A great parable about the whole "Nice Guy" thing..

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Not sure I follow you, the way I see it I should be nice to people I care about...not like excessively but I am not going to be 'un-nice' to them just because someone on the internet says its important not to be nice to people you care about which makes no real sense to me. Also considering I am here for the discussion not people complimenting how sweet they might think I am, that would not necessarily give me much different opinion though I cannot very well form an opinion of a person based on one interaction with them.

The issue is the assumption that someone sacrificing their own desires, wants and feelings for others is doing it at the expense of others, I think it would be more at their own expense. Thing is those problems are things that can come with low self esteem, thinking you have to go out of your way for everyone else and such....so essentially these sorts of articles end up translating to 'people with low self esteem are just manipulative losers who have a grudge against the world and will likely go to harrasing, mentally abusive means to get a date.' or whatever which just furthers stigma towards people who don't come off very assertive or confident when they could have a valid reason such as past abuse, or being bullied excessivly and not having the oppurtunity to recover or develop those skills.......why should they be seen as a manipulative 'nice guy' before they even do anything. It seems these article attempt to point to guys who put on a nice act or a low confidence act to get a girl out of pity by sucking them in and then turn around and make them feel guilty so they stay or becoming mentally abusive when you try to cut of ties.........but then it always turns into low confidence in general being an obvious 'warning' sign which is inaccurate since that is not how all insecure people behave.

While what you say is true, you can't expect the outside world to know the difference in origin of the 'niceness'. My mother was a 'nice' person, and she used it to keep me from helping her with her gambling addiction. For some people, being nice becomes a defensive mechanism...like the cat arching its back.

Being nice is used by different people for differing ends. In the case you describe regarding low self esteem/confidence, that state should be seen as transitory in my opinion. It's not psychologically healthy. As one gains self-esteem and confidence, then you can choose when to be nice, and when to let your perfectly valid anger come through. For example, you're walking down the street and you see someone abusing a small kitten. Are you going to be 'nice' and not offend the abuser, or are you going to speak out. It's really that simple. Good people have an ethic, a moral compass that they follow. If someone offends that moral standing, the good person fights back. Often that fight is not nice depending on the circumstance. The 'nice' person, in trying to be nice to everyone, stands for nothing, except perhaps for the act of being nice...which does nothing to stop a moral or ethical atrocity.

One thing my therapist taught me is that anger is okay. Anger is a perfectly valid emotion. It tells you that something in your moral fiber is being violated. And you should respond in an appropriate way. Bottling it up and being 'nice' is not a healthy way to deal with such events.

I think it's quite a bit less healthy to put your own biased morals before anyone else. Why are yours more important? What gives anyone the right to walk all over others? It's that kind of thinking that makes for unnecessary violence.

Well of course I am not going to be nice to someone who's abusing a kitten, dog, any other animal or another person. Of course anger is ok but just because one has trouble expressing it doesn't mean they are out looking for someone to use, to take it out on or whatever.

I'm still working on shoving the stick up my ass. Something's gotta be there in order to grow a spine...

You're presuming you have the unilateral power to impose your morality on another. We don't. What we do have is the power to stand up for those morals and ethics we find important. For example...I like to eat meat. I don't have anything against Vegans or Vegetarians, and have several friends who practice it. I'm not imposing my morality on them, and they are imposing theirs on me. If a potential girlfriend who was a vegetarian would insist on me changing, I wouldn't do it. I'm sticking up for myself and my own morality. I'm not imposing it on another.

You're conflating abusive relationships with healthy self-esteem and confidence. These are not the same.

The problem with that is that yea you will be rigid, but unlike someone with a spine you won't flex. You'll have to walk like a penguin

The guy was better off with the stick up his ass than he was without a spine, at least.

You know you're misquoting me. That's not honest of you. I said "sometimes important". Not all the time or even often. But when there are good reasons.

Do you understand the distinction?

Or can you not imagine any good reason?

