Nice/Good Guys and attraction later on...

[tiredofvampires]

Count me in among those who are bristling a bit at the semantics and definitions of "nice guy" and "bad boy". I know we have to have words for things, but these are so artificial and oversimplified to me. There are all kinds of visuals and stereotypes that come up for me, around those designations, but these are all superficial, and easily misleading.

 

What most women are looking for -- perhaps I shall limit this to the ones who are attracted to "bad boys" (in the externally typical sense) -- is actually something that runs far deeper than the flamboyance of motorcycles, tattoos and rebellious antics. Women like a man who has a mind of his own, with a kind of fearlessness and bravery to be himself. Women like men who aren't just playing into the daily grind in an unquestioning fashion, but have something of an imagination, and ambition, and an inner spark that animates their life. Women like a man who possesses the desire to live with the spirit of noncomplacency. This is very compelling to women, particularly women who identify with these traits, and have joined the ranks of such. If you are a man who has any of these traits, you are a "bad boy" at heart, in essence. From there, it is just a question of how you "wear" it -- the externals are merely decorative (I'm excluding women who are adrenaline junkies and need the same in a guy to feel alive, that's a whole different order of person and discussion.) Any man, then, with these qualities, can be a "bad boy" in his own way.

 

I think such character and personality qualities are admirable in a person, and worthy of attraction/admiration. The problem is -- and this is where the trouble comes -- there is some irrational expectation in young, inexperienced women that these traits (and the concomittant symbols of appearance) will accompany other fundamentally important traits in a man -- for instance, it is somehow assumed, erroneously, that because a man is fearless about expressing his opinion, that he will honor you being fearless about expressing your opinion as a woman. It is erroneously assumed (I should really say, hoped for) that if such a man is non-conforming, that he will allow you to determine your own level of nonconformity and departure from tradition. Women think that because he may have a sensitive and emotional nature, that this means he will be kind. In fact what actually plays out is that he wants to be fearless, but for a woman to fear him and his lability; he wants not to conform but he has a lot of expectation for how his mate should make him happy, and conform to his standards and needs -- "my way or the highway". And what appears to be an emotionally-driven streak (which women empathize with) ends up with a cold and cruel edge, not kindness.

 

So the pattern starts to emerge visibly to a woman who appreciates the freedom a "bad boy" lives by: she starts to see that his sense of freedom is a glorified selfishness, narcissism and sometimes desire to hurt, even, because of baggage he's carrying in his sidecar.

 

No one can see and identify a pattern until they've experienced it. So for the woman who wants the qualities of freedom and fearlessness and independence in a man, she will often learn that what comes with that is a base aggression, anger, lack of care and selfish egomania. She comes to a a point where it's clear that the outer qualities -- which in fact are good ones -- do not well represent what is inside the man and what his motives.

 

No woman WANTS a jerk to beat her up, call her names, treat her like crap. If a woman is so conditioned by her upbringing, this is all she knows, so then she's in the terrible position of reliving the only thing she knows with jerks. And psychologically, she is probably hoping that a fantasy will play out where wickedness is finally AT LAST corrected, that a nice guy will emerge out of the muck, if she just sticks around and loves enough. This is something all people, men and women, should have sympathy for, as such women need therapy, not others judging them harshly for their choices. In other cases, as I've described, a woman may imagine/dream she's getting a "nice guy" who arrives in this alluringly unconventional package, and so she IS actually looking for a nice guy who will treat her well, hoping that behind this attractive ruggedness is an equally attractive inner fiber.

 

Bottom line, all women want someone who will be both exciting AND nice. If you have both, you are the total package and if you keep giving women a chance, they will eventually give you the chance, even if you don't have the bike and the tats to prove your "bad" mettle.

 

In either case, it is a lucky and brave woman indeed who can learn to release herself from the patterns that have been drawing her in, once she sees them. It's very hard to release yourself from the cycle of abuse; and, it's very hard to release your notion that someone you want so badly to be nice, is really often a wolf in fox's clothing.

 

There is no substitute for LIVING to learn about LIFE. Men learn what is no good for them anymore by living and having relationships. Women learn what is no good for them anymore by living and having relationships. It's a learning curve that's every person's birthright, male or female.

