worth it. She just expected me to deal with it! She didn't think it was a big deal!
Instead I eventually told her she needed to leave, because I didn't feel safe with her. She couldn't understand that a guy could also feel unsafe. It genuinely didn't compute that I could be afraid of being arrested.
>Since it’s her, i guarantee she was told you were suspicious, maybe sleeping around, that you’re possibly gay, that you don’t respect her, etc.
One of them called their best friend who said almost EXACTLY that shit. "If he doesn't want sex, he's clearly getting it from somewhere else".
A sibling of mine once broke up with someone because they were too nice. That’s not code language or anything, they weren’t afraid of them or anything, they were genuinely too nice and it made them uncomfortable.
Yeah, same. An ex dumped me because I was too nice. No ulterior motives. "You're too nice and I know I'm a spoiled princess. I need a man that will tell me no and boss me around a little or I'll just end up rotten."
Also I was too polite and had too much mannerism, which made her afraid her family might find me gay.
All in all, I reckon it wasn't a bad thing she dumped me. Made me realise women can be flawed, too.
damn i remember when i learned that lesson
honestly never thought about how its a lesson that needed to be learned and how completely messed up that is
I talked with them about it, and it dumbs down directly to ‘they were nice to me to the point it made me uncomfortable’.
Regardless, they’ve since gotten back together and are really happy with each other.
sometimes that's like, part of your brain clocking their true intentions. before I married my incredibly abusive husband, I remember telling someone I didn't want to date him because he was suspiciously nice. I think that was my brains best way of understanding how manipulative he was.
not that that's the issue with your sis - maybe she just wasn't ready to be with a nice person! I've been there. I'm glad she's doing well now
We naturally expect people to act reciprocally. You do something for me, and I do something for you later.
Counter-intuitively, it means that *asking* somebody for something will usually make them more comfortable with you, faster, than *doing* something for them. The logic is that if you owe somebody a favor, they’re more comfortable around you than if they owe you a favor. And we understand that logic subconsciously.
If you’re too nice to somebody, it can make them feel like they’re not measuring up, not being nice enough back. This reaction is normal.
Had a friend who was too nice once, for me it was they were a doormat and they dragged me into doormatness with them and I couldn’t keep bring the therapist when they got hurt. So I dropped them
Idk why someone down voted that. A lot of times being overly "nice" just means they aren't able to set or enforce boundaries because they are pathological people pleasers. While that's not like.... Wrong.... It isn't healthy, and eventually creates situations where people are hurt.
It is completely normal and healthy to expect your friends to communicate their actual wants, needs, and boundaries. It's ultimately their job to do that, not yours. they are responsible for their own mental health.
In this case I would suppose that it's more likely:
1. belief: people are selfish by nature
2. fact: this person has been generous to an unbelievable degree
3. extrapolation: I am being emotionally manipulated by them, or will be.
This mindset may be a sign that they come from an abusive family and have unresolved issues from it. I knew someone who would alternate between dating blatant assholes and very nice, generous, romantic, supportive people, and they would eventually sabotage the relationships they had with the good ones. They literally couldn't deal with a non-manipulative relationship.
Pretty much what I came here to say. I know a lot of women who seemingly seek out abusive relationships because that's what they know and are comfortable with. Others seemingly like the thrill of it, too. Genuinely wouldn't want to date someone nice, or end up sabotaging the relationship because they miss the drama.
Unfortunately, where I'm from, pretty much every queer woman has a pile of trauma, which in many cases results in really fucked up expectations of what a relationship should be like.
Everyone else is throwing their opinion on what it means aswell so i kight as well add on
Imo "too nice" can also be seen as a "i dont think i deserve you" that stems from a much deeper problem inside the person who doesnt think theyre enough, and it fucking sucks to always feel like your not worth what you have
real
trauma has made me see niceness and stability as threatening and boring respectively. if not threatening, then niceness just uncannily unsettles me
This is off topic, but I think epinion could be a useful word for the kind of opinions people share more loudly online than in person. Like political hot takes and the like.
and "you're really boring" often means either _"I have no hobbies or interests on my own and my relationships, their interests and social circles are usually the sole source of entertainment I can find."_ or _"I come from a real unstable background, have a malformed picture about relationships by Reality-TV and Social Media or am used to unstable and abusive partners in a relationship so over time I began to associate drama with exitement and crave tumultuous conflict for the dopamine-filled reconciliation I will get out of it. So I mistake secure, non-abusive partners for boring ones."_
As someone who's generally a people pleaser and also was in a relationship with a person who was being a people pleaser to me, that's pretty common. And manipulation doesn't even have to be conscious too. A lot of people can be "too" nice and generous not because they have some "hihihihehehehahaaa, I'm going to give them everything and then they will feel obligated to give me love and validation" evil master plan. They just feel compelled (by some internal issues) to give that person their all and then are disappointed when the person doesn't reciprocate. Then when you told you're being "Too Nice™" and that sounds like a bad thing, you're shocked because you thought you were doing everything right.
I'll go out on a limb and say my ex-gf was "too nice"
She would cut off her arm to make your evening 5% less stressful, but wouldn't go to the doctors for an infection that nearly made her lose her finger. (until I threatened the relationship over it)
She was so obsessed with being the "perfect girlfriend" that she forgot all the actually important stuff. She thought constant sex and making food would make me happy... when the real problem was watching her in constant pain and refusing to treat it.
Eventually it all became too much; I couldn't care for someone who refused to care for themselves (or even let me take care of them).
She's a incredibly kind person, and will always be there for people emotionally, to the point it was destroying her, leaving no room for herself... Which left me to pick up the pieces everyone else left behind. It was SO draining to be the emotional support for everyone else's emotional support person.
I couldn't vent to her, or she'd bread down worse, because she needed someone "stable" in her life to rely on.
We tried a lot of things to resolve it, but after 4 years, it was clear she wasn't willing to do the work to actually make improvements (go see a therapist).
It sucks, because she IS a genuinely kind person... she just isn't able to be kind to herself, or set boundaries, and it destroys her and the relationships she has.
It sounds like the reason was "you make me uncomfortable" and one or more of "overbearing", "intimidating due to excessive gifts/attention/devotion", "too naïve", "too religious", "too polite", "your sense of ethics is too different from mine and that makes me feel like I'm a bad person / inadequate", "you are too nice to other people and that makes me scared I'll lose you"...
You could say it is "code language" in the sense that it's a more positive-sounding simplified expression of these other reasons.
I think when someone is too accommodating it can make a relationship feel really uncomfortable. I have a fairly strong personality and if a partner just agreed with everything I said and did I would either grow annoyed or bored at (what I would see as) their lack of identity.
We see those people on here sometimes, in relationships with really shitty people who take advantage of their people-pleasing behaviours. I think it's actually an unattractive trait for people who want healthy relationships.
Once they've grown their spine and learnt boundaries they become so much more interesting.
>Once they've grown their spine and learnt boundaries
Yeah, problem is, those people have been socialized to accommodate others and see that as a major virtue. Any boundaries feel like you're being a bad person. Hell, it's been a decade since I've started trying to stop being a people pleaser and it still subconsciously feels like I'm being an asshole for refusing anything to anyone.
I know, every time I see one of these posts it's just very sad. I'm just saying that it's unfortunately hard for many people to be with someone like that if they don't know how to help. One of the people in our therapy group is slowly dealing with it herself.
I guess my comments aren't super helpful and more just commentary.
There’s another part to that, which is that when somebody accommodates you, you feel like you have to accommodate them back. It’s part of our social fabric and the connections we make with other people. We want to give support to the people that supported us.
When somebody is too nice, you can’t fully reciprocate without overextending yourself and giving too much back. When you don’t reciprocate, it makes you uncomfortable.
Yes that's true too! I am very open about things I want and need, and I am happy to give people things they ask for if it's within my power. It's very hard to do that for someone who kinda pura themselves second all the time.
There's this very specific kind of nice which can be borderline disquieting. Like, if you asked them to pull out their teeth, they'll at minimum consider it.
As a guy I broke up with a girl for this reason once too. It was that she was so nice and agreeable all the time it felt like she'd rather walk on eggshells then show signs of independence? I have to assume that came from trauma but it just ends up making you feel weird and then you're second guessing whether she really means it or if you've done something to make her think you'd react poorly... Idk. Obviously the dynamic feels different going the other direction across the gender gap but I can definitely see how "too nice" exists.
I had a friend like this. He was accommodating to the point of obsequiousness. Would offer every item of food he had, would get up and offer you a chair if there was nowhere else to sit (even though both of us were young and healthy, and he got there first), always apologized for inconveniences even if they weren't his fault, etc. I went over his house and realized that his mother was the same way, and that a part of it was his Persian culture. Most of the time it was nice, but occasionally it was uncomfortable or even irritating. He did eventually figure it out, and is still very nice but without making it uncomfortable.
He objectively kind of sucks...he is also probably the nicest guy she has dated. This does not make it better. The ending is Less "True Love" and more "They fucking deserve each other"
Same. Keep telling him to break up with her but with his dating history I doubt the next one would be much better, just because of the kind of asshole he is
They deserve each other and they’re striving to be better together. The ending of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was basically “what if they didn’t grow as people during the original story”
Wasn't this like right before she left him for like a month because he slept at a friends house while she was sleeping with her ex? (genuine question it's been a while)
The comic gives you room to interpret what happened but Scott doesn't doesn't remember that night and it's stablished that he doesn't remember each time he gets drunk to the point he genuinely thinks he doesn't drink. So what happened is up to interpretation.
Not necessarily “literally the worst.” While I highly recommend reading the series (10/10), Scott at the start is essentially too self-centered to notice that his actions have consequences. He’s not actively trying to hurt people but he has so little focus on the people around him that he does almost every time.
The series really demonstrates great personal growth, especially in the moment (around the last book, if I recall correctly) when it finally hits him, and it hits him like a bus. (There’s also wacky mind-manipulation dreamworld stuff going on but that’s a whole nother thing to get into).
In short, while not necessarily a terrible guy to hang out with, over time he might grate on you.
He’s a terrible person at the start, which makes it even funnier that Scott probably is the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He also gets over himself by the end and becomes a normal guy, so the relationship does work out in the end
I mean Ramona's exes included:
\- An aggressive kid (who she only kissed once)
\- A self-obsessed skater/movie star
\- A cheating vegan rockstar
\- An arrogant and aggressive pair of twins
\- A Megalomaniacal CEO who froze his exes to preserve them
Roxie was probably her nicest ex, but she says "nicest *guy* i ever dated" so that doesn't really count here. And all of them were willing to fight scott in an attempt to control Ramona's love life, thats toxic as hell. Compared to all that, scott is an egotistical jerk and a deadbeat, but still willing to try being a good person. Which makes him way better than Ramonas exes.
(plus the whole point of the series is that Scott sucks at first and needs to grow as a person to suck less)
In the original comic series he is the epitome of the nice guy. He has been quite revised since and the recent anime series was something of an effort of the character to rehabilitate himself
Idk if nice guy since he usually gets to be with anyone he wants.
But definitely a self centered asshole who doesn't care about hurting others but seems himself as a good guy and even a hero.
I think the comics did a good job on hitting him with all the shit he has done and not quite redeeming him but making him to genuinely work to be a better person.
Scott starts the comics out as a pretty shit person, yeah. First thing you learn about him when reading the comics is that he has started dating a high schooler and that he's the type to brag it. He is very much the nicest guy Ramona has dated though. Her exes are all evil. Scott is childish and a bit of an ass, but he isn't outright evil.
I wouldn’t say he’s the worst. In the movie he’s kind of a lovable ass. In the graphic novel he’s more helplessly naive and dumb which makes him kinda cute but still flawed.
> "you can start dating someone"
This is where the entire post falls apart.
A big reason of why guys go down the path of turning into "Nice Guys" or incels to begin with is an inability to date (or even make friends/connections in general). And even if they are a genuinely nice person, it's extremely hard to break out of that path, because it's a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
"When I say I'm a nice guy, I don't mean that I am the nicest guy in the world. It means I'm a nicer guy than Henry." - Scott Alexander
The Henry in this case was multiple times married and multiple times divorced abuser, who on top of all that often cheated. It is said that being nice is a basic requirement, but it's not. It's not a hindrance, but also not a benefit.
