So called "Nice Guy" Syndrome

[Daddy Bear]

Gucci handbag, lmao. well, i guess i deserved that one. wrong city, tho. i'm near LA. norcal is like a totally different world to me.

[Dating Coach]

This is for monsiuer and a few other guys:

[iamteddybearfeelmecuddle]

listen to diggity he knows stuff.

[Daddy Bear]

i noticed that too, but i damn near died of exhaustion trying to read that last marathon re-post, lol

[iamteddybearfeelmecuddle]

Yes they do tend to get a little long winded no offence meant, but he is a pretty smart guy.

[Hangin10]

I haven't read the entire thread yet, but I'll just add (again, if it has already) that alot of this assumes that a guy wants to me more than friends with every gal he talks to. Actually, some of this assumes that a guy wants anything with someone he talks to. A simple Hi + statement can go a fair way to ward relieving boredom!

[Budman]

Nice guy is a contradiction in and of its self.

 

Anyway, no that's not true. It may be but its not what the term nice guy is.

 

 

 

A nice guy, is the guy the girl goes to complain about her boyfriend to. (I was one)

 

A nice guy is the one who wants to date her, but watches her go out and sleep with other guys and has to pick her back up everytime they leave.

 

A nice guy is the one who will always be there for her will be her "best guy friend". The one she can feel fine with cuddled up to watching a movie.

 

A nice guy is the one she asks, do you think I should date this guy? He's the one that says yes, because he's not bad and he wants the best for her. Even though he secretly knows its him.

 

A nice guy will rip off someones head if they dare speak poorly of his "friend."

 

A nice guy will attend her wedding, the birth of her children, and will be the shoulder the girl cries on when the guy cheats. All along wondering why she doesn't see how great he is.

 

All along the girl will never try to get dates for the nice guy even though years passed...

 

 

 

I will always root for a nice guy,

 

I used to be one

 

Then I became an * * * * * * *

 

and then I became the perfect balance

 

The gentleman.

[CluelessGuy321]

Dood, ur like 21.

 

Let's go grab some beers.

[Budman]

You live in california. How can we grab some beers

 

Don't you?

[ernest stoner]

I have a friend who is dating a "nice guy".He buys her things all the time and tells her what she wants to hear.She told me stuff that really freaked me out .He said to her"My legs are tired because of chasing you in my head" or

staying at her house at all hours without telling her.You can be nice to a girl,but not to the point of obsession.

[iamteddybearfeelmecuddle]

Sounds like your friend's man is creepy.

[Daddy Bear]

"My legs are tired because of chasing you in my head"

hahaha

 

he didn't even get it right, ernest. the actual cheesy cornball line goes, "your legs must be tired, because you've been running through my mind all day."

 

one of the funniest shoot-downs i ever heard was when a guy slid up next to a younger girl at a bar and tried to charm her with, "hey baby, where have you been all my life?"

 

she gave him a look like he had just cut one and fired back, "well, for most of it i wasn't even born yet."

[iamteddybearfeelmecuddle]

hahaha

 

 

one of the funniest shoot-downs i ever heard was when a guy slid up next to a younger girl at a bar and tried to charm her with, "hey baby, where have you been all my life?"

 

she gave him a look like he had just cut one and fired back, "well, for most of it i wasn't even born yet."

 

Good god Bendy, why didn't you tell me that sooner coulda used it last night for sure!

[Fivek]

To monsiuer specifically:

 

I urge you to consider consulting with a local psychiatrist or perhaps joining a self-help group. Please consider reading the link removed, particularly with respect to the term "Codependency." In addition, consider the following information on such self-help programs such as link removed. Ask yourself the questions within the first link and consider the rewards gained through perseverence in treating these mental anxieties.

 

Regards,

 

Fivek

[Riot Nrrrd]

I hate to resurrect a dead thread that clearly got talked into the ground, but having come back to it and finished reading it, I found a posting that really resonated with me and my situation, and wanted to comment on it:

 

A strong woman who is motivated and self confident is not going to fall in love and respect a spineless man who cannot make a stand for himself and what he believes in. She is not going to want a man who holds her up on a pedestal with him far below it. She uses a man like that - whether it be intentionally or unintentionally. You drive your friend places? You buy her things, pay for dinner, listen to her problems, compliment her, hang out with her, etc., right? You back down and avoid arguments or disagreements with her, right? And you ask for nothing in return for all that you do and you get nothing in return, right? You expect her to respect that? Sorry, it doesn't work this way and she is not heartless for it.

On the one hand, I want to say that this is totally right-on, to the point, and expresses perfectly the problem I had in my relationship with my ex-fiancée (I do realize the latter part of this is more in reference to a guy who is a BFF! type with a woman and not in a relationship with her, but it's still apropos).

 

But here's an interesting twist to this situation:

 

I've just finished reading the best book I've ever read about relationships - Steven Carter & Julia Sokol's "He's Scared, She's Scared - Understanding The Hidden Fears Sabotaging Your Relationships". What it is, is a book about Commitmentphobes and Commitmentphobia. It reads like a diary of my relationship - I literally used up an entire yellow highlighter on this book. It is downright scary in places - I'm used to reading books where I go, "Yeah, I can sorta relate" to "Yup, that was true" to "No, this is irrelevant". This book was "Holy crap, how did they get into my head?!?" the whole way through.

 

Anyway. My ex was a textbook case of a pathological Commitmentphobe - horrible relationship history, never married, engaged twice (once to me - we lasted 3 1/2 years, her longest relationship "evar"), and I discovered - much to my surprise - that I have my own issues with (small-"c") commitment - in general, not "relationship commitment". To get back on topic, what this book says about people who are "active runners"/"active avoiders" - Commitmentphobes - is that they always have one foot out the door in their relationships, once the "honeymoon phase" is over. And then it just becomes a matter of time before, finally, the forces of conflict, claustrophobia and feeling trapped take over, and they wait for their partner to make a "fatal mistake" (as other books on breakups call it) that gives them the green light to flee. Which is exactly what my ex did to me.