 

And so I can't comprehend why anyone would hold it against the opposite sex that they've done their living and learning. This is the only way people can come to see the nature of what they value clearly, and where best to find it, and where NOT to look for it.

 

I can't imagine a greater compliment than a man going through every lousy experience before coming to me, and then saying he's found the one. If this were a fairy tale, he'd have criss-crossed the land looking for his princess, and tried many a one who turned out to be less than what he was looking for; but then, discovering me, he'd say, "I finally see what it is I should have had before". For whatever reason he was searching as he was, and screwing up as he was, what matters is that I have come out being the one on top -- and it means a whole lot more that I top all my competition he's already encountered, all the girls I am not like, all the ones he formerly sought, and that he now has a really solid basis of comparison.

 

Why would I want to be the first thing someone tried and chose, rather than the one he chose after all the rest were tried and deemed "inferior"?

 

So I think that all women are looking for the man who will treat them well -- who is, inside, a GOOD PERSON -- and this to me is a nice guy. But I'm still looking for the one who is not too tame, a little edgy and outside the box. I've just learned over the years that things aren't all they appear to be. My values haven't changed, nor what I seek -- the way I assess people has.

 

It's too bad some men would hold these lessons against me.

 

As one of my best friends (an ex) says so me, "You need a bad boy, but not an evil boy". That, to me, is the definition of a nice guy and a bad boy put together, so I don't have to choose between the two. It's just very, very hard to find.

[ellandroader]

WOW....that is actually the sort of answer I was looking for. Thanks!

 

I do want you to know though as the OP that I was not particularly interested in the semantics of good guys - bad boys. I just wondered what it was that changed in terms of what women were looking for, maybe out of curiosity and partly to understand why my dating experiences haven't been as fruitful as I hoped (I am 26 so am noticing a different type of girl coming into my life). But I wasn't condemning anyone for having a bad experience and then "changing their minds" or anything like that.

[tiredofvampires]

I understand what you're saying, OP, and the only reason I was mentioning the bad boy/nice guy definitions was because partly they annoy me, lol (since as I'm saying you can be both at the same time, as I see it) and partly because the language is usually parsed on threads like this and becomes a big part of the discussion.

 

When you say you're noticing a "different type of girl" coming into your life, can you elaborate on that?

 

And is this is this a change for the better, or not? (as to the types of girls they are, as well as how you see your luck changing?)

[ellandroader]

I understand what you're saying, OP, and the only reason I was mentioning the bad boy/nice guy definitions was because partly they annoy me, lol (since as I'm saying you can be both at the same time, as I see it) and partly because the language is usually parsed on threads like this and becomes a big part of the discussion.

 

When you say you're noticing a "different type of girl" coming into your life, can you elaborate on that?

 

And is this is this a change for the better, or not? (as to the types of girls they are, as well as how you see your luck changing?)

 

Haha, those who know me well know I have a bit of an edge. It shows in how I do my job, handle confrontation/conflict and so forth. I would consider myself a good/wholesome person with the nous to know when I am being taken for a fool and not afraid to speak up.

 

Different type of girl....certainly a change for the better, yeah. Before, I met a lot of girls who only had a superficial interest in me. As a guy who actually seeks someone to be with in the proper sense, it never worked for me. I don't know if the girls were into me for my looks (one basically said that was the case when she led me on then attacked pretty much the rest of my personality when I wouldnt sleep with her as we weren't together), or the fact I am foreign/different or that I was just a nice type, I don't know. The two things they had in common were that they never knew what they wanted and that they were bad communicators. So I got very disheartened at being constantly led on, and also at the fact that they would just disappear or go cold and not really care.

 

That led to me questioning what I was doing, my intrinsic attributes and the patterns that emerged etc. I have honestly not really changed too much in myself and have always been mature for my age so other than developing with confidence and self-assurance, I am not massively different to how I was five years ago.

 

Nowadays, I seem to attract a more "mature" type of girl (for lack of a better word) who just seem to be into me a lot more, genuinely interested, straight forward and easier to gauge I guess.

 

My original post was geared towards why this has happened!

[servedcold]

My original post was geared towards why this has happened!

 

Am mixed on the PUA community, but you might try googling "inner game," as it is possible that the improvements you have seen come from growth within yourself that makes you expect and demand better treatment from women, and simultaneously imbues your life with more social value to keep them attracted.