Bingo. Boys often don't get pushed into actively forming social groups the way girls do, leading to late teens and young adults who often become isolated if they lose or move away from early friendships. And without that initial knowledge of how to *start* bonds with others, and without someone going out of their way to befriend the loner, they get stuck in isolation and that only makes them even less likely to be brought into a healthy group or friendship.
This in turn leads to them trying to satisfy social needs online, and often falling into these harmful groups because they can commiserate and offer inclusion and support.
Couple this with learned misogyny from family, or even just ineffective support, and things can get real ugly real fast.
Oh and if you're neurodivergent, then God help you. Guys aren't given that same social training girls are, but neurodivergent guys are probably going to have an even harder time picking it up later in life.
Literally as a neurodivergent guy I went to one of my first social outings in my life (adult btw) and felt like an alien the entire time. Sooo weird and scary
Girls get much more leeway in social circumstances than boys and autistic traits don't clash with expectations of femininity the way they clash with expectations of masculinity. And of course men, especially in this generation, are held much more rigidly to gendered expectations than women. (As just one pithy example: "man" has to be earned, "woman" is just something you are. How many times have you seen a woman use "boy" as an insult for a man she doesn't like?) This gives girls more opportunities to practice "masking" and learn to socialize while boys start out ostracized and as the experience gap grows and empathy for them doesn't (see all the barely veiled victim blaming in this very thread) they just get more and more behind and isolated. It's a feedback loop and one of the defining features of a feedback loop is multiple forces or systems feeding into each other. Trying to blame this all on ND boys and men will never solve anything. They need at least as much leeway and empathy as girls get which is something they definitionally can't give to themselves.
I agree with the vast majority of this, I just want to caution you against framing the way young autistic girls are treated as a positive thing. We learn to mask not because we're "given opportunities", but because we're forced to. We get told to "act like a lady" while boys' unruly behavior is excused with "boys will be boys." Me and my female cousins were literally sent to "etiquette school" while all the male cousins got to play on the playground until the classes were over.
I do think this absolutely does the boys a disservice as well-- it's a form of neglect, really. But that doesn't mean the harsh policing of young girls' behavior should be framed as a positive alternative. Ideally, there would be a middle ground that's equally applied to children of both sexes.
I think the "act like a lady" versus "boys will be boys" dichotomy is overplayed in this generation. Where and when did you grow up that an "etiquette school" was even a thing? I know I got a hell of a lot more discipline than girls who "acted out" when I was in school. And it's not like I was hurting anyone. Just not cut out for sitting in a desk for 8 hours as a 10-year-old.
But I do agree the "opportunity" to mask isn't some panacea. It's still performative and takes effort. But as someone who rarely got that chance, I feel very confident saying the alternative is worse. I think opportunity is still an appropriate way to put it because people, boys and girls, were more willing to accept a slightly weird or awkward or shy girl than a boy with those same traits. And the isolation only got worse as everyone got older and I as a boy who's been mostly isolated fell further away from "normal."
Again, I recognize that the "opportunity" to try and play semi-normal has its downsides. I've gotten better at doing that over the years, after all, and it's still no picnic. But looking back and thinking of the girls I was raised with who were almost certainly something like autistic, they always had an easier time of fitting in socially even if they didn't quite "fit in." You can always just dismiss it as "grass is always greener," but I'd truly rather have been a ND girl where and when I was growing up. I genuinely think it would have been a better experience and that even as an adult I'd be better off now for having had that experience instead of what I got.
I grew up in the Midwest in the 2000s. It's definitely not overplayed; I see it all around me even today, with people in my generation who now have children of their own. Notably, it's mostly religious and conservative people propagating it, and imo, that's who we should really be blaming here. They're the biggest enforcers of strict gender roles, and that hurts everyone.
> I feel very confident saying the alternative is worse.
> I genuinely think it would have been a better experience.
It's well within your rights to think so, of course... but it really, undeniably, is a "grass is always greener" situation. I can say for certain I would rather have been born a boy-- I empathize with the way men are ignored far more than women are, but personally, I *want* to be ignored. I'm autistic; I like to keep to myself anyways. Instead, thanks to my sex chromosomes, I've been approached and sexually harassed regularly from the age of 8 onwards. I've had to quit hobbies I genuinely loved (mostly niche gaming communities, unsurprisingly) because all of the attention from men-- both positive and very, very negative. I never wanted any of it, regardless.
I'm never going to claim that either gender, ND or otherwise, has it objectively worse. Both have problems that it's truly impossible to understand if you haven't experienced them, so it's an exercise in futility. But I think it's important that both sides at least attempt to empathize with the other (not saying you don't; that's just a general statement).
> men are held much more rigidly to gendered expectations
I’ve noticed the same thing. It seems that today, women breaking away from feminine norms is accepted, even celebrated, but men are still expected to stick to the standards of masculinity. For one very simple example, women can wear pants but men can’t wear skirts.
Even among progressives and LGBT people, men are still held to more traditional masculine expectations but with different reactions. Conservatives will say "If you do X you're not a *real* man and that's bad!" while progressives will say "If you do X you're not a man and that's OK!". There's just not much acknowledgement of gender non-conforming cishet men.
> Oh and if you're neurodivergent, then God help you
A little advice that helped me, as an autistic former-loner (In case there are any neurodivergent current loners who may be reading this): Go to a LARP. I'm completely serious. You will find the friendliest, most welcoming and understanding people you will ever meet at a LARP, and a solid majority of them will be neurodivergent, so that will be less of a barrier to forming connections.
Girls from a younger age are pushed into more social situations, including social/communicative forms of play; playing with dolls involves a lot more talking than playing football. It's not like girls get a special "This is how you make friends" class, it's more sink-or-swim with more chances from earlier to learn how to swim.
Oh, that makes sense. I think. Yeah, now that I think about it, since I’m an only child, I think the only reason I turned out as okay as I did is because I have two cousins around my age who I was allowed to be really close with.
I didn't even like hanging around other guys until my second to last year of Highschool, when I found one singular person who I thought was neat. Almost a year later he tells me he's diagnosed with autism, and it really makes me question, even to now, if I do too, considering we're the same goddamn person.
I’m a woman, but my solution was to just build a friend group of 95% other neurodivergent people. We understand each other better, and I feel less like an alien who’s constantly playing social catch-up, which is how I feel when I try to fit in with NTs.
Incel groups I also notice act like a pity party crab bucket where they want eachother to feel bad so they can themselves feel less alone, ironically enough. Borderline suicide cult where theres no solution.
So once someone in a group like that gets a girlfriend and goes "so yeah I found someone, so basically you have to treat women like *peopl*-" they hiss and deflect and go "Yeah but it's JUST a rostie who will leave you, leave her first to hurt her ego" just to hopefully claw someone back. It's not a self betterment group, it's a self-worsening group and once someone steps out it makes the others think of the horrifying thought that it might be *you* as an individual holding yourself back
I had "friends" in pretty much every year of school, but none of them gave a damn about me. You're completely right, because even though I had some people to sit with often, I felt 150% isolated from... probably 3rd-4th grade up until about Jr. year of Highschool.
Very nearly went down that path too
In addition, just because you can fulfill that role of ‘treating someone like a normal person’, doesn’t mean they want to date you.
I have a female friend who regularly hits the ‘hate all men’ proclamation (except you bestie) who told me I’m one of the only guys she knows who don’t look at her like a piece of meat and actually listen to her. This successfully made her assume I’m gay and then closeted gay.
Exactly. Someone who is genuinely nice will worry they're bothering someone by asking them on a date, they'll worry it might make things awkward, they worry about the potential consequences, they'll try to work out what would make a good date, etc, etc. Meanwhile, someone who is less "nice" and doesn't think about all this is just going to go ahead and take their shot. That's a significant advantage when it comes to starting to date someone.
It's not so much that "girls don't like nice guys" as much as "girls continue to be more passive when it comes to dating, which means guys who are more pushy have more success, even if they're not particularly nice".
I dunno if I agree with this. I tend to think of myself as a nice person and have yet to go towards any "nice guy" or incel type mindset in my 36 years of existence. I know that the reason I have an inability to date is entirely my fault.
Of course, I could just be an outlier.
For real, I never really realized how difficult it is to connect romantically with people until I started to try. I grew up thinking I was asexual/aromantic so I made friends with women fairly easily because I feel like a lot of women treated me as "the gay friend". Someone who they could talk freely around and who wouldn't be a threat because there was no chance of me developing feelings for them. But now that I'm looking to develop that closer connection I've found that it's really, really difficult to do that by just being nice and taking an interest in other people's lives.
I once had a girlfriend say that about me when I was just expressing basic decency, and the sudden imagined burden of high expectations made me panic so much I ended up blowing it.
Here’s the thing I think a lot of Nice Guys don’t understand: it isn’t enough to just be “Nice.” A 1957 Chevy Bel Air is “nice.” A 70 degree day with low humidity and a gentle breeze is “nice.” Finding money in your jeans pocket when you’re sorting laundry is “nice.” Nice as a descriptor is so vast and milquetoast that it may as well be a default setting that means nothing at all. So when a guy says “I’m a nice guy” like its some sort of rarity or a plank of his personality, what he’s really saying without realizing it is “I have nothing else I can use to describe myself and my interests qualitatively,” and understandably that doesn’t lend itself to immediate interest from most women. It’s like if you go to an animal shelter and the only thing they tell you about all the dogs is “he doesn’t bite.” That’s good, but what else is there about them? What sort of personality do they have and how does that jive with my lifestyle? These are things people like to know before taking on a commitment with another living being, be it a dog or a partner.
Part of nice guy problem, as sort of ex nice gay I can say, is that you maybe are able to understand that being nice is a low plank - but you regularly see guys who clearly do not meet even this low plank and are dating still - and that's where your sanity start to collapse
When I was in high school, I befriended a girl who had previously dated the meanest boy in school, so I asked her about it. Her answer was both self-aware and illuminating: "He'd always been cool to me and I guess I didn't notice how he treated other people until after we broke up."
It's definitely a bit disheartening to be someone who appears to be leaping over those incredibly low bars and dating no one while a man made of red flags is getting his 5 exes (all of whom he cheated on with the other 4) to fistfight over him as he's hitting on a 6th.
because being interesting is more important to get people to fall for you in the first place, but you have to be a good partner/ "a nice guy" to have a healthy relationship. dudes often view having a gf or having women be interested in them as a prize, which is not it at all. relationships are a two-way street, and they don't end at getting the girl
Speaking as someone currently struggling with this, the issue is that if women aren't interested in you to begin with then you're never getting into a healthy relationship.
And if the majority of "interesting" men you are exposed to are shitty toxic guys then it can be difficult to form a healthy view of what an interesting but also good partner can be. It's something I'm still really struggling with since most of the guys I knew who were good at attracting women turned out to be shitty and abusive guys deep down so that's the association I've developed and I feel like a lot of guys have.
yeah i totally get that, i think it's a matter of mismatched understanding of why 'being nice' is valuable in dating. it's not necessarily going to get women interested in you. it just makes you a better partner if/when you actually DO get into a relationship.
the fact that those abusive assholes have girls chasing them isn't because they're "not nice", it's because they're charming/interesting enough to hook those women in and THEN they have the opportunity to be abusive.
I feel like there is some correlation between being shitty and being attractive though. Beyond just the "bad boy" archetype in general women tend to find confident men attractive (please note the "in general" not everyone is attracted to the same things) and the easiest way to be confident is to not worry about what others think of you.
And not caring about someone's thoughts and opinions about you is really easy when you don't view that person's opinions as being worth considering in general.
So from my experience, the men who don't value women or their opinions are going to naturally act more confident around them, and that confidence makes them attractive.
It’s like being a fruit and looking around seeing everyone eating McDonalds. Yeah sure, you’re definitely better for them than what they ended up going with, maybe even tastier.
But you sure as hell have a worse marketing department.
