So I know that this has been all over various feminist blogs and it's been said better before, but I just really wanted to vent my frustration over the Nice Guy Thing.
Whether you know it or not, you know about the Nice Guy Thing. You've heard a guy talk about the female friend that he has "feelings" for (for the Nice Guy, these feelings are more related to a stirring in the pants than any emotion), and how she doesn't know he exists, and she's always dating these assholes, and when will she realize that he's perfect for her?!
Generally speaking, when I talk about a Nice Guy, I'm talking about those guys who hover around girls they want, who aren't sexually or romantically attracted to them. They act like nice guys (notice the lack of caps), and do things for these girls until the girl notices how Nice they are and decides to date or fuck them. They will either never make their intentions clear to the women they are trying to get (again, that wording is significant and intentional) or when they do and are rebuffed, they whine or they rage.
You've most likely been in a conversation with a Nice Guy. He talks about the object of his "affection" and all the things he does for her. He considers himself faultless as a friend, and he is just waiting for her to come to her senses. He never tells her that he has romantic intentions for her or that he's only around so he can try and get his chance to fuck her. There's a sense of entitlement that the Nice Guy isn't aware of. But he feels it. He feels that because he TREATS her nicely, he DESERVES whatever he wants from her. There's no consideration for what she may or may not desire as a person with her own rights to her body and to her feelings. He did A, so her only reasonable reaction is B. It has pretty much nothing to do with wanting a girlfriend because he's lonely, or because he has genuine feelings for her. He wants either a status symbol, a guaranteed fuck whenever he feels like it, or simple possession.
I think it's probably pretty obvious at this point, but I do not think these guys are really all that nice. They're self absorbed and misogynist, and they assume that women only exist to date men, whether that men is them or the asshole they can compare themselves to to look even Nicer.
Until you understand the rights that a person has to their own body and their own life, you don't have feelings for them, you have feelings about them, and you don't deserve a place in anyone's life.
It's not a hard and fast rule - there are a lot of nice guys out there who are just genuine friends, whether they want something romantic as well or not. As well, there are women who recognize that they can lead these men on and use them as their emotional dumping grounds whenever their asshole boyfriends yank them around. For personal experience though, I've known one or two "Nice Guys" that I have simply been fooled into thinking they're being good friends. I was oblivious to my "leading them on," and it hurt when their true intentions were revealed. There're a lot of determining factors, and I can't deny that they were probably just scared to come out with it, but no object of affection should ever have to deal with a backlash because they were completely innocent of another's advances.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are The Nice Guys and there are guys who are nice (that is, who do nice things because they like seeing other people happy, not for self-serving shitty manipulative reasons). They are different. My point is that The Nice Guy is actually an asshole, and if he's getting "led on" by a girl who's also being a self-serving manipulative shit, well then they pretty much deserve each other.
ReplyDeleteYour personal experience is exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about The Nice Guy. He assumes that because he's been Nice to you emotionally you should be reciprocating by fucking him. There's a difference between a Nice Guy and a guy who is nice and also has feelings for a female friend but is too shy to tell her about them, or doesn't want to lose the friendship if the feelings aren't returned.
I don't think those guys are dicks. Because they are, for even a half a second, thinking about something other than themselves. They have reasons for not revealing how they feel that relate to, you know, other people's comfort and happiness, or general decency. The Nice Guy figures that Niceness in itself should be a sign on his intention to get in your pants. That also means he doesn't think it's worth being Nice to you if he doesn't want to fuck you. To The Nice Guy, women are fuckable or they are nothing.