 

Really liked TOV's post, and it serves as a good counterpoint to the post I made earlier. Still contend, though, that much of the appeal of what we call bad boys originates in their willingness to engage in "faux-passionate" slap and tickle drama games that younger, immature women seem to love so much, and only to a lesser extent in their single-mindedness, fearlessness, bravery, imagination, ambition, and the other qualities TOV cites. Also meant motorcycles and tattoos to be taken more metaphorically than literally in my post.

 

One of my friends was the archetypical "bad boy" when he was younger, had all the pretty young women (early-mid 20s) at his beck and call. Boisterous in his leather jacket, always embroiled in some chaos with the girlfriend du jour while the rest of us were focusing on other things than making ourselves desirable to young women (though we spent time chasing women too, we had other goals). All the young girls wanted that chaos because it made them feel alive to be with such a hellion. We knew better than to compete with him for a woman, because we would lose, appealing to women was important to us, but was literally his only focus. EDIT: and he had none, not one, of the qualities TOV cites.

 

He had a crappy job and no education because all he wanted was women, and he got what he wanted in spades. He worked hard at getting women, always on the make, calling new prospects constantly, spending all the energy we were spending on other things on women. Used to envy him, we all did, until one night I saw him -crying- out in the parking lot, boohoo crying, over something trivial, with his girlfriend du jour wiping his tears off adoringly. Right then and there, I thought, "No thanks, even if it puts 1000 notches on my bedpost... just no thanks."

[COtuner]

I guess that depends on whether or not we're defining nice guys as literally being nice or just being wusses. If they're truly nice guys, they wouldn't be jerks. Some people are just pretty good at putting on a front. They do what you want them to do and say what you want to hear in the beginning and wait for you to start becoming emotionally invested in the relationship so that you won't leave when they bust out the true colors.

 

Maybe you're tired of the false pretenses that come with a lot of these so-called nice guys.

 

Nope. Suffice it to say psychological issues and disorders were the root cause. They were trying to be nice guys, they believed they were nice guys, they came off as nice guys, but they had so many problems that it turned them into miserable BFs. Drastically insecure leads to insane jealousy. Passive aggressive traits leads to controlling behavior. Need for constant self esteem boosting led to cheating.

 

So there's a dimension to "classifying" that I'm throwing out there which can be a factor either way. This site mentions over and over that psych disorders - whether diagnosed or not, whether named or now - can break up a relationship between anyone. Nice guys (and girls!!) that have issues they are not working on can drive people away too. And I speak from personal experience on both sides of the fence - I've driven people away in the past because of my own issues too.

[yumicecream]

When I was younger, I dated nice guys. I wasn't ready, I simply wasn't- for a long term relationship. Now, I realize that all the nice guys were married very young and I have to choose between the rest.

[COtuner]

When I was younger, I dated nice guys. I wasn't ready, I simply wasn't- for a long term relationship. Now, I realize that all the nice guys were married very young and I have to choose between the rest.

 

Amen to the good guys being married I guess I shouldn't have focused on supporting myself and being independent, and instead followed my college classmates and found a hubby a couple years after graduation. They were being good little wives-to-be while I was out running around the country chasing my dreams....

 

Now I'm the fun and spunky girl that the married guys want to have an affair with when they hit the midlife crisis, but they have someone else at home. (no, I don't accept their invites)

[Nixee]

As I read the rest of the posts and formulated my own thoughts, once again ToV has hit the nail on the head for me.

 

 

Why do we always have to categorize? I look back on my exes... and I honestly don't lump them into the "bad" or "good" piles... sometimes I have tried to, but at the end of the day, they are just people, and they grow and change. What they really were/are is not right for me. I know that what I need is someone nice, yes... someone stable, sure... but not someone completely wimpy...not someone who can't make decisions or who gets walked over. I want balance.

[servedcold]

Why do we always have to categorize? I look back on my exes... and I honestly don't lump them into the "bad" or "good" piles... sometimes I have tried to, but at the end of the day, they are just people, and they grow and change. What they really were/are is not right for me. I know that what I need is someone nice, yes... someone stable, sure... but not someone completely wimpy...not someone who can't make decisions or who gets walked over. I want balance.

