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mygif

Remember the good old days when being a nice guy just meant that you where a nice person instead of a loser with no social skills that pretends to be nice in order to have sex. Oh wel…

Nice post though.

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Jason Barnett said on January 20th, 2012 at 6:30 pm

boy, there’s being to much read into that joke there.

“Let’s Just Be Friends”, in ironic quotemarks so that we all understand that it’s obviously BS.

Why are they ironic quotes? It’s seems to me it’s repeating something that been said to this person repeatedly so it’s a direct quote.

“… tell you what a wonderful light bulb you have, and how any woman would die to have such a light bulb.

…and it’s about here that “light bulb” formally becomes a euphemism for “penis”. ”

Light bulb is clearly a euphamism for guy throughout. “what a wonderful light bulb you have” = “what a wonderful guy you are. After all, if said “nice guy” is just a friend with the woman in this joke then how would she have any info on penis size?

“Because of course, the proper emotional response to a friend who’s trapped in an abusive relationship is a sense of irritation that they aren’t giving you sex! That’s how you know that you’re their friend, because your first thought when they’re in trouble is about yourself and how their problems inconvenience you.”

considering the fact that the joke includes her throwing away the relationship she’s in, why would someone, especially an emotionally stunted someone as we’re figuring these “nice guys” are, assume she’s trapped?

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FeepingCreature said on January 20th, 2012 at 6:37 pm

You know, I almost entirely agree with this post, but I still have to bring something up.

In the anime Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, there is a sequence where one character states that friends should not have secrets from each other, and everyone basically agrees. I’m not sure this qualifies as a spoiler – if you’ve seen the first four episodes of the anime, you can predict how this will go – but it eventually turns out that, surprise, they had secret and so that character starts murdering people out of sheer paranoia.

It is established later on that yes, of course, friends can have secrets from each other because while that saying sounded good, it was blatant nonsense.

To bring this rambling detour to a point, I feel the same about this sequence.

if you only provided them with emotional support to get some sex out of them, you’re really not much of a friend, are you? I do nice things for my friends because I like them, not because I’m banking up favors for later

I fundamentally agree with that as well, but I feel it underplays the fact that friendships are necessarily based on reciprocity; and while some people remain loyal to others despite the fact that they are no longer capable of responding in kind, or even acknowledging that sacrifice, this is a massive exception and the standard is that friendships that lose reciprocity quickly deteriorate.

Friendship in exchange for sex sounds bad, and is somewhat iffy, but it’s not hugely different from the way that relationships actually work. Certainly there’s no obligation here, but it’s not completely crazy to propose this type of situation either.

Just my ¢2.

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mygif

@FreepingCreature: Yes, which is why he says several times that if your friend won’t listen to you at 3 AM in the morning like you do for them, then you have a problem. He addresses your concern about reciprocity.

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mygif

As the person that actually made the LightBulb reply (I didn’t write it), I’m amused by this.

There’s all kinds of people. Some (not all) think that “If I’m a nice guy her, I deserve her.” And there are women that will take a person like that and use them for as long as they can.

Conversely, there are guys that really ARE just being nice. And women that give them a chance, or not let puppies follow them.

But the ONLY absolute rule about this is that there are no absolutes.

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mygif

I don’t like talking about my relationship history online because it just encourages the worst sort of Nice Guy. I am convinced that Nice Guys are effectively cross-gender sociopaths and nothing will ever get them to change. They’ll just continue their nefarious planning and cargo-cult feigned concern, and keep wondering why neither ever get them laid, never understanding that determining their interactions with women in terms of what will get them laid is the entire problem.

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mygif

I’ve been on the receiving end of Nice Guyism (Being a guy, but also gay), and I can assure other guys that it is creepy as hell.

Someone I know and like as a friend, who I like chatting with, and do the whole “here are my problems” “Let me help with yours” exchange thing shows up on my doorstep in full “We are soulmates and in love and obviously this is how you feel too because you talk to me” mode, and…

Wow. Creepy as fuck. Don’t be that guy. Don’t ever be that guy. If you’re going to woo a woman, -woo- her. Don’t pretend to be a friend so she’ll think “Oh, how nice you are” and expect her panties to fall off as a result. Seduce or get off the pot. Otherwise, you’re doing the relationship equivalent of watching her through a window while breathing heavily.

