Comment on learsshadow

[aethelfrith]

This was originally a comment I was going to make on one of learsshadow's posts, but as it became longer than the post it was commenting on, I though it would be more appropriate to put it elsewhere. Learsshadow, in one brief paragraph in a rather helter-skelter post, mentioned his superhuman ability to befriend women, and inability to date them

Comments

[clevrcheshrecat]

strangely enough, i do believe that i'm dating someone who would be considered a "nice guy". note: we were friends before we started going out, for almost a year actually. crazy concept, i know. but there's hope for you and kyle, fear not. i think you're just having fun blaming girls fo everything :P

[aethelfrith]

And the reason only the jerks are left after a certain age is that the girls who wisen up the quickest snap them up. Men who are still single after a certain age are, most likely, either scoundrels or gentlemen who are tired of being ignored and become scoundrels.

People respond to incentives. There seems to be an incentive, created by women, for men to be jerks.

[aethelfrith]

So since scoundrels treat you like dirt, you don't feel guilty about doing the same to them? Good to know that love brings out the best in all of us.

I actually make an exception for you, since you don't pretend to be looking for a nice guy, and I've made it quite clear to you, and you seem to understand, that should you suddenly change your mind in twenty years, I'll have little sympathy for your problems. (Should you change your mind in the next two, however, things would be different...)

[aethelfrith]

Your "pedestal" statement is interesting, and actually works both ways. I frankly can't decide what irritates me more, that girls are going for the barbarians, or that they go for the barbarians WHILE IDOLIZING PRINCE CHARMING AND HIS ILK! Basically, I can't decide if the stupidity or the hypocrisy is more infuriating.

[mukowz]

I think, in my vast wide and all-encompassing knowledge of the female mind, that girls are more looking for the spark of attraction, the chemistry, the confidence that shoots back and forth between eyes, rather than just a list of "nice guy" qualities. That only comes when there is someone real to spark with. Men who are the image of Nice Guy are just that--an image. Images cannot banter with the energy of attraction; they are too much removed from gut reactions, too much repressed and calculated in their actions. In the end, it's not so much about actions, but about integrity--not in the sense of honor code, but in the sense of being on the outside who you are on the inside

[oceanschild]

actually, i'd have to pin it as spot-on and well-articulated. sorry to disappoint. :P

[aethelfrith]

Note that I do not argue with the main thrust of his statement, as it makes sense. It just fails to explain the phenomenon in question. Assuming he is correct, and that only the "spark" is relavent, and it is related to how true one is to oneself, he still fails to offer any support whatsoever to the statement that the bad boys are more true to themselves than gentlemen, and completely falls apart when dealing with gentlemen who are most certainly true to themselves.

Now, if girls work under the assumption that a man who behaves in an honest and upstanding fashion is faking it and has something to hide, than that could perhaps explain the effect I'm talking about.

[aethelfrith]

I'd also like to point out that, while mukowz states that, "A man who is a checklist of good qualities is perfect in writing, but after a few months of relationship and the walls are starting to fall down, what is he like on the inside, who is he really?" my data seems to indicate that when the aforesaid walls start falling, the nice guys seem to win. If anything, my data indicates that what's behind the walls is a "nice guy's" biggest attraction, and a bad boy's greatest weakness.

[rocket_summer]

So a lot of people replied to this in eloquent paragraphs, but I won't be one of them

[aethelfrith]

This makes quite a lot of sense, as well as containing practical advice. Thanks!

Oh, and I've never thought of "nice" and "shy" as being synonymous. I hope that wasn't implied anywhere.