The Confession of a Former Nice Guy

by Anon E. Mus :)

I hardly recognize myself, which is why I am writing this. Through high school and up to my mid-20s I used to be caring and considerate towards women. I had a lot of women friends and generally got along well with them. My romantic life was nothing to write home about and while I was never afraid to put myself out there, I normally (which is to say nearly always) got rejected when I did. It never stopped me from trying because I figured that if you don’t play the game then you have no chance of winning and you only need to win big once to make it all worthwhile.

As time went by and failures piled up I did start wondering why I did not do as well on the romantic front as I did at work, studies and other things. I had loved without being loved back in return several times. I also had developed crushes on a few of my female friends, though I told them about it pretty soon after such feelings developed. Sometimes the friendship survived, other times it didn’t.

Then I met the woman of my dreams, or at least that is what I thought. She said she loved me. I believed her and reciprocated because that is how I truly felt. She told me about all her previous bad experiences. I reached the conclusion that she must be tired of being with jerks and wanted to be with someone who treats her like an angel. She eventually proposed marriage. I agreed. All my fears of commitment were overridden. I felt she loved me.

And then she changed from a loving, warm, communicative, human being, into this icy, aloof, petty, vindictive monster. At first I didn’t believe it. And my response was to give her what she wanted. I made the mistake of thinking that my love was part of the solution. It wasn’t. After weeks of standoffish behavior I got a text message from her that said it is over. I called her, I emailed her, we communicated, I told her that if she needed space she should have asked. I didn’t actually think that she had left. For the next six months I was in a place where I wouldn’t wish anyone; not even her. The coup de grace came at the end of this period. I learned that she had fallen in love with a total jerk, like the ones she used to be with before. I tried to warn her about him. She naturally dismissed it as jealously. And when he broke her heart I was there to comfort her, though again, we ended up fighting.

Her reason for leaving me was that I was too kind, too generous, too loving – too “nice”. I always put her emotional, sexual, social needs first. I was too well set in a career, too good at what I did, too intelligent and knowledgeable. I made her feel small, unworthy, guilty and bored. At first she was attracted to my successful exterior and I guess she fell for that. It did not matter that she had been the one raising the ante, pushing me to give her more. And I gave. I had never felt loved and the way she made me feel was simply unbelievable. And though I had better sex with girls before (and after) her, I knew that the joy I got from bringing her pleasure was in a separate league.

Now, I don’t buy the general theories about nice guy syndrome or about jerks getting all the girls. I know enough examples of nice guys ending up with lovely women, and jerks getting exactly what they deserve to make such sweeping judgments seem deeply flawed. There seems to be an entire industry that seeks to project nice guys as passive-aggressive latent-homosexuals who operate women through guilt; and women who choose jerks as being driven by some inherent genetic defects compounded by social conditioning.

What I have observed is that there are a lot of damaged people out there. There are a lot of guys and girls who’ve been through excessive rejection, loneliness, depression, and heartbreak. A great many also have strained relations with their parents or with their parent of the opposite sex. All of this translates into low self esteem, a desire to act out against the opposite sex and sheer confusion. They want to blame someone for their pain and most don’t understand why they feel that way in the first place. Many of them genuinely cannot stand a good thing, because, good relationships are more or less stable, and stability is boring. Society puts so much pressure to either be in a relationship or be playing the game that teenagers and young adults in their early to mid-twenties hardly pause between relationships to take a look at themselves. Rather than accumulating experience they are accumulating damage.

After my extended torture session with my not-so-super-ex-girlfriend I did come to perceive certain truths about myself and romantic relationships. I realized, as you say, that the only thing common to my failed relationships was ME. The women I dated were a diverse bunch though they did share certain broad similarities in terms of outlook. They were not wrong. Certainly, all of them could not be wrong. I must be responsible.

I realized that I lowered my defenses too quickly. That I gave them what they asked for without asking for anything in return. I just loved being with them. Their company was more than enough for me. It never occurred to me that maybe if I stopped trying to please them all the time they might still want to stick around. The more I cared for a woman the more I showed it. The result is that I ended up feeling lonely, heartbroken, depressed and worthless, not because women were evil but because I was stupid and didn’t appreciate the complexities involved.

It has taken me two years to implement the changes that flowed from this realization. I stopped being so nice. I didn’t reply to messages/emails/calls. I cut down on gifts and expensive dinners and instead offered home theater and popcorn. I kept up the confident tough guy routine – showed off my stuff more, became less understated. I treated the women I was with arbitrarily. I got angry towards them when I felt so and didn’t care if my anger hurt their feelings. I kept falling into and out of relationships like I didn’t care (or not that much). I stopped caring for what they thought about me and ignored the unsolicited advice women are fond of giving. In sex, rather than being eager to give pleasure I focused on taking pleasure and appreciating the girl if she pleased me. I stopped engaging women in sustained intelligent conversation – like politics, history or philosophy, and talked a lot less in general about my work or friends or where I was the other day. Let them make the conversation, I thought, if they are interested.

I hardly recognize myself anymore. Over these two years five different women were after me to get married. Three of them said they loved me. I practically dated a different girl every month, and normally (which is to say two out of three times), was the one to end it and move on. I actually told girls who did not comply with my wishes to get lost. And I walked away from those who claimed to love me. I didn’t need their love. I didn’t need their approval. When my female friends came around for advice and support I advised them to discuss it with their girlfriends since I was obviously hopeless at relationships. I just wanted hot sex and interesting female companionship and marriage/commitment is the surest way to kill both things. These girls were not skanks or tramps or losers. They were in nearly all cases serious, intelligent, career-oriented women, with their own life experiences and judgment. The kind of women I was attracted too but never stuck around for the main course.

But, of course, I had to lose the best part of myself to become attractive to women. At first not being ME was an act and a difficult one. As time passed, my conscience deadened and I learnt to cope with the guilt. Don’t stop and think. Now that you know how it works, just move along. I always thought that when I met some really worth it I could stop the act. But the problem was that they were in love with the act. Not with ME. If I dropped the act I couldn’t hope to keep them very long. So I kept it up. And I feel that I have finally reached the stage where I honestly don’t know where the mask ends and I begin. I miss the old me at times. He was a much better human being even though when it came to women he was a loser, an open book that no woman bothered to read beyond the introduction.

This is my experience. There are many guys who can relate to it in part or in substantial measure. There are many women who can relate to it too. And there are those who have been more fortunate/skilled in relationships and will doubtless disagree. If you can relate to what I have written then it is perhaps time to change the way you go about dealing with women. Improve your appearance, be more assertive at work (a lot of the women you can meet are at your workplace), exercise, if you see a girl you like, ask her out. Let her play the role of a pleasure giver or a martyr (if that is what she needs). Do not lower your guard. Enjoy the moment. Being dark and keep plenty of information classified so that the mystery remains. Stay in control. And pay the price for success.