And I assure you, from experience, if you’ve been acting like a friend and suddenly go full “I LOVE YOU!”, she’s going to feel like you were lying to her the whole time and want to just get away from the suddenly creepy stalker-tastic subtext then rip open your jeans then and there in gratefulness.

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mygif

“Again, do women ever really do this? Ever?”

Actually, I once went through something fairly similar to this, right down to thinking this was a fairly selfish way to use up someone’s time, but going along with it because of my secret unstated desires.

Of course, we were both fifteen. Later on, I grew the fuck up.

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mygif

Is there really a band called Rasputina?

*YOUTUBE*

…well, okay.

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Cookie McCool said on January 21st, 2012 at 9:39 am

I used to date this nice guy whom I would tease mercilessly about being such a nice guy. Eventually he dumped me because I was a dick. Oh well.

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ladypeyton said on January 21st, 2012 at 9:44 am

Thank you, John Seavey. I have been involved in nerd culture (comics, gaming, scifi, fantasy, SCA) for over 35 years and it was extremely difficult to be female in said culture when I started. Sadly, and out of touch with the rest of the world, it didn’t get any better as the decades progressed. Which is surprising, considering how much the percentage of women surrounding me has skyrocketed lately, especially in the comic book segments of nerd culture.

So you have no idea how much it helps to read blog entries like MGK’s and yours and know that some guys actually get it.

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mygif

This is just perfect. It’s pithy, succinct and cuts through the B/S.

I also have my doubts about all women calling up a nice guy at 3:00 in the morning. I’m a woman, and I can tell you that we might…MIGHT do that with a GIRL friend, if we are sufficiently close. Maybe. But every night for 3 months to a guy?

No.

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ralphdibny said on January 21st, 2012 at 10:53 am

The logic behind the Nice Guy rants seems to be this: Women are supposed to find a boyfriend that fulfills all of their needs. All of them. But this example woman has divided her needs between two men. The boyfriend supplies the physical, while the Nice Guy provides the emotional support. According to Nice Guy logic, boyfriend is never gonna be able or willing to provide emotional support, but Nice Guy could provide the sex stuff, so why won’t she just buy all her groceries at one store instead of driving all around town?

As a recovering Nice Guy, I recognize the narcissism underlying this logic, the certainty that I can fulfill all of a girlfriend’s needs, so why does she want to go out with her girl friends instead of me tonight? Why won’t she tell me what she is thinking, even though I ask her all the time? Bitch.

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Heksefatter said on January 21st, 2012 at 4:03 pm

I found the light bulb metaphor hugely amusing until I understood that someone had actually written that stuff.

Now I shuddering and stepping back from the internet. It’s just to creepy for me.

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mygif

My best friend, who is female (I’m not) has indeed called me up in the dead of night for help. But it’s for things like a dead car, please can I bring jumper cables, not just to trash (and I’ve had family members make the same request).
And there’s never been any question she’d do the same for me if I needed it(and she has).

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mygif

Am I the only one who was thinking of those weird twisty CFL bulbs? What a horrific penis metaphor those make.

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mygif

In my many decades on this planet I have found that “Nice Guys” and “Uninterested-Yet-Happily-Exploitative Women” always find each other. Always.

If you don’t want to be stepped on stop acting like a rug, “Nice Guys”.

You too, “Nice Girls”.

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mygif

So as good as this article is I looked up Rasputina and they’re completely terrible. I did the math and everything. Unfortunate!

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mygif

Alas, the fucking godawful “light bulb” gibberish made it really hard to give a crap about whatever insightful points may have been made.
Also, does it really need to be said, yet again, that men who play the “Nice Guy” card are lacking in emotional maturity? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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mygif

@Scott: Look up a couple of comments to Beachfox, Sallyp, and LadyPeyton. Their lived experience says yes, we do. The comments to the previous post indicate yes, we do.