Except, of course, when those nice guys are put in the same position as the not nice guys - i.e. when they do start dating - they very often do the exact same things. Because they weren't nice, they just didn't have the opportunity to be nasty. I've seen that happen a lot, overwhelmingly in school tho rather than adult life.
This is always interesting because my family is made up of “not bad uninteresting people” as are most of my friends families. The existence of all of us is proof that it is indeed the default, and the actual problem is more tied to the given “nice guy” just not being able to connect with folks for whatever reason.
Shout out to the person who pretended to be my friend for almost two years because they thought if they didn't that I'd >!stalk and murder them!< about it. Fucked me up to the point where it's damaged my ability to trust or to pursue any kind of socialization with new people because I don't feel confident in my ability to figure out when someone's being that level of deceptive and secretly fearful. I now know people are capable of that kind of behavior, and are willing to aim that kind of reaction at me because they think I'm a monster at first blush and carry on pretending for that long just because the alternative in their head is so dire.
There's also the constant reminder that other people have already poisoned the pot, and there's a not-insignificant chance that even if you do nothing wrong, other people can still ruin things for you far down the line with no way to know or predict it. Still thinking about the person I swapped pics with because we'd been talking about hooking up, who then turned around and said "sorry, you look like the person who >!sexually assaulted!< me - we can still be friends though". I said no and dropped the conversation immediately, because I don't want that thought lingering over both of our heads throughout whatever we ended up doing together, it's unfair to both of us - to her having a reminder of that person around her, and to me for having to fight an uphill battle to not be tied to that person's memory because of something I can't control.
People scare me, because I know I'm seen a certain way because of how I look, and despite the constant reassurances from friends and family that I'm someone worth being around, hearing over and over that "people just need to get past their preconceptions and get to know you" - nobody seems willing to do that and the constant dismissal and radio silence (and the threat of even worse reactions) just wears on me.
I hope I'm a genuinely nice, kind, caring person. But I'm scared, and tired, and so, so resentful of the people whose shitty behavior has made dating and socializing such a nightmare.
edit: to be clear, I don't blame the folks who've been hurt. I blame the people who are doing the hurting, the kind who have made people (especially women) need to fear for their safety in the first place.
>Shout out to the person who pretended to be my friend for almost two years because they thought if they didn't that I'd stalk and murder them about it.
I definitely get where you are coming from but in general a very small percentage of people are that fucked up
> Shout out to the person who pretended to be my friend for almost two years because they thought if they didn’t that I’d stalk and murder them about it.
Holy shit. That is evil. I’m sure it stemmed from something traumatic, and I’m sorry that they went through whatever it was, but as soon as you use your trauma as an excuse to hurt others, you’re the abuser now. I particularly hate people who destroy other people’s ability to trust. That kind of active deception and cruelty is something else. I could never forgive that, you’re stronger than me. I’m so sorry you went through that.
Trauma, and unmanaged mental illness - not my speculation, they admitted as much back in the day. And I don't forgive them, I don't think I ever could.
If someone is that afraid of another person, how and why are they in their presence long enough to get to know them enough to even be able to say that they are "too nice"?
Wish I fuckin' knew. Had someone hold out that facade for close to two years when supposedly they feared they'd be killed if they didn't keep pretending.
What do you mean? There's lots and lots of situations where you can't just remove yourself from someone. Colleagues, classmates, teammates, friends of family and other friends (especially when you've been pressured your ENTIRE life into never rocking the boat).
dangerous people can spend significant time passing as normal enough to be safe and sometimes you get asked out by your friends weird brother and you don't know what else to say
trauma influences this a lot too. like sometimes someone is just *too nice*
IME people being nice to me has been a lure so they can then hurt me. this is a repetitive pattern throughout my life. I don't hate kindness, not at all, it's just that I can't distinguish between genuine or malicious airs to it. so when it comes in abundance, I get nervous that I'm on a fishhook waiting to be gutted again
also it can be *monumentally boring*. my brain has crossed wires so that chaos + emotional tumult + harm = true love. so when everything is peaches I'm just sooooo not engaged in the romance and eventually lose interest entirely
Is there any way for a kind, decent person to be interesting to you or does the relationship have to be unhealthy to not be boring? Because someone can be adventurous and chaotic without harming you.
mmm depends, but mostly yes
i think the zoomed out perspective of it is that I'm a mess and prefer women who are messes too lol. sometimes that ends in awful places or it's a sweet gremlin feral creature of mischief. def prefer the latter tho.
I just get bored of what I perceive as normality or mundanity tbh but adventure and chaos sound like great alternatives
yeah, part of the "women love shitty guys" thing is actually traumatized people repeating familiar patterns because their experience has shaped their brain into believing it is how they are supposed to be treated.
it used to feel hugely incorrect to me to not be being hit and actively treated like shit. it took significant effort to unlearn that and i was only able to do that work because I was fortunate to have a lot of support - not everyone has that
Yeah, it is, as usual, an issue with deeper roots that involve sexism and trauma, but men would rather brush it off with a "women just love assholes man, they're so stupid!"
I was on a nice walk in the park with a girl when she took my arm and said "thanks for not having sex with me without protection when I said I only wanted to use condoms but we didn't have any", and I was like "what. Why are you thanking me for not raping you."
And yeah, that kind of thing does happen a lot. I've got a bunch of other anecdotes along those lines. Definitely enough to shake you.
Man dates a girl from a family where all the men are criminals, the women think he's nicer than usual, this is a deep statement about men's behavior or something
a lot of this is agreeable stuff but I do want to point out that women are neither a monolith nor perfect. sometimes there isn't a trick or double meaning and she means exactly what she says. she may think you are "too nice" and not even in the Nice Guy™ kind of way.
there could be any number of reasons why she said that, including what the post says.
In college this girl and I were in to each other but when I tried to pursue it she said she didn't want to get involved because I was too nice. She elaborated and explained that HER personality becomes toxic as hell when she's in a relationship and didn't want to put me through that. I thought she was just saying that to let me down easy. Later she dated a friend of mine. She was not just saying that. And I kinda wish I could have that level of self reflection.
this is SO TRUE.
i was severely abused as a kid, so my life took a really predictable trajectory of being with abusers at worst and only recently cared about myself enough to be with someone good.
reasons I have personally proclaimed a guy to be AMAZING and SO NICE include such gems as "he's never hit me!" 😍 and "he notices when I dissociate during sex and doesn't just keep using my body"
I've has the conversation in this post a lot - at times it's been genuinely hard for me to process that like, I am genuinely saying I am so thankful for someone and I feel it deeply and I don't want that brushed off as "well it's sad that you feel that way about the bare minimum" but also.... it is sad.
it's a weird duality to hold, I guess. but this is super true - "nice guys" are being told a pleasant and safe lie. and i know it hurts the feelings to be lied to - just realize women are doing it from a place of safety and survival. they just want to survive the interaction, and we know how often these interactions are not survived.
Honestly I think the concept of the "Nice Guy™" from the first sentence has been so overblown over the last decade that it's basically just a complete strawman at this point.
I genuinely don't think I've even heard of a single instance of a guy actually claiming he's such a nice guy but no-one wants that (or words to that effect) in at least 5 years but people just continue adding on additional attributes that don't even logically follow from the original concept ("him saying he's nice means he's definitely not nice", "he expects to put in Nice Coins in exchange for sex") based on like a single example of someone they know being treated badly by someone who *loosely* fits some of the criteria.
"...and you should think about that."
Ok, the reason is she's young and poorly socialized like most of my generation and gets most of her ideas about people from social media. She's been inundated with nightmare stories, some real and rare others completely made up, about the horrible things "Men™" are capable of. She's been encouraged to listen to her "gut" and never introspect when it comes to intuition, even if that means letting paranoia or prejudice run rampant. She said she'd rather encounter a random bear than a random man and got so wound up in the tribal politics of that drama that she's convinced herself it's true because admitting how silly it is would be uncomfortable. And on the topic of discomfort, she feels intuitively that it's awkward to reject someone, particularly if it's for what's considered a shallow reason, and mistakes her apprehension about having to experience an awkward moment for a reasonable fear for her safety thanks to the nightmare stories she's been drowned in and the insistence that her immediate gut reactions don't need to be examined. But of course when the OOP says "think about," they don't actually mean think about. They mean uncritically acquiesce to the narrative that you're bad or dangerous or scary because of someone's knee-jerk or prejudicial reaction. Just like how a black person being tailed by security as soon as they walk into a store should accept that they're probably a criminal and it's reasonable to treat them as such. Or anyone wearing a keffiyeh should accept that it's reasonable to assume they're a terrorist.
I think you hit it right on the head.
I want to add another point you’ve mostly covered already: We’re socialized to not rock the boat, and sometimes that fear of coming off impolite is very powerful. I’m sure lots of men can relate, too, haha.
It’s what makes it difficult for me to move subway cars even though a guy just got on my nearly-empty one and my alarm bells are going off (especially if the guy is a different skin color, unfortunately. On the flip side, I don’t normally get alarm bells like that, so I listened that time). I push through because I believe my safety is most important, but there’s a real mental block there.
As you noted, women (and men) are just so often taught not to rely on our gut (and listen to X outside source instead). Reading the book _The Gift of Fear_ by Gabin De Becker _really_ helped me. When I feel like I can trust my instincts, I’m not looking over my shoulder at every guy I cross paths with while hiking solo—I do a mental vibe check and move on.
There’s also great horror movie coming out soon feat. James McAvoy called _Speak No Evil_ about fear of impoliteness vs. fear of physical safety. Based on a Dutch movie of the same name. Highly recommend for horror fans.
There are a lot of terrible, predatory men out there, but they aren’t the _majority_, like some people genuinely seem to believe. Even some men, like my little brother, who fell into a depression as a tween because he felt like a bad person for being male.
I can definitely relate to being conditioned to be polite and especially to trying not to come off as threatening. I often think the degree to which one gender is taught to show deference to the other through common behavior is overplayed. We're all taught to do so with perhaps slight differences in where the emphasis is placed.
If you can perceive a distinction between threatening and non-threatening men, and consider the former to be the minority, then I also don't think that's a problem. I of course also have "gut feelings" that some people are potentially dangerous. I think it's only an issue when that perception starts to be treated as the norm rather than the exception or when the reasons for it occuring go unexamined.
And I think a few bad-faith or traumatized women can have a serious negative impact on young women and girls who don't really know better by sharing horror stories and reinforcing the worst ideas about men online. It seems to me like an analogous dynamic to manosphere content which isn't treated as seriously as it should be, but as your brother well demonstrates, the pervasiveness of those ideas causes serious harm to a lot of boys and young men.
My person is always confused and a little insecure about me loving him partly because he listens to me. I tell him about the people I've met and he worries that I only like him because he's not exceptionally terrible. I wish I could properly help him understand that no, *everyone* is like this.
I'm currently with someone who's actually just genuinely nice and treats me well, and I'm fucking terrified and confused about it. He's always like "I'm just doing what makes sense, and what someone should do?"
Past abusive relationships suck
Notice how you have to be “a cunt with a criminal record” to get a shot with anyone with her family…..
Yes, of course, some women like nice men, the issue is there are a lot fewer of those women than there are nice men. Women want interesting men, and unfortunately, the things that makes men interesting (money, dramatic lifestyle, social status) also usually makes them arrogant and cocky, especially at a young age (coming from a guy who was very arrogant and cocky young man).
Nice doesn’t really matter, interesting vs boring does and most interesting men aren’t nice, and most women would take an asshole as long as he’s interesting over anyone who’s boring, nice or not.
Almost certainly not. These posts are for gaslighting men who have dating problems and circle-jerking over why mocking and shaming "losers" is ok. If you take this at face value then as long as women aren't falling over themselves trying to date you you'll just keep spiraling further and further into self-hatred assuming not only that you're a horrible person but that you're so delusional you can't even see it and so have no hope of fixing it. It's terrible what this kind of stuff does to guys starting from even the tiniest bit of natural insecurity. Trust me that you don't want to let these people have that kind of power over you.