 

The thing is, the partner will psychically feel this sense of "they always have one foot out the door" - and do anything to try and avoid it, because in the case of a (small-"c") passive commitment conflicted person (that's me), and especially one whose Codependant tendencies get drawn out by this kind of situation, it evokes an extreme case of fear of abandonment.

 

I wondered why I had become the man in DiggityDoug's quote. The man who drove her everywhere. The man who bought her things, paid for dinner, listened to her problems, complimented her, hung out with her. The man who backed down and avoided arguments or disagreements with her. The man who asked for nothing in return for all that I did and who got nothing in return. (I always wanted to tell her, "Relationships are supposed to be give and take. I guess ours was - I gave and you took." Books on relationships always say "To get a totally commited relationship, it requires hard work, compromise, negotiation, and accepting the other person for who they are - faults and all.". She didn't want to do any hard work - or 'work on it' - she refused to give, compromise or negotiate, and her "scorecarding" - "Gaslighting" - at the end proved that she didn't accept me for who I was, either.)

 

I wasn't like that in my previous relationships. My ex and I were together for 17 1/2 years - and we had our fair share of knock-down, drag-out arguments. But that didn't happen with my ex-fiancée. I backed down at every turn, and avoided all confrontation. We both ended up "actors" - being on our "best behavior" all the time, never "getting real". And it all boiled down to her extreme Commitmentphobia, and this feeling that she had one foot out the door all the time. I constantly felt like "I can't say anything, because if I do, I know that she will just go into complete emotional shut-down, and I'll wake up in the morning and find a note saying ``Bye, I can't take it anymore''." I could never figure out why I always felt like that, whenever I felt like I really needed to stand up for myself, and be the person DiggityDoug says we men should be. I completely avoided all conflict with her - even though, as relationship books will tell us, "``No'' has a very important place in every relationship."

 

What I'm trying to say here is that there can be interesting, extenuating circumstances like this, where you behave in exactly the wrong way, and this is why that can happen. I'd like to believe that if I'd just stood up to her, she would've respected me. That's the way we'd like to think it should be, right? But the fact was, I only stood up for my real needs 3 times in the entire relationship - and the last time, after I expressed that need, she walked out on me for good the next day, totally blind-siding me. So much for that theory. I'm not trying to justify my spineless behavior - I've spent the last 8 months trying to re-grow my spine - but I think it's enlightening to see how it can come about.

 

What're your thoughts on this?

 

-------

Epilogue:

 

Re-reading DiggityDoug's quote, and going back to this other excellent quote from PocoDiablo:

Unlike men, who are often rational, logical, and try to "fix" or "figure out" things, women really just trust their feelings. Did you get that? Women trust their feelings, trust their gut, and go with what seems to be the best thing for them. This is a beautiful and intelligent way to handle most aspects of a relationship, and can easily explain why a woman will dump a guy - because it did not "feel" right. And you can bet that if she's feeling something is not working, she's probably right... because that means you're acting in a way that is inconsistent with being a mature, kind, calm, and caring partner.

 

On the other hand, men will do things long after their gut told them something was wrong.

has helped me understand just why my ex-fiancée left me (she won't tell me specifics or give me any closure herself - she refuses to speak to me, in fact). I'd like to thank both DiggityDoug and PocoDiablo for those wise words of wisdom.

 

My ex-fiancée even used some of the same terms PocoDiablo used, as I posted previously in this thread a few months ago: "I don't feel compatible you in a way that makes a commitment possible", "I can't just ignore the Not Right feelings that evolved over time", and "the basic incompatibility". She was going on feelings alone, just as PocoDiablo said. And me? For my part, I did just what PocoDiablo says above - I did things (like sticking around) long after my gut told me something was wrong. In the Carter & Sokol book, it talks about how a truly Commitmentphobic relationship - one between an "active runner" like my ex and a "passive conflicted" type like me - is one of the worst possible relationship combinations. And at the end of their book they talk about what happens when your ex-partner cuts you off completely (as she did to me), and how incredibly devastating that is to the person who is dumped (boy, tell me about it ...) - it says, ultimately

It's a mistake to get caught up in the psychodrama of your ex-partner's new relationship. In our experience, one of the following two patterns is likely to be taking place: Those with active conflicts behave the same way in all their relationships; or they find people with even greater conflicts and so much built-in distance that it never becomes genuinely intimate. Either way, be thankful you got away.

Pretty much says it all, eh? "Either way, be thankful you got away."

 

My ex is back to living near Hollywood, hanging out with "Hollywood (rocker) types", and has a new boyfriend who looks like a former Heroin addict that she picked up at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. (You know the archetype - the sunken eyes, the hollow cheeks, and the guy is 6'3" and looks like he weighs 150 pounds, tops - and this at age 45. When you have no meat on your bones and you're that age, either you've got the world's luckiest metabolism that never slowed down, or you're an ex-Junkie.) They deserve each other.

[bumshkin]

Instead of always reading into the intentions of these guys, wheather they are "nice" or not, maybe evaluating your own intentions will be helpful. If you know what you want, isnt it possible that you will attract that kind of guy into your life. If you are just floating around trying to find a "nice guy"without really knowing what kind of "nice" guy you want, isn't it possible that you will end up meeting an a-hole instead? Nothing is set in stone and these days deception is more common than "niceness"...so develope a solid idea of what you want first, then perhaps it will play out more effectively according to your standards, possibly. But really, who can truly say what will happen.