It’s a pity so many good, nice, upstanding men still haven’t been able to do likewise:
This nice guy backlash may sound unpleasant, but some men blame women who disregard the nice guy as an option. Some women interviewed say they equate a nice guy with being a boring guy. Others used words like “marshmallow,” “doormat” and even “creeper.”
Academic studies have reaffirmed that women prefer the bad boy archetype over the nice guy. A 2008 study at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces examined how college students perceived “dark” traits such as thrill-seeking behavior, deceitfulness and narcissism. The study found the female students preferred the males with these traits.
In her seven years of dating coach experience, Lisa Shield of Los Angeles, California, discovered that a majority of female clients prefer a man with edge who draws boundaries. Her clients reject nice guys as too malleable.
I think my favorite part was the bit where Neil Strauss figured it all out. I’m sure he was happily painting his dream girl’s walls, fantasizing about how she might be so grateful that she’d say or do something that would give him an obvious opening to make a move that would finally upgrade him from friend status, when she announced that she was off to sexually service another man. Okay, I doubt she put it that way, but the point is that if you’re in the friend box, she considers you beneath her physical attraction threshold.
Being an inherently cruel and arrogant individual, it will probably not surprise you to know that I’ve never suffered from nice guy syndrome. But I have friends who have for literal decades, and it is amazing how impossible it is for them to abandon the notion that being nice and helpful and attentive is the way to a woman’s heart. I think it would help those men to finally get it through their thick, romantic heads that while individuals are unique, everyone is more or less replaceable and that women can be much more coldly calculating than most men will ever believe. The reality is that there are very, very few Leonardos or Helens of Troy in our midst and there are always plenty of girls on the girl tree.
I’m sure Spacebunny would note that there is another element at work here, namely that of erroneously elevated standards. This suggests the Final Call Solution is in order; if all else fails, lower your standards. Or, as one of my college friends who definitely didn’t suffer from a surfeit of nice guyness would put it: “It’s piggin’ time, soooooooooey!” And yes, such hog calls actually worked for the guy since they were accompanied by the proper attitude of contemptuous masculine insouciance that is catnip to the average woman. Anyhow, the salient point is that a nice guy 7 will seldom have any problem attracting a 5 regardless of how much he does for her; she’ll probably be sufficiently attracted to his better looks and higher status that she won’t be overly turned off by his kind, thoughtful, and generous behavior.
So, get realistic, swallow your pride and lower your standards, nice guys. You may not think so, but I guarantee that you’ll be a great deal happier for it. A happy plain girl who feels lucky to be with you will beat a bored and bitchy pretty girl who has contempt for you every single time.