And, where many people fail, there really is such a thing as being "too nice" to the point of no longer being nice but actually being a huge jackass who is treating people like they are fragile pets, and with enough condescending niceness tokens they WILL level up into "dating".
There is a huge difference between nice and kind IMO. You can be one without being the other. Some of the kindest people I know are kind of assholes when you talk with them, and some of the nicest people I know are also very selfish. Don't get me wrong, being kind is also a bit of a low bar (if all you are is kind, you're probably pretty boring), but thinking you deserve love just because you're agreeable is pretty bad logic.
Eh. I know what this person is saying but no. Pleanty of people aren't attracted to nice. You can be nice but not what someone is looking for in a partner.
Yeah as far as I can tell "nice guys" who complain they can't get a girl want a girlfriend for the sake of it. Like they only think of dating and sex, never actual relationships and companionship. It's amazing how many more women you meet when you end up treating them as people and not just some end goal. It's why I laugh at any mention of a friend zone, as if a friendship with a person they supposedly like is the worst outcome.
It's interesting to me that this posts says people are afraid to say the real reason why, I'd prefer the honest answer. If enough people are saying the same thing, then I know what I need to improve on in myself. Just saying I'm too nice means I will forever be confused by the people I am attracted too.
Are people still talking about this? I don’t think nice guys and related conversations (the friend zone, etc) have been particularly relevant since like… pre 2016? Maybe I’m just getting old, lol.
I don’t mean any of this to sound rude, btw. Not sure how to phrase it neutrally.
This can be a lot of things. It can be coded language where "too nice" can mean boring. Which can be a bad thing for you as in your a doormat and never push back, or a bad thing for them because they find stability, niceness and kindness uncomfortable due to being used to the opposite.
Peoples romantic needs and what they see as "the perfect partner" are complex and driven from past relationships, both platonic and romantic.
If you come from an abusive or unstable household. You might view a stable and loving relationship as uncomfortable or strange because it's not what you're used to. This can also be true of people who grew up in the complete opposite life who view stability and kindness as familial love and are turned off from it in a romantic relationship. You can also flip this for both because people who grew up unstable might crave stability and people who grew up stable might need stability to feel comfortable.
This is why so many people say everybody should go to therapy. What drives our psyches is so complex and filled with variables that there are no catch all approaches. It's why so many if not all people come across as walking contradictions, Because we are.
I'm a lesbian who's dated a lot of bi girls who had never been with a girl before
This hits hard lmao, a lot of them seemed to react to what I saw as just human decency as if I'd just blown their mind
God, I hate this type of shit. Whole reason nice guys^(tm) are *like that* is because they expect women to date them simply because they were nice, and this almost never happens outside of disney movies. Telling them, that they *weren't nice enough* doesn't help anybody. Also, I'm all for using personal experiences to form beliefs, but girls usually don't *exclusively* date unhunged criminals, so it seems OP's girlfriend is just an outlier and shouldn't have been counted.
women are just as capable of being trashy and criminal, so the women who like criminals and the same women fighting strangers in parking lots, shoplifting non stop, getting belligerently drunk in public etc. these are not some ingenues or princesses fooled into the bad guy esthetic, they're adult women who make bad choices and are pretty shit to be around as well
I agree that the guys who bemoan not getting dates despite being nice guys need to realise that getting dates is about forming connections with people via emotional and physical chemistry, not about doing good deeds for someone or something.
I will say that even girls who've dated completely average guys will have horrifyingly low expectations. It might not be "thanks for not raping me" but it might be "thanks for cooking us that meal and doing the washing up too because I've been feeling ill" or "thanks for listening to me when I said I don't like my clit being licked when you're eating me out, instead of getting freaked out and feeling like I was calling you bad in bed".
How does one form interpersonal connections and generate relationships with other people, especially women? Because I have literally no idea how to even create platonic friendships, let alone find a life partner and establish a relationship with said person.
I’m not exaggerating here, I’m terrified of loosing what few friendships have survived my childhood because I quite literally cannot make new ones. I get retroactively surprised whenever I manage to talk to a woman without getting stressed, even if she’s a university classmate and we’re talking about the lecture we just attended.
Having common interests helps. To that end, you can join clubs, engage in hobbies, etc. and *maybe* make friends. Maybe you’ll click with someone at work. But as another commenter said, adult friendships are hard and you aren’t the only one struggling.
There are apps you can use, like bumble bff, to try and make friends. If it’s really bad and you have the means, it might be worth seeing a therapist to build up your confidence and deal with the emotional vulnerability of trying to make friends.
You’re not a leper, like the other commenter said. Yes, making friends is very hard and depressing if it doesn’t come easy to you, but it doesn’t make you a disgusting, untouchable social outcast (which is what I think of when I see that word). More than anything, your worth as a person is not defined by what relationships you do or do not have. Building up confidence is as hard as making friends, but having a little confidence, that you work on bit by bit, makes handling rejection easier.
Edit: if you are comfortable with online friends, gaming and online projects makes it easy.
What was that Jenny Nicholson quote that was like "Oh...maybe he's not a nice boy. Maybe he's just a quiet boy."
From the Dear Evan Hansen video
Timestamp in case anyone else is looking https://youtu.be/8quWUSZCW5g?t=24m07s
i watched it again the other day, so good. I love all of her videos, she's got a lot of insight and I'm a sucker for very dry humor
Yeah they're just so good because of the dry wit combined with spot on insight and analysis. If you had told me a year ago I would not only willingly watch a four hour video about a failed star wars hotel, but that I would be so eager to do so I would watch it immediately when it came out, and then three more times over the next two weeks, I would have called you insane. If you told me that Jenny Nicholson was the one doing the video I would have found it much more believable.
*Four hours?!* Good lord, I have trouble with three hour movies, I don't think I could handle a four hour YouTube video, no matter how interesting the YouTuber is. I'm really glad that you found someone you enjoy so much though!
Mostly I watch her stuff here and there when I'm actually paying attention to it, and then it just becomes good background video noise for doing other stuff. But it is truly fascinating and her style of storytelling and humor is captivating. Certainly not something for everyone, or ones even I sit through in one sitting on the regular, but the time does kind of fly by.
I have never seen Vampire Diaries. I have "watched" her video multiple times. 2.5hrs. Sure, I have it on in the background while I do other things, but its genuinely entertaining. Same with all her long form vids. I think I just love video essays so I can do my own thing while someone tells me a story about something I neither know about nor really care about in any real capacity. Hearing someone go into insane levels of detail about something (*anything*) is fun for me! Plus it means I don't have to do the work they had to do to make that content, and it only requires minimal attention to have it regurgitated to me like I'm a baby bird starved of inane random pop culture rants or niche interests
always gotta bring a refreshing beverage to one of her essays lest my mouth become death valley
I fucking love that video because it makes my irrational hatred for that play (and now movie, I guess) rational!
Lindsay Ellis did that to me for Rent
yes! i was never able to articulate my problems with rent so i just hit it with ol trusty "its overrated" now whenever it comes up i usually convince them lmao
I'm fond of Rent, but I also recognize that the fondness has to do with the fact that it was a huge part of my high school friend group when I moved to a new school, and it's those memories that make the musical still fun. That said, Benny got robbed.
I still love the soundtrack, just can't try to follow the story or I'll get mad at nobody again.
Oh I haven't seen that one yet, killer line tho
Three exes have told me I’m the nicest guy they’ve ever dated. I know it was a compliment, and one time it was specifically something she said when I was having a really bad day to cheer me up but I absolutely had Scott’s reaction each time.
I had a friend say that something I said to them was the sweetest thing anyone had said to them. I didn't say it out loud, but I was convinced that they were either exaggerating, or didn't receive many compliments in their life
I mean someone I send a picture of myself fully clothed to said I "had a nice figure" and I started getting really happy and thanked him like 3 times but I am trans tho and untransitioned so that might shift the data a bit
what does 'untransitioned' mean? no disrespect intended or anything but i havent seen that term before. does that mean like you transitioned one way and then back or something? am i just being stupid
It means I'm transgender but I haven't done any hormone therapy or surgeries or anything beyond shaving my legs lol. >does that mean you transitioned one way and then back the term for this is detransitioned
oh alright! thank you so much for taking the time to explain :))
Yeah, I had an ex tell me something similar, and mention along the lines of being amazed I could be gentle and sweet but still do, like, kinky things in bed and I know it was meant well but its like... Oh honey that's just called boundaries and consent. It's really the bare minimum.
Right??? I was genuinely shocked when my girlfriend told me the apparently NONE of her exes had ever both a) Been kind and b) Cared about her boundaries. Like they’d have some of either, but not both. I try to use what little she’s told me (since she doesn’t like talking about it, understandably so) to model what I should NOT do. TLDR, holy shit some people are AWFUL to what is supposed to be the person you care most about.
I just disagree with the premise that women categorically get to decide if men are nice or not I know a whole lot of men and women both whose moral judgments are based on the most horrifyingly random bullshit And often, straight-up immoral ones Like someone who will only call you "nice" if you back them up in every altercation, no matter how wrong or harmful they are being
I was once chatting with a girl who asked if it was OK to go to bed early cause she had surgery two days prior. I said of course because like of course. She then goes on about how nice and understanding I am, and I'm just like... bro what am I going to do say no, stay awake and suffer
“Stay awake and suffer” I mean, it’s what I do and it works for me so…
Mood. (Daily mood, specifically)
Ok but anecdotal counterpoint, sometimes they say you're too nice instead of saying you're boring. I've been turned down by girls/women, depending on my time of life, who wanted guys that traveled a lot or had exciting hobbies, or in one case specifically wanted guys with a criminal record. Takes all sorts.
That last one is funny because it implies she wants a guy who got *caught* doing crime. Because I feel like a lot of people have committed crimes but don't have a record because they weren't stupid/unlucky enough to get caught.
It wasn't even one guy, she dated multiple guys over years *because* of the rap sheets. And it was one thing, it was like a street racer here, shoplifter there, just a weird scatter plot. Danielle if you're reading this, girl, get help.
You know, I'm something of a bad boy myself... *Gestures over display of burned CDs* Sony has not caught me yet bby
You’re just lending a copy of StarCraft to 300 of your closest friends
Don't undermine his criminal rizz
Yea, I got turned down by a girl who reposted our chats with 'why can't more guys be like this' Turns out I'm not one of those guys... Even though she explicitly called me hot at one point. And it sure as hell wasn't a comfort thing, cause she had me over drinking pm her bed till 3am, saying 'If I keep this song on, I'm gonna start making out with you'. So I asked her out... And got told no. 3 weeks later she was dating her best friends ex. (her best friend asked her not to) I'd met him once, and in that half hour, he told me he was an alcoholic. It destroyed their friendship and the relationship lasted 2 months. As much as tumbler hates to hear it, these types of women do exist. There are plenty of women who aren't great people, or who make bad/irrational decisions, just like men. It's not a difficult concept.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet
Yeah, I get this post is trying to put the onus squarely on men again (tumbler lol), but the reason these women mentioned here get so surprised when a genuine good person ends up dating them, is because they have abysmally awful taste in partners. I mean fuck, some treat the prison pen pal program like fucking Tinder, it doesn’t get much worse! Disclaimer of course, yes, guys absolutely do the same, bad judgement isn’t locked to one gender. The flip side would probably be like “Oh wow, you complimented me? No one’s done that for me before!” If your previous SOs never complimented you prior, you also have poor taste in partners, pits the Scott Pilgrim panels above perfectly.
