A thought on nice guys

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It just occured to me as to why I tend to annoy people a lot more when I screw up by accident then I ever would be able to annoy them on purpose. You see, if I do something that I KNOW would insult people, then I don't really get hurt by seing them insulted, since thats what I expected anyway. Hence I get over it quite quickly. On the other hand, if I insult people by accident, then I feel extremely hurt about it, so I go on and on and on trying to 'explain myself' in order to correct 'such a silly misunderstanding'. And, whenever I try to do that, people get more and more angry. Could that be why nice guys are worse off than jerks? When you know you are being a jerk you won't be defending yourself nearly as much as you do when you are being a nice guy, and the process of defending yourself is what turns people off?

Meh. It's annoying to have to comfort another person for something that isn't that big a deal. I work with a guy who will go on and on and on and on about how sorry he is that he didn't say hello or hold the door because he was in the middle of this or that thing, meanwhile he makes absolutely no apologies for shunting his actual duties off to whoever will pick up his slack.
I don't think anyone is annoyed that he doesn't hold the door or misses a hello. The neglecting responsibilities thing tends to annoy though. Basically I think it really depends on the "offense".
I tend to explain or apologize for only my most agregious errors, just because I often put my foot in my mouth and I think only the stuff that could be truly hurtful should be apologized for or explained. Also, I think I tend to come across as (and am) the kind of person who would not intentionally hurt others. So over-explaining has gotten me a lot of eye-rolls in the past.
To sum up: if you're not typically a dick, you don't really have to do more than maybe say "that sounds more harsh than I intended" (for example) if you truly overstep accidentally.

Nice guys are going to be more sensitive than jerks, and take things to heart more, when they have made an inadvertent faux pas. I suppose that's one of many reasons why nice guys are worse off, it just isn't the fundamental main reason. I guess it's mainly that jerks are bolder people and go through life more boldly, which people like, and so jerks are appreciated more than nice guys.

Sometimes it's just best to not explain too much. Just say sorry, say it was an accident and not intentional and you never meant to insult/offend. I know when I've been upset, being on the receiving end of an honest, logical Aspie explanation didn't help. Respond to the person's feeling (they're upset), don't resort to logical explanation especially at the time. NTs don't process logical information any better when they're upset than Aspies do.

wow I guess there's only two kinds of people jerks and nice people, jerks win, nice people lose...what a great world we live in

My thoughts on this matter are rather easy. It seems, on average, women like succesful men who have high social status.
High social status, in western society and in most societies, is derived from putting yourself before others in career and social groups.

Those who succeed are called jerks, but are in fact those who are able to assert their dominance.
Those who don't succeed are called nice guys, which is a misnomer but a very good way for them to explain themselves.

They're pretty much the same thing. In an ideal world, there would be no need to be a dick or the ridiculous concept of being better than others.

Thats just a generalzation not all women like jerks or bad boys.

I do think the over-explaining can be annoying, and I used to do that a lot. I've learned since that the excessive explaining (especially for a minor offense) can be more annoying than the offense itself. No need to defend myself against murder when all I did was speeding, so to speak.

yeah. sometimes it's best to just say "sorry", give brief reasoning so the person knows why it happened, then leave it.

Maybe when you explain, justify, defend and argue about why you did it too much, perhaps you doing that negates your apology in their mind?

I know if somebody won't apologise or if they do and then they spend the next 30 minutes explaining and justifying and defending why they did what they did, I basically count that as negating their apology.

Nope. It's a continuum rather than a yin and yang. Rather than the terms jerk/bad boy and nice guy, I prefer terms such as bold and shy. Or confident/assertive, or not as the case may be. Seems to me the terms "bad boy" and "nice guy" are misnomers which evolved as slang because they're quick and easy to say. They're misnomers because most of the time there is probably nothing bad about a "bad boy", more that they are bold, confident and assertive. Similarly, many "nice guys" are said not to be nice - i.e. Nice Guy™ or Nice Guy®.

However, I quoted the terms above only because that's how people sometimes refer to them. Not because I support the use of such terms as they are used by people who prefer nature to nurture, to bash people.

It's not. What I'm saying here is that, in general, women like succesful men with high social status.
That makes sense. They're the ones actually capable of taking care of them and providing for them. They might lack some of the intention, but they have the means.
In today's society, those who want to have those means either have to be born rich, or make choices that make them 'jerks' for some.

It's just as much a misnomer as 'nice' guys, who are usually even more frustrated than me.
'Jerks' are people who made the right choice - the choice to get ahead through conflict rather than half-baked diplomacy, to be confident, and often to attain material wealth.
For those who didn't make those choices, or weren't given those choices, it's much easier to refer to them as jerks, but they'd probably be just as 'bad' if given the choice.

Next time just say "Sorry, I really screwed up, that was out of line" and mean it. Leave it at that, shut up, and give the other person a chance to calm down and|or speak his/her mind. By rambling on and on about how sorry you are, you are essentially cutting off the other person's chance to express him/herself after frustrating the hell out of him/her. Though you mean well, it's not nice, it's annoying and rude. After the person is done talking (pauses more than 5-8 seconds without saying a word but still remains there -- which usually means something in the neighborhood of "what do you have to say for your mean sorry self?"), reiterate your apology one more time and that's it. If the person chooses to remain angry at you and shuns you, at least you will have done the proper thing by apologizing. I could be that the person has other problems in his/her life and needs more time to calm down. Just be patient and give the person time. If it is a friend of yours, just call after a couple of days and ask if he/she's OK, and if the person seems more open invite him/her over to a LAN party or a beer, or whatever you guys like to do together. Doing things together is essentially to mutually express to one another without words that "your presence does not bother me, and it is in fact appreciated".

not all women go for men like that, maybe because most of us don't need anyone to care for us.

since most men are not extremely successful or high status, yet most men marry and/or mate... that would mean that women don't just go for status. the proof is in the pudding.