When a “Nice Guy” Is a Bad Guy

I was sent a link to an article that quoted the following statement from a “Nice Guy”:

“Dear ‘Females:’ I’m fedup.  Done.  Finished.  I always hear stories about girls not being able to trust guys because they cheated, or treated them bad, or hit them.  I always hear stories of girls saying they just don’t want to be with guys because of past relationships.  Say that you’re waiting for a good guy etc.  But why the f*** when you get a good GREAT guy you ignore him.  Call your best friend or some shit like that and when he falls for you, you give him some bullshit about how you’re not ready for a relationship…then two hours later you’re f***ing some asshole who clearly didn’t give a f*** about you before.  Dear females…you constantly wonder where the good guys are.  They’re out there…I’m just letting you know that you’re the ones making us scarce.  Sincerly, Good Guy…or rather New Found Asshole.” (sic)

This made me laugh because I knew a guy who’d break out in precisely this kind of rant, almost word for word. The really scary thing was that, just like the author of this statement, he was a jerk of humongous proportions. He would sit there criticizing everybody’s relationships, sex partners, and personal lives because, in the total absence of a sex life of his own, he was very attentive to the particulars of other people’s romantic histories.

He’d complain so much about his loneliness and tell such pathetic tales of personal misery and abandonment that people would take pity on him and befriend him. The more naive among us never thought that he considered this favor that was done to him as some sort of a promise that sex was imminent.

The guy would be so insistent with his “friendship” that he’d become almost stalkerish. I was much younger and found it easier to agree to meet with him for coffee from time to time than to tell him to stuff it once and for all. Every time, he would start complaining about yet another woman who rejected him in favor of somebody much worse.

“I’m great boyfriend material!” he would exclaim, oblivious to how unattractive the use of the phrase “boyfriend material” made him.

“What makes you think that?” I once asked to put an end to the whining.

The “Nice Guy” was very obviously taken aback.

“Well,” he said, “I can listen.”

“To what?” I asked, stunned.

“Well, to anything a woman might want to say,” he responded irritably.

“That would make you a good therapist,” I responded.

“But why does nobody want to date me?” he asked. “Why?”

“OK, I’ll tell you,” I said. “You reek of desperation, you ask out everybody who has a pulse, you are resentful, self-involved, and pushy. Being around you feels like having a black cloud smother one.”

“Well, you are single,” he said. “Would you like to date me?”

That was when I realized that his promise to listen did not involve actually hearing what a woman said.

A person who is truly interested in improving his or her personal life would not condemn others for not being sexually interested in him or her. It isn’t like people can choose to desire somebody sexually and not to desire somebody else. A mature man or woman who is constantly rejected by people s/he desires will analyze what it is about her or him that precludes people from feeling sexually attracted.

If you need to persuade yourself that the entire female (or male) population of the planet is profoundly messed up, then the only really screwed up person here is you.