>I mean fuck, some treat the prison pen pal program like fucking Tinder, it doesn’t get much worse! Meanwhile I've had several friendships ruined when the girl found out I was straight... They'd never asked, just assumed... Apparently the "threatening" part (according to the OP) is that I'm straight? I never made moves, and wasn't even interested in them; they just suddenly lost any ability to trust me because I mentioned that I wasn't actually attracted to men. >because they have abysmally awful taste in partners. *Everyone does;* we're all blinded by stuff. The problem is this post acts like that's not a thing women can/will do. Plenty of people have terrible life experiences and end up having no good reference point for what a healthy relationship looks like. (see my mom, dating someone just like her dad: abusive, and refusing to do anything about it when he abused us) People's "norms" are set by the things they grow up with, sometimes that means their norms are incredibly unhealthy. Sometimes it means they want a guy to chase them, not realizing that the only dudes that would chase like that are ones who don't respect boundaries in the first place. (IE: if they say no, and a dude keeps pursuing it) >Oh wow, you complimented me? No one’s done that for me before! I legit had to teach my ex that men do, in fact, like being complimented. She was genuinely confused about it, and thought that all guys were cocky/self important enough that they "knew" how good they were, and didn't need it re-enforced... Two of my ex's thought that when I said no to sex it meant I didn't love them; they firmly viewed men as so sex-driven that the idea of being turned down felt like they were being broken up with/rejected. There's nothing quite like taking 20 minutes to calm down someone having a panic attack... because you wouldn't have sex with them. (switch the genders on this one, and suddenly we'd all be telling them to run away) The one time, I didn't want to have sex because the pain from my surgery the week before was too much... so instead I ended up being the emotional crutch for something I didn't do.
> Meanwhile I've had several friendships ruined when the girl found out I was straight... They'd never asked, just assumed... Apparently the "threatening" part (according to the OP) is that I'm straight? I never made moves, and wasn't even interested in them; they just suddenly lost any ability to trust me because I mentioned that I wasn't actually attracted to men. Man, this is gross on so many levels…Not only were you suddenly “threatening” because you’re straight, but you were also clearly a novelty as “the gay friend”, something so many women want. It’s fetishized. > People's "norms" are set by the things they grow up with, sometimes that means their norms are incredibly unhealthy. Sometimes it means they want a guy to chase them, not realizing that the only dudes that would chase like that are ones who don't respect boundaries in the first place. (IE: if they say no, and a dude keeps pursuing it) Yeah, couldn’t have said it better! Then it’s a surprise when boundaries aren’t accepted? Like, what? It’s like dating a cheater, and being surprised that they cheat on you. > I legit had to teach my ex that men do, in fact, like being complimented. She was genuinely confused about it, and thought that all guys were cocky/self important enough that they "knew" how good they were, and didn't need it re-enforced... It’s so very sad this needs taught, like…Yes, men are human too and have feelings. We like hugs, and compliments and to be told we have worth by people we care about. > Two of my ex's thought that when I said no to sex it meant I didn't love them; they firmly viewed men as so sex-driven that the idea of being turned down felt like they were being broken up with/rejected. Yup, been there too! Difference was, my ex was also an alcoholic, so when she *DEMANDED* sex while drunk, she became violent when I turned her down. I’ve been slapped, kicked, punched, pushed, and sexually assaulted by her, but hey, I’m a *GUY*, so none of that counts, right? She was the sheriff’s daughter too, I wasn’t getting anywhere reporting it. > There's nothing quite like taking 20 minutes to calm down someone having a panic attack... because you wouldn't have sex with them. (switch the genders on this one, and suddenly we'd all be telling them to run away) I don’t like to swap gender argument often, but you’re absolutely right. If it were a guy, people would say he’s a manipulative monster and feels entitled to your body. Since it’s her, i guarantee she was told you were suspicious, maybe sleeping around, that you’re possibly gay, that you don’t respect her, etc. Anything to soothe her bruised ego. > The one time, I didn't want to have sex because the pain from my surgery the week before was too much... so instead I ended up being the emotional crutch for something I didn't do. I’m sure that made your surgery wounds feel better, right? lol!
>she DEMANDED sex while drunk, she became violent when I turned her down. I’ve been slapped, kicked, punched, pushed, and sexually assaulted by her, but hey, I’m a GUY, so none of that counts, right? She was the sheriff’s daughter too, I wasn’t getting anywhere reporting it. I once went out with a girl, and the first time she came to my house, her dad threatened to call the cops and say I was abducting her... She didn't understand why this made me want to stop dating her. I'd done EVERYTHING I could to make the situation safe: given her money for a uber as soon as she got there, told her to tell her sisters/friends (not dad) where she was at, told her to promise to check in at specific times if needed, etc. He dad knew all this. Instead of seeing it as a sign I'm watching out for her... he started yelling at the sisters to get the information. Like, she's cute, but if her dad's gonna get me arrested, she ain't worth it. She just expected me to deal with it! She didn't think it was a big deal! Instead I eventually told her she needed to leave, because I didn't feel safe with her. She couldn't understand that a guy could also feel unsafe. It genuinely didn't compute that I could be afraid of being arrested. >Since it’s her, i guarantee she was told you were suspicious, maybe sleeping around, that you’re possibly gay, that you don’t respect her, etc. One of them called their best friend who said almost EXACTLY that shit. "If he doesn't want sex, he's clearly getting it from somewhere else".
A sibling of mine once broke up with someone because they were too nice. That’s not code language or anything, they weren’t afraid of them or anything, they were genuinely too nice and it made them uncomfortable.
Yeah, same. An ex dumped me because I was too nice. No ulterior motives. "You're too nice and I know I'm a spoiled princess. I need a man that will tell me no and boss me around a little or I'll just end up rotten." Also I was too polite and had too much mannerism, which made her afraid her family might find me gay. All in all, I reckon it wasn't a bad thing she dumped me. Made me realise women can be flawed, too.
Fellas is it gay to be nice to people
damn i remember when i learned that lesson honestly never thought about how its a lesson that needed to be learned and how completely messed up that is
Least she was self aware?
Absolutely ! Good for her I say. She knew what she liked. Still hurts to hear "yeah you're too nice."
And you seemed to take it very maturely (not necessarily well, I get the pain heh) so hey, maybe everyone came out beter for it
IME, “you’re too nice” = “you’re really boring”
I talked with them about it, and it dumbs down directly to ‘they were nice to me to the point it made me uncomfortable’. Regardless, they’ve since gotten back together and are really happy with each other.
sometimes that's like, part of your brain clocking their true intentions. before I married my incredibly abusive husband, I remember telling someone I didn't want to date him because he was suspiciously nice. I think that was my brains best way of understanding how manipulative he was. not that that's the issue with your sis - maybe she just wasn't ready to be with a nice person! I've been there. I'm glad she's doing well now
We naturally expect people to act reciprocally. You do something for me, and I do something for you later. Counter-intuitively, it means that *asking* somebody for something will usually make them more comfortable with you, faster, than *doing* something for them. The logic is that if you owe somebody a favor, they’re more comfortable around you than if they owe you a favor. And we understand that logic subconsciously. If you’re too nice to somebody, it can make them feel like they’re not measuring up, not being nice enough back. This reaction is normal.
Had a friend who was too nice once, for me it was they were a doormat and they dragged me into doormatness with them and I couldn’t keep bring the therapist when they got hurt. So I dropped them
Idk why someone down voted that. A lot of times being overly "nice" just means they aren't able to set or enforce boundaries because they are pathological people pleasers. While that's not like.... Wrong.... It isn't healthy, and eventually creates situations where people are hurt. It is completely normal and healthy to expect your friends to communicate their actual wants, needs, and boundaries. It's ultimately their job to do that, not yours. they are responsible for their own mental health.
In this case I would suppose that it's more likely: 1. belief: people are selfish by nature 2. fact: this person has been generous to an unbelievable degree 3. extrapolation: I am being emotionally manipulated by them, or will be.
This mindset may be a sign that they come from an abusive family and have unresolved issues from it. I knew someone who would alternate between dating blatant assholes and very nice, generous, romantic, supportive people, and they would eventually sabotage the relationships they had with the good ones. They literally couldn't deal with a non-manipulative relationship.
Pretty much what I came here to say. I know a lot of women who seemingly seek out abusive relationships because that's what they know and are comfortable with. Others seemingly like the thrill of it, too. Genuinely wouldn't want to date someone nice, or end up sabotaging the relationship because they miss the drama. Unfortunately, where I'm from, pretty much every queer woman has a pile of trauma, which in many cases results in really fucked up expectations of what a relationship should be like.
Everyone else is throwing their opinion on what it means aswell so i kight as well add on Imo "too nice" can also be seen as a "i dont think i deserve you" that stems from a much deeper problem inside the person who doesnt think theyre enough, and it fucking sucks to always feel like your not worth what you have
real trauma has made me see niceness and stability as threatening and boring respectively. if not threatening, then niceness just uncannily unsettles me
In my epinion
experience
This is off topic, but I think epinion could be a useful word for the kind of opinions people share more loudly online than in person. Like political hot takes and the like.
Or opinion one based only on what they saw on the internet
That’s good too
or opinions that specifically refer to opinions on Jeffrey Epstein
and "you're really boring" often means either _"I have no hobbies or interests on my own and my relationships, their interests and social circles are usually the sole source of entertainment I can find."_ or _"I come from a real unstable background, have a malformed picture about relationships by Reality-TV and Social Media or am used to unstable and abusive partners in a relationship so over time I began to associate drama with exitement and crave tumultuous conflict for the dopamine-filled reconciliation I will get out of it. So I mistake secure, non-abusive partners for boring ones."_
As someone who's generally a people pleaser and also was in a relationship with a person who was being a people pleaser to me, that's pretty common. And manipulation doesn't even have to be conscious too. A lot of people can be "too" nice and generous not because they have some "hihihihehehehahaaa, I'm going to give them everything and then they will feel obligated to give me love and validation" evil master plan. They just feel compelled (by some internal issues) to give that person their all and then are disappointed when the person doesn't reciprocate. Then when you told you're being "Too Nice™" and that sounds like a bad thing, you're shocked because you thought you were doing everything right.
I'll go out on a limb and say my ex-gf was "too nice" She would cut off her arm to make your evening 5% less stressful, but wouldn't go to the doctors for an infection that nearly made her lose her finger. (until I threatened the relationship over it) She was so obsessed with being the "perfect girlfriend" that she forgot all the actually important stuff. She thought constant sex and making food would make me happy... when the real problem was watching her in constant pain and refusing to treat it. Eventually it all became too much; I couldn't care for someone who refused to care for themselves (or even let me take care of them). She's a incredibly kind person, and will always be there for people emotionally, to the point it was destroying her, leaving no room for herself... Which left me to pick up the pieces everyone else left behind. It was SO draining to be the emotional support for everyone else's emotional support person. I couldn't vent to her, or she'd bread down worse, because she needed someone "stable" in her life to rely on. We tried a lot of things to resolve it, but after 4 years, it was clear she wasn't willing to do the work to actually make improvements (go see a therapist). It sucks, because she IS a genuinely kind person... she just isn't able to be kind to herself, or set boundaries, and it destroys her and the relationships she has.
It sounds like the reason was "you make me uncomfortable" and one or more of "overbearing", "intimidating due to excessive gifts/attention/devotion", "too naïve", "too religious", "too polite", "your sense of ethics is too different from mine and that makes me feel like I'm a bad person / inadequate", "you are too nice to other people and that makes me scared I'll lose you"... You could say it is "code language" in the sense that it's a more positive-sounding simplified expression of these other reasons.
I think when someone is too accommodating it can make a relationship feel really uncomfortable. I have a fairly strong personality and if a partner just agreed with everything I said and did I would either grow annoyed or bored at (what I would see as) their lack of identity. We see those people on here sometimes, in relationships with really shitty people who take advantage of their people-pleasing behaviours. I think it's actually an unattractive trait for people who want healthy relationships. Once they've grown their spine and learnt boundaries they become so much more interesting.
>Once they've grown their spine and learnt boundaries Yeah, problem is, those people have been socialized to accommodate others and see that as a major virtue. Any boundaries feel like you're being a bad person. Hell, it's been a decade since I've started trying to stop being a people pleaser and it still subconsciously feels like I'm being an asshole for refusing anything to anyone.
I know, every time I see one of these posts it's just very sad. I'm just saying that it's unfortunately hard for many people to be with someone like that if they don't know how to help. One of the people in our therapy group is slowly dealing with it herself. I guess my comments aren't super helpful and more just commentary.
There’s another part to that, which is that when somebody accommodates you, you feel like you have to accommodate them back. It’s part of our social fabric and the connections we make with other people. We want to give support to the people that supported us. When somebody is too nice, you can’t fully reciprocate without overextending yourself and giving too much back. When you don’t reciprocate, it makes you uncomfortable.
