http://ladderwiki.com/wiki/Original_Ladder_Theory

Also, another thing I've notices that girls don't want nice guys until they have a kid (at least I've noticed that about friends around me). Instadad is a way I see as also getting burned.

xoxox
MB

Is this a requirement or only icing on the cake? This sounds more like wishful thinking.

>We want someone to protect us, to be the physically and
>emotionally strong one that we can depend on when we're
>overwhelmed or scared. We want someone to be nice to us,
>sure, but at the same time we need to believe that he is
>strong, tough and has the ability to take charge of
>situations when necessary- not be so 'nice' that when push
>comes to shove

Here it is. This is why girls like bad boys. They believe a bad boy will protect them, and a nice guy won't.

culo is a culo

For what it's worth department :

On Sunday, I had finally had it with the evasions, games, lies and constant whining and complaining. My girlfriend had taken a reference work and hid it under a chair and I went nuts looking for it. Then she started in on me on how I have her drive me everywhere, yet when I had a car, she wanted to go everywhere, no matter how tired I was from working 2 jobs and how I always paid for ALL the car maintenance, gas, etc.

Even in the last 2 years, I paid for most of the gas and oil.

So I blew my stack and told her to get her ass into her car, give me my key back and leave my apartment & she wouldn't have to worry about driving me around anymore.

No matter how nice I was, no matter how many times I took her out or to dinner or bought her flowers or told her how I loved her, it was never enough.

According to her, when I or anyone else tells her she's wrong or doing something inappropriate, they/we are an asshole. And she would continually raise her voice or yell no matter how much I would ask her not to do so. She even told off both of my apartment managers once.

She also bitched when I wanted to watch my tv ( which I paid for as well as the cable ) and when I lived with her and worked ( she doesn't ) and paid $ 650 a month in household bills, she bitched that I didn't pay the rent too.

So after knowing her for 32 years and wondering what took me so long to do it, she's out of my life.

She has alienated all of her friends with her screwed up outlook on life and only had me and her friend Judy. Now she is down to one friend.

So that's what happens when you're a ** NICE ** guy.

I have known women who dated bikers and bodybuilders who treated them like dirt and guess who they complained to ?

My birthday is on Wednesday. I'll be 58.

She always expected birthday presents, but said that the woman DESERVES it, but the man doesn't. Where DO women get these fucked up ideas on how a relationship should go and how you treat people ?

It's so quiet & peaceful around here now.

Pity it took me so long to wake up !

- 30 -

Falkie

Now for the longer answer . . . (get your cup of coffee now)

At that point, many are not looking for companionship, but rather a provider for their children (assuming they aren't being provided for by bad boy dad). Many single mom's sacrifice their own future for a job with a good job and can pay the bills (and in some cases will have more children with someone they don't want/love in order to continue taking care of their baby). I've seen several cases of a woman who will meet a man of means to 'take care me/baby'.

Case Example:

I have a buddy who married a single mom. I knew the single mom pretty well because I was her reporting manager at one point in time.
Her History:
She was a young catholic girl from a working class family, rife with chaos, who gets pregnant at 18 (supposedly at HS prom). A shotgun marriage results and she divorced in 3 years. Now, she's working and saving up to continue her education as she wanted to be an MD. She's very smart, extremely pretty and had really good grades while in HS. At the time she's 25 with a 6yo boy when she meets a colleague and friend of mine at a corporate function.
His story
He's was somewhat naive and nerdy. A nice guy on the fast track and intended to take her with him. Shortly thereafter they're married and his career moves them to Phoenix. In the new job, he travels 100% and she's home (in a new town, in a big house, where she knows no one) taking care of the kid. I should say 'kids' because they had 4 more in rapid fashion, being good catholics. Fast forward to today, for the last year he's been off the road and working as a consultant from home. She never went back to school and is playing 40 yo cougartown MILF--in the bars every night with a couple of DUIs under her belt. They sleep in separate bedrooms and won't get divorced.
The little boy for whom all this took place??? (back in LA/drugs/jail)
The other four kids (ages 5-14) are in private school on the tri-delta/TKE trajectory. (It's the reason he stays at home.)

