The Nice Guy Lie

Let's just shove this one out before it gets in the way of everything: "Nice guys finish last." There. It has been said. The phrase that became a law, a theory that became the motto of millions embittered men. Nice guys finish last is the popular phrase used to describe how males who define "the nice guy" stereotype are rejected by their love interest for another man who is usually either a bad boy or a jackass.

The best way to understand this cultural phenomenon is by being coined and defined by the culture itself. Urban dictionary, which is a website updated freely by the public, is kind of like having that older, sexually-experienced sister who you go to when you want to figure out a term you've overhead by someone but are too embarrassed to ask what it means. While your parents continue their lives in complete obliviousness, you now know fun terms like "Zubrug" and "Freedom Fondle" are. But I'm getting off topic.

So I went to Urban Dictionary and looked it up. Read several of them for yourself to get a sense of the general consensus on what a Nice Guy is. And count the number of definitions where the author identifies as a dude, and times that by a million. Now you have the Nice Guy definition...as defined by Nice Guys. If you didn't read the definition, here is some reoccurring elements:

"A male who can't get a girlfriend, never mind get laid, because he DOESN'T treat women like shit." ----Definition #2 by D.

"the person every girl will compare their would-be boyfriends to, for they possess every trait a woman desires. However, for whatever reason, women avoid them like the plague." Definiton #4 by ares1013.

"Feeling emotionally unsatisfied, the female will then turn to her nice guy friend, whom she has long since castrated, for comfort, and complain to him about how men suck,..." Definition #5 by Killing Kittens.

Simply, it is a long procession of glorifying a male for characteristics generally admired in our society--but saying that their only downfall is that they are too good, that they are too nice, or by saying that women are still to shallow to appreciate them because they may be lacking in the male-dominance attribute and good looks department.

Nice guys are the people who apparently give everything to women, but yet their individual woman never takes notice in them and instead goes for jerks....And so, excuse me? If you don't get the glaring implication right there, let me explain: by this definition alone the intimation is that if a guy is nice to a girl, then she is apparently in some sort of way indebted in returning and/or expected to reward his "nice guy" behavior by starting an intimate relationship with him in any sort of romantic or sexual nature.

The idea that just because a guy acts like an above-decent human being to a girl doesn't mean he really is a "nice" guy, and even if you accept that he's a nice guy doesn't mean that the girl has to like him that way because of his personality. It's the behavior-reward system that is enabled by the ideology itself that somehow manages to make the "Nice Guy" a sympathetic victim and villianizes the girl of the pursuit. It's a method that is insidious and premeditated---and that is no way nice at all.

Because why should I date a man just because he's "nice"? In what way, shape, form, or natural law does that make me obligated to him in one way whatsoever? Considering what I have just talked about, shouldn't I be wary of someone who is termed as a "nice guy", when I understand that his personal motivation and behavior is a means to an end? That it is an act---because he's doing exactly what he thinks a women should want in a man and therefor should invest in, but not really being himself? People are assholes--that goes for everyone---so why are they surprised when we go to the people who act like themselves, who are real? How am I being in anyway self-centered when his whole motivation is self-centered for a single want?

I am not alone in the women who see Nice Guys for what they are. Heartleats Bitches International  has a whole archive filled with essays criticizing "the self-professed" Nice Guys. A lot of the essays include personal anecdotes of women who experienced first-hand the worst of them---they're stories that I unfortunately find that I can relate to.

Because you know what a Nice Guy is? A lie.