 

Agree, and it seems that if thought of as a bell curve, there are few polar examples of what are termed "nice guys" and "bad boys," same with any other gender category, lots and lots of individuals with characteristics of both extremes, but mainly average.

 

So why the tendency to refer to the outlier polar types when talking gender behavior? For one, it's easier on our brains, and two, many of us live in a culture where entertainment informs our worldview to an unhealthy degree. We see the world the way movies and television condition us to, and those media are cram full of character extremes and stereotypes.

[ellandroader]

Agree, and it seems that if thought of as a bell curve, there are few polar examples of what are termed "nice guys" and "bad boys," same with any other gender category, lots and lots of individuals with characteristics of both extremes, but mainly average.

 

So why the tendency to refer to the outlier polar types when talking gender behavior? For one, it's easier on our brains, and two, many of us live in a culture where entertainment informs our worldview to an unhealthy degree. We see the world the way movies and television condition us to, and those media are cram full of character extremes and stereotypes.

 

Very true....life is rarely as black and white as the movies make it out to be. I watch movies sometimes and think "So and so wouldn't/shouldn't tolerate that in real life"

[Ms Darcy]

"So the pattern starts to emerge visibly to a woman who appreciates the freedom a "bad boy" lives by: she starts to see that his sense of freedom is a glorified selfishness, narcissism and sometimes desire to hurt, even, because of baggage he's carrying in his sidecar.

 

No one can see and identify a pattern until they've experienced it. So for the woman who wants the qualities of freedom and fearlessness and independence in a man, she will often learn that what comes with that is a base aggression, anger, lack of care and selfish egomania. She comes to a a point where it's clear that the outer qualities -- which in fact are good ones -- do not well represent what is inside the man and what his motives.

 

No woman WANTS a jerk to beat her up, call her names, treat her like crap. If a woman is so conditioned by her upbringing, this is all she knows, so then she's in the terrible position of reliving the only thing she knows with jerks. And psychologically, she is probably hoping that a fantasy will play out where wickedness is finally AT LAST corrected, that a nice guy will emerge out of the muck, if she just sticks around and loves enough. This is something all people, men and women, should have sympathy for, as such women need therapy, not others judging them harshly for their choices. In other cases, as I've described, a woman may imagine/dream she's getting a "nice guy" who arrives in this alluringly unconventional package, and so she IS actually looking for a nice guy who will treat her well, hoping that behind this attractive ruggedness is an equally attractive inner fiber.

 

Bottom line, all women want someone who will be both exciting AND nice. If you have both, you are the total package and if you keep giving women a chance, they will eventually give you the chance, even if you don't have the bike and the tats to prove your "bad" mettle.

 

In either case, it is a lucky and brave woman indeed who can learn to release herself from the patterns that have been drawing her in, once she sees them. It's very hard to release yourself from the cycle of abuse; and, it's very hard to release your notion that someone you want so badly to be nice, is really often a wolf in fox's clothing.

 

There is no substitute for LIVING to learn about LIFE. Men learn what is no good for them anymore by living and having relationships. Women learn what is no good for them anymore by living and having relationships. It's a learning curve that's every person's birthright, male or female."

 

 

Great observations TOV. I would have to say two things. One, for me my bf is incredibly reliable, steady, and communicative. He wasn't always like this ... Who he is today is the sum of his experiences: divorce, therapy, etc. Nor am I the same person I was five years ago or even one year ago. We have grown to a point where we can meet each other's growth with a smile and a firm handshake. Age and experience shapes the types of behaviors that we find attractive. Now, an emotionally available man is far more attractive to me than an impulsive, exciting one. But my guy has a little bit of an edge - randomly grabbing me for a kiss or telling an unexpected intimate joke. Unexpected play stirs the passions and lots of us women enjoy being kids at heart.

 

Second, I notice that there are lots of guys who call themselves 'nice guys' who get passed over and I have to roll my eyes. Some of these so-called 'nice guys' are absolute passive pushovers, some are picky jerks who only want 'hot' women, some are so socially awkward you can't have a conversation with them, and some have life situations that don't lend themselves to dating (like still living with the parents at age 30 with no job).

 

The socially awkward or painfully shy one is tough, but I'm not attracted to that. That doesn't make me someone only interested in a 'bad boy' or whatever, just someone who's been there in a relationship and realized it's not for me! Self-labelling is an interesting thing.