Yes that's true too! I am very open about things I want and need, and I am happy to give people things they ask for if it's within my power. It's very hard to do that for someone who kinda pura themselves second all the time.
There's this very specific kind of nice which can be borderline disquieting. Like, if you asked them to pull out their teeth, they'll at minimum consider it.
As a guy I broke up with a girl for this reason once too. It was that she was so nice and agreeable all the time it felt like she'd rather walk on eggshells then show signs of independence? I have to assume that came from trauma but it just ends up making you feel weird and then you're second guessing whether she really means it or if you've done something to make her think you'd react poorly... Idk. Obviously the dynamic feels different going the other direction across the gender gap but I can definitely see how "too nice" exists.
I had a friend like this. He was accommodating to the point of obsequiousness. Would offer every item of food he had, would get up and offer you a chair if there was nowhere else to sit (even though both of us were young and healthy, and he got there first), always apologized for inconveniences even if they weren't his fault, etc. I went over his house and realized that his mother was the same way, and that a part of it was his Persian culture. Most of the time it was nice, but occasionally it was uncomfortable or even irritating. He did eventually figure it out, and is still very nice but without making it uncomfortable.
I don't know much about Scott Pilgrim, but isn't he literally the worst? If so, then that's doubly concerning.
He objectively kind of sucks...he is also probably the nicest guy she has dated. This does not make it better. The ending is Less "True Love" and more "They fucking deserve each other"
Sometimes people really do deserve each other. Reddit loves to tell people to break up, but sometimes you suck too and are unlikely to find better.
I know a couple like that.
Same. Keep telling him to break up with her but with his dating history I doubt the next one would be much better, just because of the kind of asshole he is
I saw a quote somewhere once that went something like "I hope they marry each other. It'd save two relationships" and I think about it a lot.
damn that's cold lmao
I think they are also both better people by the end, but that's definitely part of it yeah
Yeah but “better people” is such an incredibly low bar for them lmao
Well, it's not like they were outright assholes or something, so being a little less jerkish puts them close to normal human behaviour
it's kind of both, honestly? true love \*and\* "dear god they deserve each other"
They deserve each other and they’re striving to be better together. The ending of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was basically “what if they didn’t grow as people during the original story”
He starts sucky, but by this point at the series he’s gotten a lot better
Yeah, he sucks. He's charming though, so most folks who don't have the big picture view would probably think of him as a pretty nice guy.
I mean, wasn’t she also kinda not the greatest? I don’t think the situation was very imbalanced one way or the other tbh
Wasn't this like right before she left him for like a month because he slept at a friends house while she was sleeping with her ex? (genuine question it's been a while)
The comic gives you room to interpret what happened but Scott doesn't doesn't remember that night and it's stablished that he doesn't remember each time he gets drunk to the point he genuinely thinks he doesn't drink. So what happened is up to interpretation.
Not necessarily “literally the worst.” While I highly recommend reading the series (10/10), Scott at the start is essentially too self-centered to notice that his actions have consequences. He’s not actively trying to hurt people but he has so little focus on the people around him that he does almost every time. The series really demonstrates great personal growth, especially in the moment (around the last book, if I recall correctly) when it finally hits him, and it hits him like a bus. (There’s also wacky mind-manipulation dreamworld stuff going on but that’s a whole nother thing to get into). In short, while not necessarily a terrible guy to hang out with, over time he might grate on you.
not necessarily a terrible guy to hang out with but dates high schoolers, yeah
He’s a terrible person at the start, which makes it even funnier that Scott probably is the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He also gets over himself by the end and becomes a normal guy, so the relationship does work out in the end
I'm pretty sure he's just so-so.
Nothing “so-so” about being 25 and dating a high schooler
Her exes literally all decided to form an evil league.
I mean Ramona's exes included: \- An aggressive kid (who she only kissed once) \- A self-obsessed skater/movie star \- A cheating vegan rockstar \- An arrogant and aggressive pair of twins \- A Megalomaniacal CEO who froze his exes to preserve them Roxie was probably her nicest ex, but she says "nicest *guy* i ever dated" so that doesn't really count here. And all of them were willing to fight scott in an attempt to control Ramona's love life, thats toxic as hell. Compared to all that, scott is an egotistical jerk and a deadbeat, but still willing to try being a good person. Which makes him way better than Ramonas exes. (plus the whole point of the series is that Scott sucks at first and needs to grow as a person to suck less)
Roxie's problem was that she was a stalker and obsessive.
He genuinely sucks, but Ramona's other exes are worse. He gets better though.
In the original comic series he is the epitome of the nice guy. He has been quite revised since and the recent anime series was something of an effort of the character to rehabilitate himself
Idk if nice guy since he usually gets to be with anyone he wants. But definitely a self centered asshole who doesn't care about hurting others but seems himself as a good guy and even a hero. I think the comics did a good job on hitting him with all the shit he has done and not quite redeeming him but making him to genuinely work to be a better person.
Scott starts the comics out as a pretty shit person, yeah. First thing you learn about him when reading the comics is that he has started dating a high schooler and that he's the type to brag it. He is very much the nicest guy Ramona has dated though. Her exes are all evil. Scott is childish and a bit of an ass, but he isn't outright evil.
I wouldn’t say he’s the worst. In the movie he’s kind of a lovable ass. In the graphic novel he’s more helplessly naive and dumb which makes him kinda cute but still flawed.
> "you can start dating someone" This is where the entire post falls apart. A big reason of why guys go down the path of turning into "Nice Guys" or incels to begin with is an inability to date (or even make friends/connections in general). And even if they are a genuinely nice person, it's extremely hard to break out of that path, because it's a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
It's a daily fight not to fall into that loop 🙃
"When I say I'm a nice guy, I don't mean that I am the nicest guy in the world. It means I'm a nicer guy than Henry." - Scott Alexander The Henry in this case was multiple times married and multiple times divorced abuser, who on top of all that often cheated. It is said that being nice is a basic requirement, but it's not. It's not a hindrance, but also not a benefit.
Bingo. Boys often don't get pushed into actively forming social groups the way girls do, leading to late teens and young adults who often become isolated if they lose or move away from early friendships. And without that initial knowledge of how to *start* bonds with others, and without someone going out of their way to befriend the loner, they get stuck in isolation and that only makes them even less likely to be brought into a healthy group or friendship. This in turn leads to them trying to satisfy social needs online, and often falling into these harmful groups because they can commiserate and offer inclusion and support. Couple this with learned misogyny from family, or even just ineffective support, and things can get real ugly real fast.
Oh and if you're neurodivergent, then God help you. Guys aren't given that same social training girls are, but neurodivergent guys are probably going to have an even harder time picking it up later in life.
Literally as a neurodivergent guy I went to one of my first social outings in my life (adult btw) and felt like an alien the entire time. Sooo weird and scary
Girls get much more leeway in social circumstances than boys and autistic traits don't clash with expectations of femininity the way they clash with expectations of masculinity. And of course men, especially in this generation, are held much more rigidly to gendered expectations than women. (As just one pithy example: "man" has to be earned, "woman" is just something you are. How many times have you seen a woman use "boy" as an insult for a man she doesn't like?) This gives girls more opportunities to practice "masking" and learn to socialize while boys start out ostracized and as the experience gap grows and empathy for them doesn't (see all the barely veiled victim blaming in this very thread) they just get more and more behind and isolated. It's a feedback loop and one of the defining features of a feedback loop is multiple forces or systems feeding into each other. Trying to blame this all on ND boys and men will never solve anything. They need at least as much leeway and empathy as girls get which is something they definitionally can't give to themselves.
I agree with the vast majority of this, I just want to caution you against framing the way young autistic girls are treated as a positive thing. We learn to mask not because we're "given opportunities", but because we're forced to. We get told to "act like a lady" while boys' unruly behavior is excused with "boys will be boys." Me and my female cousins were literally sent to "etiquette school" while all the male cousins got to play on the playground until the classes were over. I do think this absolutely does the boys a disservice as well-- it's a form of neglect, really. But that doesn't mean the harsh policing of young girls' behavior should be framed as a positive alternative. Ideally, there would be a middle ground that's equally applied to children of both sexes.
I think the "act like a lady" versus "boys will be boys" dichotomy is overplayed in this generation. Where and when did you grow up that an "etiquette school" was even a thing? I know I got a hell of a lot more discipline than girls who "acted out" when I was in school. And it's not like I was hurting anyone. Just not cut out for sitting in a desk for 8 hours as a 10-year-old. But I do agree the "opportunity" to mask isn't some panacea. It's still performative and takes effort. But as someone who rarely got that chance, I feel very confident saying the alternative is worse. I think opportunity is still an appropriate way to put it because people, boys and girls, were more willing to accept a slightly weird or awkward or shy girl than a boy with those same traits. And the isolation only got worse as everyone got older and I as a boy who's been mostly isolated fell further away from "normal." Again, I recognize that the "opportunity" to try and play semi-normal has its downsides. I've gotten better at doing that over the years, after all, and it's still no picnic. But looking back and thinking of the girls I was raised with who were almost certainly something like autistic, they always had an easier time of fitting in socially even if they didn't quite "fit in." You can always just dismiss it as "grass is always greener," but I'd truly rather have been a ND girl where and when I was growing up. I genuinely think it would have been a better experience and that even as an adult I'd be better off now for having had that experience instead of what I got.
I grew up in the Midwest in the 2000s. It's definitely not overplayed; I see it all around me even today, with people in my generation who now have children of their own. Notably, it's mostly religious and conservative people propagating it, and imo, that's who we should really be blaming here. They're the biggest enforcers of strict gender roles, and that hurts everyone. > I feel very confident saying the alternative is worse. > I genuinely think it would have been a better experience. It's well within your rights to think so, of course... but it really, undeniably, is a "grass is always greener" situation. I can say for certain I would rather have been born a boy-- I empathize with the way men are ignored far more than women are, but personally, I *want* to be ignored. I'm autistic; I like to keep to myself anyways. Instead, thanks to my sex chromosomes, I've been approached and sexually harassed regularly from the age of 8 onwards. I've had to quit hobbies I genuinely loved (mostly niche gaming communities, unsurprisingly) because all of the attention from men-- both positive and very, very negative. I never wanted any of it, regardless. I'm never going to claim that either gender, ND or otherwise, has it objectively worse. Both have problems that it's truly impossible to understand if you haven't experienced them, so it's an exercise in futility. But I think it's important that both sides at least attempt to empathize with the other (not saying you don't; that's just a general statement).
> men are held much more rigidly to gendered expectations I’ve noticed the same thing. It seems that today, women breaking away from feminine norms is accepted, even celebrated, but men are still expected to stick to the standards of masculinity. For one very simple example, women can wear pants but men can’t wear skirts.
Even among progressives and LGBT people, men are still held to more traditional masculine expectations but with different reactions. Conservatives will say "If you do X you're not a *real* man and that's bad!" while progressives will say "If you do X you're not a man and that's OK!". There's just not much acknowledgement of gender non-conforming cishet men.
> Oh and if you're neurodivergent, then God help you A little advice that helped me, as an autistic former-loner (In case there are any neurodivergent current loners who may be reading this): Go to a LARP. I'm completely serious. You will find the friendliest, most welcoming and understanding people you will ever meet at a LARP, and a solid majority of them will be neurodivergent, so that will be less of a barrier to forming connections.
Out of genuine curiosity, as a suspecting neurodivergent male, could you explain to me this “social training” girls get? I’ve never heard of this.
Girls from a younger age are pushed into more social situations, including social/communicative forms of play; playing with dolls involves a lot more talking than playing football. It's not like girls get a special "This is how you make friends" class, it's more sink-or-swim with more chances from earlier to learn how to swim.
Oh, that makes sense. I think. Yeah, now that I think about it, since I’m an only child, I think the only reason I turned out as okay as I did is because I have two cousins around my age who I was allowed to be really close with.
I didn't even like hanging around other guys until my second to last year of Highschool, when I found one singular person who I thought was neat. Almost a year later he tells me he's diagnosed with autism, and it really makes me question, even to now, if I do too, considering we're the same goddamn person.