---

In another example that hits real close to home, a female relative (not my mom) was passed around various relatives for financial reasons after death of her father when she was a baby. As she grew up, she competed with other women to 'land a man'. She meets her golden gloves boxer bad boy while in HS and is pregnant/marriage at 18. That marriage lasts 15 months and bears two children. (Well that is if you don't include the other kids the bad boy had with the other woman in this competition. Remember the song, "Papa was a rollin' stone"...)
A few years later, she marries a nice guy who owned his own business, paid for one of the kids and put her and the kid through school. Later the are a 'power' couple hob-nobbing on Detroit's black elite social circuit. He then dies of a stroke and she accumulates the assets of his estate.
In her senior years, she marries another man (a Harvard educated Lutheran minister, no less) and they have a rather tumultuous marriage; in part because he treats her well but speaks down to her. He's white. While I've never thought race was the dominant issue between them, I know he loved her and they were very good companions to one another. At the same time, he still thought less of her because she was single mom and went to an inferior school and was awed by her ability to go from poor ghetto black single mom to hob-nobbing buppie to <teasingly said> white suburban housewife (she passes the paper bag test).

This woman now has Alzheimers disease. While she remembers the bad boy (marriage one) and Mr. Arrogant (marriage three), she has no recollection of the nice guy.

The bad boy is my biological paternal grandfather who died before I was born.
The nice guy is the man I knew as Grandpa.
The 'jerk' in the eyes of many in my family I actually liked as a person. He just had an inflated sense of ego that suppose can come from being "Ivy".

In short, the nicest guy in the bunch paid the bills and he isn't even remembered for pulling her out of her hellhole. I guess that is what brings the point home for me.
**well that and the fact that my Grandma always told me to be a 'nice young man'**

---

There are other risks associated with these behaviors . . .
-The girl who falls for the bad boy who does her physical harm (and she returns).
-The nice guy who snaps after countless rejections.
-The children borne from these dysfunctional (at best) and torturous relationship dynamics (at worst) only to mirror and repeat the same behaviors.

---

I guess the one thing that bothers me most about nice guy syndrome is the underlying thought (I presume mostly by women) that guys who are nice are disingenuous. That is the guy isn't nice, but acting nice. Quite often he's not, but he may not be as entertaining and possibly a bit nervous. IMO girls confuse this nervousness as a lack of confidence and quite often it's about genuine sincerity. The asshole bad boy doesn't display this behavior because he's not being sincere to begin with; it's all an act starting from the pick up line.

---

My behavior is to denounce the rules I was taught as a child (be a nice man because women will appreciate it) and set boundaries. I am genuinely a nice person but I also have to protect myself against being some girl's rejection prop to boost her own self-esteem or another woman's doormat. So I vet potentials strongly and step when they play coy or attempt to deceive. In between, I'll hobby because there is less risk in letting your guard down. A woman may consider this as being bad boy or non-committal but I am unwilling to commit to someone else's chaos and poor behavior. A girl who is willing to search for a mate purely on romantic notions or conversely purely on materialistic behaviors simply isn't worth my time or energy and I do my best to keep them at arms length. (I can't begin to tell you how often women will hit on me after I've adopted such behavior. It's like saying, "By telling you to leave me alone or worse exhibiting fraudulent behavior I'll get more women.") Ironically, I have no interest in them because they're behaving stupidly enough to fall for a guy who tells them to go away. It's sad but true in the most PATHETIC of ways!!!

---

In closing, I'm not sure I fully understand the statement, "women need to be more revealing in their introspection." While honesty is considered the best policy, we live in a world surrounded by images and situations that lie outside of our innocence and IMO romance is rooted in innocence and fantasy.
By that I mean it is . . .
...innocent for a girl to choose the exciting and thrill-seeking bad boy to whisk her away.
...fantasy that she will convert that bad boy to her nice guy (bad to the rest of the world but enveloping to her and her only).
...reality that a woman will use both to subjugate a nice guy, should she desire and have the looks and behavior to pull it off.
...even if it's to their own detriment. :(

I deviated. Back on point . . .

I think quite simply:
Girls can't be revealing because they don't have any idea of what they want.
Women may reveal only when in their best interests. If not, they won't.
Quite often I think there is a conflict between the two (but then again I'm a guy--I'm not supposed to "get it".)

BTW & FWIW, I fully believe guys can/do pull the same shit. It's a human behavior (not necessarily but more often than not associated to gender).

