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3# Nice Guys vs. Jerks




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This article is from the Romance and Dating FAQ, by Henning Klaskala alt.romance.FAQ@online.de with numerous contributions by others.

3# Nice Guys vs. Jerks


From: shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU (Ken Shirriff)

Q: Why do women go out with jerks instead of "nice guys"?

This is one of the age-old Usenet questions that bores nearly anyone who has
been on the net more than six months.

There are several different meanings of "nice":
Being a friendly, decent human being: generally a good thing.
Being inoffensive, shy, boring, lacking self-confidence: almost always bad.
People labeled "nice guy" usually fall into the last category; people
can be nice without it being the defining facet of their personality.

There are several different meanings of "jerk":
Being an actual jerk: not attractive to most women.
Being self-confident, assertive, outgoing: generally a good thing, but the
nice guy may consider him a jerk.

The nice guy vs. jerk debate thrives on this ambiguity, as well as the false
division of people into nice guys or jerks. Women generally prefer
self-confident guys over shy, boring ones, but this does not mean they prefer
"jerks" over "nice guys".

Men labelled "nice guy" may be submissive about their emotional needs.
They would generally rather avoid an argument rather than let one develop.
They are not loud or aggressive, and generally despise men who are, usually
on the grounds that such men are insensitive and heedless of hurt they do
to others. "Nice guys" face several impediments to relationships: they lose
out in competition to assertive men and they appear to lack self-confidence.
(Andrew Bettison)

The canonical scenario is the woman always tells the nice guy about what a jerk
her boyfriends are, but never goes out with nice guy. The nice guy remains
single and frustrated (also known as LJBF: "let's just be friends").
a) The woman probably doesn't need to discuss her boyfriend when everything is
fine, so the nice guy may form a unjustly negative image of the boyfriend.
b) A barrier to a relationship with the nice guy is "don't sleep with friends".
c) The interesting question in this scenario is why does the nice guy stick
around with this woman who is draining his emotional support when he could
find someone else. Note the symmetry that he is attracted to this "jerk" woman
instead of finding a "nice woman".

Being fun and interesting is the quality that gets you friends.
Being nice is the quality that helps you keep the friends.
Being sexy, flirtatious, and aggressive at the right moment gets you in bed
with the woman you want. (strake)

It is not true that women, in general, prefer assholes.
Women, in general, prefer guys with self-confidence.
Unfortunately, assholes are generally pretty self-confident. (slf)

"Being *nice* is not enough." Okay, fine, you're *nice*.
But you also need to be *interesting*. (Pooh)

Maybe the cause-and-effect are backwards; guys who attract lots of women are
jerks because they don't have to be nice.

Some women say "you're too nice to go out with" as a "polite" way of saying
"I don't want to go out with you".

Clearly some women do go out with jerks (e.g. codependency, women who
want extra excitement, women who want to "rescue" the jerk).
However, lots of women do go out with nice guys; after all, most nice guys
end up in relationships, married, etc. Besides, why would you _want_ to go
out with a woman who is attracted to jerks.

 

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