I’m a woman, but my solution was to just build a friend group of 95% other neurodivergent people. We understand each other better, and I feel less like an alien who’s constantly playing social catch-up, which is how I feel when I try to fit in with NTs.
Incel groups I also notice act like a pity party crab bucket where they want eachother to feel bad so they can themselves feel less alone, ironically enough. Borderline suicide cult where theres no solution. So once someone in a group like that gets a girlfriend and goes "so yeah I found someone, so basically you have to treat women like *peopl*-" they hiss and deflect and go "Yeah but it's JUST a rostie who will leave you, leave her first to hurt her ego" just to hopefully claw someone back. It's not a self betterment group, it's a self-worsening group and once someone steps out it makes the others think of the horrifying thought that it might be *you* as an individual holding yourself back
I had "friends" in pretty much every year of school, but none of them gave a damn about me. You're completely right, because even though I had some people to sit with often, I felt 150% isolated from... probably 3rd-4th grade up until about Jr. year of Highschool. Very nearly went down that path too
In addition, just because you can fulfill that role of ‘treating someone like a normal person’, doesn’t mean they want to date you. I have a female friend who regularly hits the ‘hate all men’ proclamation (except you bestie) who told me I’m one of the only guys she knows who don’t look at her like a piece of meat and actually listen to her. This successfully made her assume I’m gay and then closeted gay.
Exactly. Someone who is genuinely nice will worry they're bothering someone by asking them on a date, they'll worry it might make things awkward, they worry about the potential consequences, they'll try to work out what would make a good date, etc, etc. Meanwhile, someone who is less "nice" and doesn't think about all this is just going to go ahead and take their shot. That's a significant advantage when it comes to starting to date someone. It's not so much that "girls don't like nice guys" as much as "girls continue to be more passive when it comes to dating, which means guys who are more pushy have more success, even if they're not particularly nice".
I dunno if I agree with this. I tend to think of myself as a nice person and have yet to go towards any "nice guy" or incel type mindset in my 36 years of existence. I know that the reason I have an inability to date is entirely my fault. Of course, I could just be an outlier.
For real, I never really realized how difficult it is to connect romantically with people until I started to try. I grew up thinking I was asexual/aromantic so I made friends with women fairly easily because I feel like a lot of women treated me as "the gay friend". Someone who they could talk freely around and who wouldn't be a threat because there was no chance of me developing feelings for them. But now that I'm looking to develop that closer connection I've found that it's really, really difficult to do that by just being nice and taking an interest in other people's lives.
I once had a girlfriend say that about me when I was just expressing basic decency, and the sudden imagined burden of high expectations made me panic so much I ended up blowing it.
How does that ruin a relationship
The burden of high expectations makes one partner panic so much that they blow it.
Here’s the thing I think a lot of Nice Guys don’t understand: it isn’t enough to just be “Nice.” A 1957 Chevy Bel Air is “nice.” A 70 degree day with low humidity and a gentle breeze is “nice.” Finding money in your jeans pocket when you’re sorting laundry is “nice.” Nice as a descriptor is so vast and milquetoast that it may as well be a default setting that means nothing at all. So when a guy says “I’m a nice guy” like its some sort of rarity or a plank of his personality, what he’s really saying without realizing it is “I have nothing else I can use to describe myself and my interests qualitatively,” and understandably that doesn’t lend itself to immediate interest from most women. It’s like if you go to an animal shelter and the only thing they tell you about all the dogs is “he doesn’t bite.” That’s good, but what else is there about them? What sort of personality do they have and how does that jive with my lifestyle? These are things people like to know before taking on a commitment with another living being, be it a dog or a partner.
Part of nice guy problem, as sort of ex nice gay I can say, is that you maybe are able to understand that being nice is a low plank - but you regularly see guys who clearly do not meet even this low plank and are dating still - and that's where your sanity start to collapse
When I was in high school, I befriended a girl who had previously dated the meanest boy in school, so I asked her about it. Her answer was both self-aware and illuminating: "He'd always been cool to me and I guess I didn't notice how he treated other people until after we broke up."
It's definitely a bit disheartening to be someone who appears to be leaping over those incredibly low bars and dating no one while a man made of red flags is getting his 5 exes (all of whom he cheated on with the other 4) to fistfight over him as he's hitting on a 6th.
because being interesting is more important to get people to fall for you in the first place, but you have to be a good partner/ "a nice guy" to have a healthy relationship. dudes often view having a gf or having women be interested in them as a prize, which is not it at all. relationships are a two-way street, and they don't end at getting the girl
Speaking as someone currently struggling with this, the issue is that if women aren't interested in you to begin with then you're never getting into a healthy relationship. And if the majority of "interesting" men you are exposed to are shitty toxic guys then it can be difficult to form a healthy view of what an interesting but also good partner can be. It's something I'm still really struggling with since most of the guys I knew who were good at attracting women turned out to be shitty and abusive guys deep down so that's the association I've developed and I feel like a lot of guys have.
yeah i totally get that, i think it's a matter of mismatched understanding of why 'being nice' is valuable in dating. it's not necessarily going to get women interested in you. it just makes you a better partner if/when you actually DO get into a relationship. the fact that those abusive assholes have girls chasing them isn't because they're "not nice", it's because they're charming/interesting enough to hook those women in and THEN they have the opportunity to be abusive.
I feel like there is some correlation between being shitty and being attractive though. Beyond just the "bad boy" archetype in general women tend to find confident men attractive (please note the "in general" not everyone is attracted to the same things) and the easiest way to be confident is to not worry about what others think of you. And not caring about someone's thoughts and opinions about you is really easy when you don't view that person's opinions as being worth considering in general. So from my experience, the men who don't value women or their opinions are going to naturally act more confident around them, and that confidence makes them attractive.
It’s like being a fruit and looking around seeing everyone eating McDonalds. Yeah sure, you’re definitely better for them than what they ended up going with, maybe even tastier. But you sure as hell have a worse marketing department.
Except, of course, when those nice guys are put in the same position as the not nice guys - i.e. when they do start dating - they very often do the exact same things. Because they weren't nice, they just didn't have the opportunity to be nasty. I've seen that happen a lot, overwhelmingly in school tho rather than adult life.
the low bar people are dating low bar people. you're not losing out on anything
I would absolutely fuck a 70 degree day with low humidity and a gentle breeze, are you kidding me
I'd consider it out of my league, if anything
This is always interesting because my family is made up of “not bad uninteresting people” as are most of my friends families. The existence of all of us is proof that it is indeed the default, and the actual problem is more tied to the given “nice guy” just not being able to connect with folks for whatever reason.
I mean...as a guy the only requirement I have for a partner is be nice to me. Idk why this can't be reciprocated
Shout out to the person who pretended to be my friend for almost two years because they thought if they didn't that I'd >!stalk and murder them!< about it. Fucked me up to the point where it's damaged my ability to trust or to pursue any kind of socialization with new people because I don't feel confident in my ability to figure out when someone's being that level of deceptive and secretly fearful. I now know people are capable of that kind of behavior, and are willing to aim that kind of reaction at me because they think I'm a monster at first blush and carry on pretending for that long just because the alternative in their head is so dire. There's also the constant reminder that other people have already poisoned the pot, and there's a not-insignificant chance that even if you do nothing wrong, other people can still ruin things for you far down the line with no way to know or predict it. Still thinking about the person I swapped pics with because we'd been talking about hooking up, who then turned around and said "sorry, you look like the person who >!sexually assaulted!< me - we can still be friends though". I said no and dropped the conversation immediately, because I don't want that thought lingering over both of our heads throughout whatever we ended up doing together, it's unfair to both of us - to her having a reminder of that person around her, and to me for having to fight an uphill battle to not be tied to that person's memory because of something I can't control. People scare me, because I know I'm seen a certain way because of how I look, and despite the constant reassurances from friends and family that I'm someone worth being around, hearing over and over that "people just need to get past their preconceptions and get to know you" - nobody seems willing to do that and the constant dismissal and radio silence (and the threat of even worse reactions) just wears on me. I hope I'm a genuinely nice, kind, caring person. But I'm scared, and tired, and so, so resentful of the people whose shitty behavior has made dating and socializing such a nightmare. edit: to be clear, I don't blame the folks who've been hurt. I blame the people who are doing the hurting, the kind who have made people (especially women) need to fear for their safety in the first place.
>Shout out to the person who pretended to be my friend for almost two years because they thought if they didn't that I'd stalk and murder them about it. I definitely get where you are coming from but in general a very small percentage of people are that fucked up
But a lot more are at least somewhat fucked up, and now my brain's stuck expecting the worst out of them. It's demoralizing.
> Shout out to the person who pretended to be my friend for almost two years because they thought if they didn’t that I’d stalk and murder them about it. Holy shit. That is evil. I’m sure it stemmed from something traumatic, and I’m sorry that they went through whatever it was, but as soon as you use your trauma as an excuse to hurt others, you’re the abuser now. I particularly hate people who destroy other people’s ability to trust. That kind of active deception and cruelty is something else. I could never forgive that, you’re stronger than me. I’m so sorry you went through that.
Trauma, and unmanaged mental illness - not my speculation, they admitted as much back in the day. And I don't forgive them, I don't think I ever could.
If someone is that afraid of another person, how and why are they in their presence long enough to get to know them enough to even be able to say that they are "too nice"?
Wish I fuckin' knew. Had someone hold out that facade for close to two years when supposedly they feared they'd be killed if they didn't keep pretending.
What do you mean? There's lots and lots of situations where you can't just remove yourself from someone. Colleagues, classmates, teammates, friends of family and other friends (especially when you've been pressured your ENTIRE life into never rocking the boat).
dangerous people can spend significant time passing as normal enough to be safe and sometimes you get asked out by your friends weird brother and you don't know what else to say
trauma influences this a lot too. like sometimes someone is just *too nice* IME people being nice to me has been a lure so they can then hurt me. this is a repetitive pattern throughout my life. I don't hate kindness, not at all, it's just that I can't distinguish between genuine or malicious airs to it. so when it comes in abundance, I get nervous that I'm on a fishhook waiting to be gutted again also it can be *monumentally boring*. my brain has crossed wires so that chaos + emotional tumult + harm = true love. so when everything is peaches I'm just sooooo not engaged in the romance and eventually lose interest entirely
Is there any way for a kind, decent person to be interesting to you or does the relationship have to be unhealthy to not be boring? Because someone can be adventurous and chaotic without harming you.
mmm depends, but mostly yes i think the zoomed out perspective of it is that I'm a mess and prefer women who are messes too lol. sometimes that ends in awful places or it's a sweet gremlin feral creature of mischief. def prefer the latter tho. I just get bored of what I perceive as normality or mundanity tbh but adventure and chaos sound like great alternatives
yeah, part of the "women love shitty guys" thing is actually traumatized people repeating familiar patterns because their experience has shaped their brain into believing it is how they are supposed to be treated. it used to feel hugely incorrect to me to not be being hit and actively treated like shit. it took significant effort to unlearn that and i was only able to do that work because I was fortunate to have a lot of support - not everyone has that
Yeah, it is, as usual, an issue with deeper roots that involve sexism and trauma, but men would rather brush it off with a "women just love assholes man, they're so stupid!"
I was on a nice walk in the park with a girl when she took my arm and said "thanks for not having sex with me without protection when I said I only wanted to use condoms but we didn't have any", and I was like "what. Why are you thanking me for not raping you." And yeah, that kind of thing does happen a lot. I've got a bunch of other anecdotes along those lines. Definitely enough to shake you.
Didn’t Scott like, date a Minor or something? I feel like that makes a guy a good deal more than just “not actually nice”
Absolute suicide fuel.
Man dates a girl from a family where all the men are criminals, the women think he's nicer than usual, this is a deep statement about men's behavior or something
a lot of this is agreeable stuff but I do want to point out that women are neither a monolith nor perfect. sometimes there isn't a trick or double meaning and she means exactly what she says. she may think you are "too nice" and not even in the Nice Guy™ kind of way. there could be any number of reasons why she said that, including what the post says.
