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.

Buffy Speak

"Everybody talks first draft."
—Larry Niven, Niven's Laws for Writers

Remember that whole saying when you're trying to find the right word and you know and you can't just think of it, so you say "It's on the tip of my tongue!" (succeeding or proceeding a rather colorful blue streak), or when you want to describe something to someone but you don't know where to start, because words have failed you and start to ramble like a fool? Yeah, there's a name for that---Buffy Speak. And if you're like any other human being on the planet, it's most likely that this applies to you.

What I really like about this article is how they describe it. "A thing you see a lot with this is when they don't know the right words and stuff, so sometimes you see noun and verb things combined like in "shooty-gun thing", and stuff that goes in a cycle thing in frustration: "That idea went over like... like... like a thing that doesn't go over very well." That's exactly the idea.

The most associated with this trope is teenagers. Teens have this special kind of ability to just make up words and phrases and repeat them until their past the point of funny and become commercialized, like "Swag" or "Call Me Maybe" or "Cool Story Bro". It's a skill that is more highly refined than any political propagandist could ever hope for and then any rap artist would hope to coin. But part of the reason for this is that a lot of times, teens--like any other human being in this world---are just awakening into new emotions, feelings, internal struggles, and other conflicts, and have a hard time describing or relating these new emotions and translating them into something that even they can understand. So they often try to work around it by creating new hypes either to help them feel as if they have some sense of control in how they describe things into things they can start to comprehend.

Expect a lot of expletives---primarily the versatile "fuck". It's used as a placement word for, well, anything. Sometimes when thoughts are so jumbled and incoherent, you just have to get it all out. In addition, it also helps relieve the frustration and anger that comes with not being able to articulate your thoughts--which are probably serious and important to your or another's feelings--in an intelligent and comprehensible format.

After all--this should be noted and important to anyone who is going to write realistic dialogue--because you know, what the hell, Realistic Diction is Unrealistic. 

My girl is not a slut

I love TV Tropes. If you've ever been on the website with even the slightest of interest in TV or literature, than you already know the dangers of tabs, like it's some kind of weird addiction and I can't stop. As such, some of my blog entries will be my own interpretation, thoughts, and analysis on 
certain tropes that I find intriguing, prevalent at the time, or representative to certain subjects I write about.
Or, you know, tropes that pop into my life. As it is today, this one titled: My Girl Is Not a Slut. A short summary of a short summary, this trope discusses the stupidity of the common idea that while men can have multiple sexual partners without being criticized, for a woman who is sexually active means she is too be condemned and scorn. In my peers term, common on Facebook statuses: "How come when a guy sleeps around he's a stud, but when a girl does she's a slut?"

It's a double standard, Older than Feudalism. And everybody knows this. However, each person tries to rationalize this in their own way. But with the 2012 Elections coming up, this is a common issue that is becoming more imperative to discuss everyday. Perhaps the views of society may not change, but the laws certainly will depending on who is elected to our next president. You know what I'm talking about: Romney, and his plan to cut the cord on Planned Parenthood. It is, I believe, a testament to the double standard that condemns women for their sexual lives more than we condone men for their own private lives.

Yasmin Nair does a great job with dissecting this issue further in her essay In Defense of Sluts. The timing is important--it was published during the infamous case of Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown student who was ripped apart by Rush Limbaugh for making her case in court about birth control. Nair puts it beautifully at there: "That brings me to an aspect of this case which leaves me, at best, deeply uneasy and, at worst, terrified for the future of women's sexual lives in this country: the fact that the media coverage and responses of feminists so far have been to first criticise Limbaugh's "slut-shaming" and then to insist that Fluke is no slut." 

What's wrong with being a slut? The most important part, I think, is that woman should be allowed to make whatever the hell decision they want to, without the double standard hanging over them, a mechanism built into our society made to shame and condemn women for their lifestyles, while glorifying men for theirs. That is not to say people are not allowed to have their own opinions on other people's lives, men or women, but when it comes to the law---then it's a problem.

Because, really, in the end, who's going to care if your girls a slut?