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mygif

…Getting flashbacks to the ending of the “Kick-Ass” comic.

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mygif

Heksefatter:

I found the light bulb metaphor hugely amusing until I understood that someone had actually written that stuff.

Uh, where did you think stuff on the internet comes from?

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Black Rabbit said on January 22nd, 2012 at 8:23 pm

“The whole idea that a man and a woman can somehow have interactions between each other that don’t lead to sex is absurd on the face of it; relationships between members of the opposite sex can only have two phases. Courtship, and screwing.”

Is this serious? Am I not detecting the tongue-in-cheek? If you are serious…this is one of the stupidest, most ignorant comments I’ve ever seen on this site.

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Black Rabbit said on January 22nd, 2012 at 8:30 pm

Okay, upon rereading, I retract my previous statement, as I can see the satirical voice now. Sorry, got a little hot under the collar there.

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mygif

Friendship, real friendship, is based on different things than sexual attraction. Nothing drives me crazier than this idea that guys chase after women who are interested in comic books, video games, etc because they believe that the path to romantic fulfillment is based on shared interests.

It is not.

My wife and I like a few things in common. Quentin Tarantino, Community and Boardwalk Empire for example. But she’s not going to sit down with me and watch Liar Game, and I will tolerate something called Bad Girls Club being on in our bedroom while we’re in bed together because I like having her body close to mine. This is the basis for 13 years of successful marriage.

Now, I actually can’t imagine being in a non-romantic relationship with her, it’s been so long since I was single. I imagine if she were no longer with me it would be like losing a limb or having a stroke. However, if I were to honestly rank whether I prefer to discuss video games with my brother or listen to her cutely babble on about the latest Judge Mathis, I think that’s an easy choice. However, I respect my wife and I know that my pointless conversations about video games are not really better than her pointless conversations about reality TV. We just aren’t mental clones of each other. (By the way, I’m not trying to imply here that she’s dumb or anything like that. Lots of people like Judge Mathis. Did you know he’s been on the air since 1999? It’s a true fact! For more information about Judge Mathis consult your local Internet.)

Now, I have platonic female friends who like similar things to me. Early in the marriage she would make snide comments about them, and she was genuinely worried that we were more than friends. Nowadays she grudgingly tolerates them. It helps that they’ve moved far away from me so I don’t see them in person anymore.

My point? If a guy asks a girl out on a date, and she rejects him, there may not be a basis for a real friendship after that. It might not be a good idea for either party to pursue friendship, and we shouldn’t judge them if they decide to go their seperate ways.

It’s better than inventing a sham relationship in the hopes that she’ll “Choo Choo Choose You.”

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mygif

Anyone else getting the impression that “corrugated cardboard tube” is code for “Fleshlight?”

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MonkeyWithTypewriter said on January 23rd, 2012 at 10:30 am

I have had some platonic female friends,and I’ve NEVER yet figured out what “the real signs of “I am interested in you” ARE. NEVER. Ah well.

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mygif

This one comes up time and time again, in every one of these Nice Guy rants. Again, do women ever really do this? Ever?

In fairness to the Nice Guys (TM), I was on the receiving end of this kind of thing once, so they’re not hallucinating. A lot of details were different in ways that completely changed the meaning of things, but, fair enough, such unhealthy relationship dynamics do exist and aren’t completely fabricated by crazy misogynists. Here are some of the differences between my situation and the joke:

1. It wasn’t nightly for three months, certainly never after midnight. It was during the day or maybe in the evenings, in person more often than not, probably twice a week or less. It was well within the range of normal conversations between friends, if you’ll forgive the pedantic way of phrasing that.

2. The talks were rarely about her “current light bulb” and how she’s arguing just a bit too much with it. Much more often they were about her family, which wasn’t merely unsatisfying but downright abusive.

3. I’m 90 percent sure that until I was really up-front about my attraction to her, she was genuinely oblivious to it, and that after I finally came clean about it, she did her best not to lead me on while otherwise still being friends. Despite all the other problems, I think she handled that as well as she could.