No I did not know I was misquoting you, so dishonest how? Also I don't get why it's nessisarily important at all...unless someone close to me does something that should not be reacted to with niceness. However that is not really relevent to the topic which is more about niceness in dating....if you're trying to start a relationship with someone you should probably be nice to them, not over-do it but no ones going to go out with someone who starts criticizing all their flaws on the first date or something.

Do you stand up for yourself, Sweetleaf, in small ways? I don't mean if someone's actively threatening you. But just describe a time when you stood up for something you believed in, when it meant someone you cared about might like you less for it.

Expressing anger in a healthy way does take a deal of time learning how to do it. It took me the better part of 30 years to realize the distinction between being a good person and being a nice person. I'm still working on how to express my anger in a healthy way. The reason I post this, and the posts above, is that I hope it helps the younger crowd become aware of it and start working on that whilst your still young, and not come to the realizations so late in life as I have.

Also, I should note that it's not just about anger, but about sticking up for yourself. When I was younger, if a girl I was interested in liked, say, Country music, I'd sort of fake that I liked it in order not to offend this potential GF...in fact, I loathe Country Music. That's just a simple example. But I always tried to avoid ANY sort of confrontation, no matter how seemingly benign, in order to be 'nice'.

Be nice if that's what one wants to be. Just don't expect being nice to attract girls. You need something else going for you to attract.

And don't exaggerate your niceness to impress a girl.

Yes I have, though a lot of times I don't bring up a lot of things to avoid conflict...since usually that never turns out well in my family so that's what I am used to but yeah I do make an effort to stand up for things I really care about even if it would bother some of them. I won't say it's not difficult but certainly worth the effort.

There are "nice guys" who imagine that they are nice guys because they let others walk all over them. That isn't nice; it's just wussy. Someone who is that kind of "nice" usually isn't even very nice because he's too loaded down with low self-esteem to notice other people's needs and can't effectively help others because his low status leaves him without much to offer. That kind of "nice guy" does indeed finish last. As long as you aren't the main character in your own biography, it's not going to be a very good one.

An actual nice guy, without the quotes, is something else entirely. A real nice guy is nice to himself first. He won't give in to unreasonable demands from others (except when the other signs his paycheck).

There's an example from real life in my sister and brother-in-law. He was pathetically in love with her while she thought of him as a eunuch best friend. One time when she was being utterly unreasonable, as she is with distressing frequency, I took him aside and told him to stop being nice to her when she acted like that. It didn't do her any good, and it made her respect him less. (For those of us who believe in that crap, she was absolutely an Ares female in that regard, pushing in the hope of finding she was pushing on somebody who can't be pushed.) He stopped it. Two months later they were engaged. Unfortunately, over the years he reverted from being a nice guy back to being a "nice guy" with her at least. Now they are both unhappy.

Jerks often do get what they want, as long as what they want is another jerk or somebody helpless and clingy. Narcissists can usually see another narcissist coming, but don't mind them since they figure the probable result of a hot, vanity-gratifying, but shallow 4 months before moving on is a good thing. A narcissist will put up with a clinger because unlimited adoration is gratifying even when the partner's desperation isn't. A narcissist's odds with somebody with healthy self-esteem aren't as good. If the healthy person figures out the narcissist early enough, it won't happen at all.

A guy who actually is a nice guy does a lot better than a "nice guy." Take it from somebody who leaned that the hard way.

Now about the stick up the butt. That indeed is an improvement over being a wimp. However, it also makes it hard to be nice when being nice is the right thing to do. That's why you eventually have to take the stick out if you go about it that way. Been there done that too. There was a time when I was feeling lower than bugs, and I finally decided that if the world voted against me 5 billion to one, my vote was the only one that counted. I didn't have a problem with treating people as objects to be used. Then I fell in love and had to take the stick out. Unfortunately, when my princess departed I turned back into a frog. Rinse and repeat I guess.