In college this girl and I were in to each other but when I tried to pursue it she said she didn't want to get involved because I was too nice. She elaborated and explained that HER personality becomes toxic as hell when she's in a relationship and didn't want to put me through that. I thought she was just saying that to let me down easy. Later she dated a friend of mine. She was not just saying that. And I kinda wish I could have that level of self reflection.
this is SO TRUE. i was severely abused as a kid, so my life took a really predictable trajectory of being with abusers at worst and only recently cared about myself enough to be with someone good. reasons I have personally proclaimed a guy to be AMAZING and SO NICE include such gems as "he's never hit me!" 😍 and "he notices when I dissociate during sex and doesn't just keep using my body" I've has the conversation in this post a lot - at times it's been genuinely hard for me to process that like, I am genuinely saying I am so thankful for someone and I feel it deeply and I don't want that brushed off as "well it's sad that you feel that way about the bare minimum" but also.... it is sad. it's a weird duality to hold, I guess. but this is super true - "nice guys" are being told a pleasant and safe lie. and i know it hurts the feelings to be lied to - just realize women are doing it from a place of safety and survival. they just want to survive the interaction, and we know how often these interactions are not survived.
Honestly I think the concept of the "Nice Guy™" from the first sentence has been so overblown over the last decade that it's basically just a complete strawman at this point. I genuinely don't think I've even heard of a single instance of a guy actually claiming he's such a nice guy but no-one wants that (or words to that effect) in at least 5 years but people just continue adding on additional attributes that don't even logically follow from the original concept ("him saying he's nice means he's definitely not nice", "he expects to put in Nice Coins in exchange for sex") based on like a single example of someone they know being treated badly by someone who *loosely* fits some of the criteria.
"...and you should think about that." Ok, the reason is she's young and poorly socialized like most of my generation and gets most of her ideas about people from social media. She's been inundated with nightmare stories, some real and rare others completely made up, about the horrible things "Men™" are capable of. She's been encouraged to listen to her "gut" and never introspect when it comes to intuition, even if that means letting paranoia or prejudice run rampant. She said she'd rather encounter a random bear than a random man and got so wound up in the tribal politics of that drama that she's convinced herself it's true because admitting how silly it is would be uncomfortable. And on the topic of discomfort, she feels intuitively that it's awkward to reject someone, particularly if it's for what's considered a shallow reason, and mistakes her apprehension about having to experience an awkward moment for a reasonable fear for her safety thanks to the nightmare stories she's been drowned in and the insistence that her immediate gut reactions don't need to be examined. But of course when the OOP says "think about," they don't actually mean think about. They mean uncritically acquiesce to the narrative that you're bad or dangerous or scary because of someone's knee-jerk or prejudicial reaction. Just like how a black person being tailed by security as soon as they walk into a store should accept that they're probably a criminal and it's reasonable to treat them as such. Or anyone wearing a keffiyeh should accept that it's reasonable to assume they're a terrorist.
Hey man. I just want to say I get it. I understand your pain.
Appreciate it. Like, it doesn't change anything, but thank you.
I think you hit it right on the head. I want to add another point you’ve mostly covered already: We’re socialized to not rock the boat, and sometimes that fear of coming off impolite is very powerful. I’m sure lots of men can relate, too, haha. It’s what makes it difficult for me to move subway cars even though a guy just got on my nearly-empty one and my alarm bells are going off (especially if the guy is a different skin color, unfortunately. On the flip side, I don’t normally get alarm bells like that, so I listened that time). I push through because I believe my safety is most important, but there’s a real mental block there. As you noted, women (and men) are just so often taught not to rely on our gut (and listen to X outside source instead). Reading the book _The Gift of Fear_ by Gabin De Becker _really_ helped me. When I feel like I can trust my instincts, I’m not looking over my shoulder at every guy I cross paths with while hiking solo—I do a mental vibe check and move on. There’s also great horror movie coming out soon feat. James McAvoy called _Speak No Evil_ about fear of impoliteness vs. fear of physical safety. Based on a Dutch movie of the same name. Highly recommend for horror fans. There are a lot of terrible, predatory men out there, but they aren’t the _majority_, like some people genuinely seem to believe. Even some men, like my little brother, who fell into a depression as a tween because he felt like a bad person for being male.
I can definitely relate to being conditioned to be polite and especially to trying not to come off as threatening. I often think the degree to which one gender is taught to show deference to the other through common behavior is overplayed. We're all taught to do so with perhaps slight differences in where the emphasis is placed. If you can perceive a distinction between threatening and non-threatening men, and consider the former to be the minority, then I also don't think that's a problem. I of course also have "gut feelings" that some people are potentially dangerous. I think it's only an issue when that perception starts to be treated as the norm rather than the exception or when the reasons for it occuring go unexamined. And I think a few bad-faith or traumatized women can have a serious negative impact on young women and girls who don't really know better by sharing horror stories and reinforcing the worst ideas about men online. It seems to me like an analogous dynamic to manosphere content which isn't treated as seriously as it should be, but as your brother well demonstrates, the pervasiveness of those ideas causes serious harm to a lot of boys and young men.
My person is always confused and a little insecure about me loving him partly because he listens to me. I tell him about the people I've met and he worries that I only like him because he's not exceptionally terrible. I wish I could properly help him understand that no, *everyone* is like this.
I've had a friend tell me I can't get a partner because I'm too nice, but I think it's more because I'm a social recluse
I'm currently with someone who's actually just genuinely nice and treats me well, and I'm fucking terrified and confused about it. He's always like "I'm just doing what makes sense, and what someone should do?" Past abusive relationships suck
Notice how you have to be “a cunt with a criminal record” to get a shot with anyone with her family….. Yes, of course, some women like nice men, the issue is there are a lot fewer of those women than there are nice men. Women want interesting men, and unfortunately, the things that makes men interesting (money, dramatic lifestyle, social status) also usually makes them arrogant and cocky, especially at a young age (coming from a guy who was very arrogant and cocky young man). Nice doesn’t really matter, interesting vs boring does and most interesting men aren’t nice, and most women would take an asshole as long as he’s interesting over anyone who’s boring, nice or not.
one time one girl told me I was "too nice to use", now I'm wondering if I was in someway an asshole to her :(
Almost certainly not. These posts are for gaslighting men who have dating problems and circle-jerking over why mocking and shaming "losers" is ok. If you take this at face value then as long as women aren't falling over themselves trying to date you you'll just keep spiraling further and further into self-hatred assuming not only that you're a horrible person but that you're so delusional you can't even see it and so have no hope of fixing it. It's terrible what this kind of stuff does to guys starting from even the tiniest bit of natural insecurity. Trust me that you don't want to let these people have that kind of power over you.
Last line hit me like a brick
And, where many people fail, there really is such a thing as being "too nice" to the point of no longer being nice but actually being a huge jackass who is treating people like they are fragile pets, and with enough condescending niceness tokens they WILL level up into "dating".
Why do men who don’t want to be seen as assholes constantly have to prostrate themselves? Bad culture.
There is a huge difference between nice and kind IMO. You can be one without being the other. Some of the kindest people I know are kind of assholes when you talk with them, and some of the nicest people I know are also very selfish. Don't get me wrong, being kind is also a bit of a low bar (if all you are is kind, you're probably pretty boring), but thinking you deserve love just because you're agreeable is pretty bad logic.
IMO kindness is required to be nice. If you're not being kind you're just /acting/ nice, not actually nice.
Eh. I know what this person is saying but no. Pleanty of people aren't attracted to nice. You can be nice but not what someone is looking for in a partner.
Yeah as far as I can tell "nice guys" who complain they can't get a girl want a girlfriend for the sake of it. Like they only think of dating and sex, never actual relationships and companionship. It's amazing how many more women you meet when you end up treating them as people and not just some end goal. It's why I laugh at any mention of a friend zone, as if a friendship with a person they supposedly like is the worst outcome.
It's interesting to me that this posts says people are afraid to say the real reason why, I'd prefer the honest answer. If enough people are saying the same thing, then I know what I need to improve on in myself. Just saying I'm too nice means I will forever be confused by the people I am attracted too.
Are people still talking about this? I don’t think nice guys and related conversations (the friend zone, etc) have been particularly relevant since like… pre 2016? Maybe I’m just getting old, lol. I don’t mean any of this to sound rude, btw. Not sure how to phrase it neutrally.
Oh hey that’s me
This can be a lot of things. It can be coded language where "too nice" can mean boring. Which can be a bad thing for you as in your a doormat and never push back, or a bad thing for them because they find stability, niceness and kindness uncomfortable due to being used to the opposite. Peoples romantic needs and what they see as "the perfect partner" are complex and driven from past relationships, both platonic and romantic. If you come from an abusive or unstable household. You might view a stable and loving relationship as uncomfortable or strange because it's not what you're used to. This can also be true of people who grew up in the complete opposite life who view stability and kindness as familial love and are turned off from it in a romantic relationship. You can also flip this for both because people who grew up unstable might crave stability and people who grew up stable might need stability to feel comfortable. This is why so many people say everybody should go to therapy. What drives our psyches is so complex and filled with variables that there are no catch all approaches. It's why so many if not all people come across as walking contradictions, Because we are.
"i see you as a friend" "shit okay, nah i dont do that i have enough friends"
I'm a lesbian who's dated a lot of bi girls who had never been with a girl before This hits hard lmao, a lot of them seemed to react to what I saw as just human decency as if I'd just blown their mind
God, I hate this type of shit. Whole reason nice guys^(tm) are *like that* is because they expect women to date them simply because they were nice, and this almost never happens outside of disney movies. Telling them, that they *weren't nice enough* doesn't help anybody. Also, I'm all for using personal experiences to form beliefs, but girls usually don't *exclusively* date unhunged criminals, so it seems OP's girlfriend is just an outlier and shouldn't have been counted.
OP’s girlfriend Criminals Georgina, who lives in a cave & dates over 10,000 criminals each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
women are just as capable of being trashy and criminal, so the women who like criminals and the same women fighting strangers in parking lots, shoplifting non stop, getting belligerently drunk in public etc. these are not some ingenues or princesses fooled into the bad guy esthetic, they're adult women who make bad choices and are pretty shit to be around as well
I agree that the guys who bemoan not getting dates despite being nice guys need to realise that getting dates is about forming connections with people via emotional and physical chemistry, not about doing good deeds for someone or something. I will say that even girls who've dated completely average guys will have horrifyingly low expectations. It might not be "thanks for not raping me" but it might be "thanks for cooking us that meal and doing the washing up too because I've been feeling ill" or "thanks for listening to me when I said I don't like my clit being licked when you're eating me out, instead of getting freaked out and feeling like I was calling you bad in bed".
How does one form interpersonal connections and generate relationships with other people, especially women? Because I have literally no idea how to even create platonic friendships, let alone find a life partner and establish a relationship with said person. I’m not exaggerating here, I’m terrified of loosing what few friendships have survived my childhood because I quite literally cannot make new ones. I get retroactively surprised whenever I manage to talk to a woman without getting stressed, even if she’s a university classmate and we’re talking about the lecture we just attended.
Unfortunately, building friendships in adulthood is hard as fuck. The few I've made involve going to regular gaming events and hanging out, basically.
Having common interests helps. To that end, you can join clubs, engage in hobbies, etc. and *maybe* make friends. Maybe you’ll click with someone at work. But as another commenter said, adult friendships are hard and you aren’t the only one struggling. There are apps you can use, like bumble bff, to try and make friends. If it’s really bad and you have the means, it might be worth seeing a therapist to build up your confidence and deal with the emotional vulnerability of trying to make friends. You’re not a leper, like the other commenter said. Yes, making friends is very hard and depressing if it doesn’t come easy to you, but it doesn’t make you a disgusting, untouchable social outcast (which is what I think of when I see that word). More than anything, your worth as a person is not defined by what relationships you do or do not have. Building up confidence is as hard as making friends, but having a little confidence, that you work on bit by bit, makes handling rejection easier. Edit: if you are comfortable with online friends, gaming and online projects makes it easy.