4. I wasn’t in a position to have any “crucial business meeting” at the time, because we were in high school. Young, stupid, and lacking in experience and perspective. There are a ton of things I should have done differently during that period that I didn’t just because I didn’t know any better.

To summarize: if the details really are as bad as in the joke, well, that’s a problem all by itself. To treat Nice Guys (TM) like seem to think they’re the victims of, a woman would have to have very big psychological issues indeed, such that she has much bigger problems in her life than blue balls or whatever. And it takes only a minimal amount of maturity and self-awareness to avoid or fix this situation. So, OK, yes, such relationships do exist. Nice Guys (TM) can have a cookie. But what that actually means is nothing like what Nice Guys (TM) think it means.

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mygif

I have had some platonic female friends,and I’ve NEVER yet figured out what “the real signs of “I am interested in you” ARE. NEVER. Ah well.

In no particular order, just some signs I’ve noticed:

* Invitations to do things together just the two of you rather than with a group.

* Compliments that seem to be unusually personal, heartfelt, or based on attraction of some kind.

* Being more touchy-feely physically.

Obviously, that’s not very helpful. Some people are more huggy than others, it’s hard to quantify “heartfelt”, etc. There are gray areas. Sorry that there’s no really easy answer. If you know a person well enough for this to matter, then hopefully you’ll know them well enough to know where to draw the lines in those gray areas for them. Maybe a lack of signs means that you’re not noticing them, but most likely though, it means that she’s not interested. Sorry.

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MonkeyWithTypewriter said on January 23rd, 2012 at 12:34 pm

OO CYRUS YOU’RE SO HELPFUL I LOVE YOU LET’S DATE.

Kidding, kidding, trying to be funny. I’ll probably never figure them out. A bit of bitterness from guys about women (and vice versa) is understandable, but you should try to get over it. Marinating in it and using it to shape your view of the opposite sex is not.

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mygif

I think part of the problem is that for many (if not most) guys, there is no such thing as the “friend zone.”
A man can have a platonic best (or just) friends relationship with a woman for years, and if she suddenly confesses feelings or sexual designs on him, he’ll totally go for it (before you jump on this point, I’ll be clear; I am aware that that never happens).
See, because Nice Guys(TM) don’t really have empathy they cannot get around this. Because if the friend zone doesn’t exist for them, how can it exist at all?
Most guys learn to recognize “the friend zone” and avoid it (or simply never get near it by making their intentions clear IMMEDIATELY) with women they are attracted to, where as Nice Guys(TM) cannot develop this skill due to their….whatever-the-hell-you-would-call-their-problem.

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mygif

if you’ve been acting like a friend and suddenly go full “I LOVE YOU!”

I think that’s where some of the problem originates – it’s easy to learn how to be friends, and it’s easy to learn how to be in love, because by and large most people handle each of these things similarly. Learning how to solicit romantic interest is insanely difficult by comparison; small wonder some people never bother.

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mygif

I have had some platonic female friends,and I’ve NEVER yet figured out what “the real signs of “I am interested in you” ARE. NEVER. Ah well.

There’s no mystery. I assume your female friends speak English. A simple, “Hey, would you be interested in going out on a date sometime to see if our friendship could work on a different level?” should suffice.

If they are truly your friend but they are not interested they will decline, no harm, no foul. If they get all weird after your question then they were never really your friend and you are better off knowing that now.

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mygif

Why is this a post John Seavey? There is a perfectly usable Leave a Reply box down here. Why not try it out next time instead of creating yet another post to rip into someone?

If you’re concerned that we might not pay attention to your very important 1,892 word reply, try typing in all caps. I’ve heard that helps.

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MonkeyWithTypewriter said on January 25th, 2012 at 8:15 am

No no, I meant by observing them. I’m not interested in my platonic friends in that way.

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mygif

@peyton: Yes to this. Very yes! If you have a good friend, they will be nice to you even if they don’t feel the same way.

If they are mean to you, they are not a good friend and you should not use this to shape your worldview of all women.

Logic!

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Frodo Baggins said on March 11th, 2012 at 6:51 pm

Agreed with most of this, but those quotes aren’t ironic, and lightbulb means dude in general, not penis.

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