I'd like to hear what you guys think about this, please?

http://www.girlsaskguys.com/Articles/Relationships/Why-Dont-Women-Want-a-Nice-Guy.html

What I find interesting is that guys who think a woman should throw herself at any available nice guy who shows interest, have a long list of traits of what they are looking for in a woman.

She has to be:
Smart
Sexy
Funny
Intelligent
Independent
Charming
And on and on and on...

But women are supposed to JUST want a guy to be nice--she can't desire someone who is ALSO intelligent, funny, charming, interesting, etc, etc.,..

A good example of this double standard is what occurred when I was working at a subway. I dated a gentleman there at the behest of a co-worker who told me he was a nice guy. We went out but the spark was not there. I tried to be cool about it, but as we know, there is simply no gentle way to say "I don't dig you", because no matter how you put it, that is what people hear.

Accepting rejection with dignity and retaining self esteem is another topic for another time.

Anyways, so the guy who set us up asked me how the date went and I told him it was fun but I just wasn't interested.

"See!" he fumed, "That proves it--women just don't want a nice guy!!!!"

It didn't matter that me and this guy had absolutely nothing in common. Not musical tastes, outlooks, jokes, hangouts, clothing choices, likes, dislikes. It didn't matter that trying to get dude to open up was like slow torture, making for the most achingly boring date ever. I mean, I am not asking you to juggle for my amusement but damn, scintillating conversation would be nice.

And chemistry? Deader than Edgar Allen Poe.

But, because I am a girl, I was supposed to overlook all of that cause he was nice...?

I tried to explain, but he wasn't hearing it.

No less than two weeks following the incident, the man is talking with someone at work about a date he himself went on that his Mother had arranged.

"Was she nice?" I asked.

"Yes." he replied...

"Well then, why didn't you marry her on the spot seeing as being nice is the only prerequisite for lasting commitment!"

He turned beet red and tried to talk his way out of it but I had him. He admitted that the girl was attractive, and had a kewl personality but he wasn't into her.

Funny--he can be "not into" a girl, but I had to jump on the first nice guy who came along.

Interesting.

Being choosy about our mates does not mean women don't want a nice guy and truth be told, if you are "nice" with the basic personality of a mop, then it ain't gonna happen, period. No guy wants to sit across the dinner table and talk to some chick who barely says two words all night. Likewise, no woman is going to want to be with someone who has nothing of interest to contribute to a conversation or to their relationship.

Nice is but ONE TRAIT in a list of characteristics that a person looks for in a mate. Simply because a person makes a choice and later finds out that the guy or girl was not a good person does not mean that the individual was not seeking a good person, and this is expressly true if, upon discovering the guy/girl was not a good person, they leave and put themselves back in the dating market.

xoxox
MB

There is nothing that connect them strongly... no shared passion, no subject he is interested in excites her...she listens politely and patiently... yes she is very nice.

Meanwhile her girlfriends act all excited around them as if they are going to be a long term, it becomes suffocating and he feels trapped.
The whole thing scares him.. then one day, he stops returning her call.

Sounds familiar?

I don't think the intent of 'nice guys finish last' proponents is to say that being 'nice' trumps all. Whatever it is that makes for good 'chemistry' is much more complex than 'nice'.

In my personal experience, ditching 'nice' got me more women, and laid a whole lot more than being 'nice'. Ditto several of my friends who made the transition. I had the same type of work, same sense of humor, same looks, same bluntness.

I will say that all things being equal, the bad boy will score much more than the nice guy. There is no way around that.

culo is a culo

The reviews are filled with comments, "She was a nice girl, but I won't repeat."

...............................................
Too much sex is still not enough

Let me start by saying thanks for contributing to this. Here is my feedback to some specifics mentioned in the adjoining article.

This part . . .

>>A good example of this double standard is what occurred when I was working at a subway. I dated a gentleman there at the behest of a co-worker who told me he was a nice guy. We went out but the spark was not there. I tried to be cool about it, but as we know, there is simply no gentle way to say "I don't dig you", because no matter how you put it, that is what people hear.

Accepting rejection with dignity and retaining self esteem is another topic for another time.

Anyways, so the guy who set us up asked me how the date went and I told him it was fun but I just wasn't interested.

"See!" he fumed, "That proves it--women just don't want a nice guy!!!!"

It didn't matter that me and this guy had absolutely nothing in common. Not musical tastes, outlooks, jokes, hangouts, clothing choices, likes, dislikes. It didn't matter that trying to get dude to open up was like slow torture, making for the most achingly boring date ever. I mean, I am not asking you to juggle for my amusement but damn, scintillating conversation would be nice.<<

He is projecting his own low self-esteem onto her. (not to say his experiences reinforce validation of his projection)

FWIW, girls do this all the time. A real life example.

I go over to a friends house for dinner party and at this party I meet a lady and she starts a conversation focusing on her faith and spirituality. My key take-aways from this conversation:
She's a god-fearing women and attends church every Sunday and she seeks a church going guy.
She doesn't do much outside of church and her idea of vacation is going south for a couple of weeks each summer.
She doesn't swim nor does she have a passport.
She loves getting expensive mani-pedicures.
She can't pay her cell phone bill.

From this I gathered that we don't have much in common and she doesn't plan very well.
My thoughts:
-I'm not on the gospel bandwagon. (Recovering Catholic)
-If she didn't go to the nail spa every week to get the all the multi colors and charms (displayed), she might have been able to pay her cell phone bill that month.

At this point, I politely explained that I'm not the strongest embracer of organized religion and walked away. Two minutes later she blocks my path to getting a drink and asks me for a date. I politely declined and said we don't have much in common. Her response was basically that I was too good to date a thick white girl. In summary this was her issue, not mine and I'd have to go down a list quite a ways before I got to her build being the issue (she wasn't even big).

**IMO, her behavior mirrors the guy in the article and highlights said actions as human behavior and NOT gender specific.

---

In this part . . .

>>I admit that I dated some doozies myself. But as I matured and evolved into a young lady, my tastes changed and evolved as well--I developed the ability to figure out what worked, what didn't and what I was looking for.

I also grew a pretty big BS detector and started evading the "assholes" that men assume all women want.

In the end I met and married a sweetheart of a man, a gentleman, who was respectful, sexy, intelligent, fun, funny, witty, silly, cute and brilliant...a true nice guy...

If women just wanted assholes, they wouldn't leave them when they realized who and what they were hanging with.<<

She's grown, learned and been burned and recovered. IOWs she's matured from a girl to a woman. Women want nice guys.
-Girls play games and seek challenges (with youthful innocence/insecurity often combined low self-esteem, but inflated sense of self).
-Girls also need to be entertained to keep from being bored.

---

That said, I agree with much of what you've said MB and I hope you don't think my responses were a knock on your reply because I do think a feminine point of view to this topic (and several others) is required to get any sense of understanding. And let's face it, the one thing we know is that communication between the genders is not optimal. But there is a difference between milquetoast behavior and being a nice guy just like there is a difference in falling for Mr. Bigs and dating Aidan (Sex in the City reference). Certainly this is a fictional analogy, but in our example Carrie loses every time (not that I think Bigs is a true bad boy but I hope you get my point).

arbiez_temp, you should know better than that by now! I adore all of your contributions to redbook. They are consistently well thought-out, articulate, objective and informative. This one is no exception. You've made some excellent points.

You're one of the 'nice guys' that I could never imagine finishing anywhere other than on top. Why is it that you're still single?

xoxo
MB

An investment of time may be worth it. I really don't understand the 'lack of honesty' comment. There are honest and dishonest people in all walks of life. I have found honesty is more like an onion rather than an all or nothing deal. As you come to know someone better, and develop a sense of trust, you reveal more of yourself, and learn more about her/him. And this leads to a deeper level of trust and understanding. Each layer gets peeled back in its time.

This is as it should be. I do not consider this in any way 'dishonest'. Not revealing yourself completely within 20 min is not the same a lying or being dishonest. Getting to know someone means just that. It does not happen in 5 min, 15 min , or even one day. I don't believe people are wired to lay their souls bare to anyone who asks.

The 'honesty' that you bump into in certain venues is an ersatz honesty. Is is not an honesty born of getting to know one another and developing trust and empathy. It is a preemptive, thin, brittle trust that you are forced to accept at face value for your safety and well being. And really only encompasses a single aspect of your life.

I really do not understand the reticence to take the time to get to know someone. It takes time to develop a sense in trust someone. And to me without trust, you can not have any sort of a deeper relationship. Are you friends with a person you do not trust? Would you consider a relationship with someone you do not trust? For me the answer is no. If there is no trust, you are not a part of my life.

culo is a culo