Do Nice Guys Finish Last?
The past few weeks have been amazing. I watched my younger daughter get married, and it was one of the happiest events I have ever attended. I wasn't even the only one who thought so. All the wedding guests were dancing, laughing, hugging, crying. We are full of confidence and hope for the new couple.The week after that I attended a state-wide conference and received the award for "outstanding advocate" working on behalf of victims of sexual assault in Florida. This is the only award given to professionals in the field, so that was pretty overwhelming as well.
Then I came back home, and started back to work. This was not such an uplifting experience. Rather, it was more along the line of opening an over-stuffed closet and having everything fall on your head.
Still, I'm back, and I'm writing. All must be well in the world. Well, except for Bill Nelson's stand on the estate tax, which he proudly took on the side of the uber-rich. Fortunately, enough other Democrats have sufficient compassion to worry more about the uber-poor, and the measure was defeated. However, it will rise again in the near future.
As is often the case with my blog posts, this one is based on various discussions I've had with friends and acquaintance. It started with the age-old question: I am a nice guy, I respect women, I would not dream of hurting anyone or forcing sex where it was not wanted (or even if there was a question of failure to consent). Why am I single, when all these thugs out there seem to have women hanging off of them?
This question comes up a lot, along with the companion question: I am a nice girl, intelligent, competent, caring. Why am I alone? These questions are asked frequently because they touch a nerve. There is a lot of truth to them.
The first time I heard the male version was from a man attending one of our domestic violence offender groups, which I thought a rather odd setting. He clarified the situation by adding: "It seems like women only respect you if you rough them up some," thus showing his confusion between the definitions of fear and respect.
However, since then I've heard it repeated by men and women who are truly lovely people: attractive, intelligent, kind, unassuming and full of good humor. They have every quality one would list if one were dreaming up an ideal mate. Except that they don't have a mate, nor any prospect of one.
If there is an expert answer to this, I don't know what it is, but I have my suspicions.
First, the men who do truly respect women are aware that many men do not. They assume women realize that large numbers of men hold women in low esteem. Women may recognize this, but when it comes to the men they know personally, they don't think it applies. Sure, John may not respect women in general, but he respects me. Thus, I am singled out and special. Other women may think that yes, men don't generally respect other women, because they are catty or petty or unattractive. However, I am intelligent, attractive, and sparkling, so they all hold me in high regard. Other women are just oblivious. They respect men and women as individual human beings with something positive to offer, and can't concieve that other people may think differently. The men who genuinely treat women with respect view respect as a rare and desirable trait, while the women who are receiving the respect are taking it as the norm, and thus, nothing to boast about.
Second, we start determining who attracts us and who does not somewhere early in middle school. This is a bad starting place. No one in middle school has much in the way of self-confidence. Even the most healthy, well-integrated personalities fall apart under the pressure of the pre-teen and early teen years. Yet everyone is desparate for self-confidence, and to be accepted by their peers. They are highly attracted to persons who seem to have already conquered these goals.
So who are these highly desirable people? Generally, it's the people who "have the confidence" to break rules, take action with little regard for consequences, and to be hurtful to others. To an uncertain 11-year-old, these peers are the ultimate of cool. Thus, the boys and girls who are callous toward others, and bully those who are weak, tend to be the most popular in school.
This standard haunts us as we grow older. Eventually most of us discard the idea that people who are deliberately hurtful are glamorous, but we still cling to the idea that we can identify the leaders, those with confidence and surety, by external standards. We become attracted to people who are decisive (how good the decisions are is irrelevant) and self-centered enough to use others to further their own goals. Women too often see these qualities as indicative of strength, and thus feel protected and safe with the very people they are most likely to need protection from. Men can view women with these qualities as dangerous and exciting, and thus highly attractive.
So should "nice" men and women change, and become rougher and selfish? Obviously not, as they would be betraying their own values and attempting to become something they are not. Facades are rarely convincing over the long term, and people who create them do not enhance their appeal. What they can do, however, is change their attitudes as to why they date, and who. People who date others for the pleasure of getting to know another human being, as opposed to starting an affair, can have the fun of exploring lots of personality types, and eventually finding one that clicks. And along that line, perhaps seeking women and men to date who are intriguing as opposed to "hot" or sexy might lead to more interesting results as well.
There are no guarantees to the above. While I have many job descriptions, dating counselor is hardly one of them. I've been married 33 years, so I'm as far removed from a dating scene as one could get. Still, getting to know a variety of human beings can't be a bad thing. You can never have too many friends, even when you are 40 years out of middle school.
posted by Lenore Wilson @ 4:29 PM
2 Comments:
First of all, I have to apologize for continuing to post anonymously (I have written a few times before). I'm a bit itchy over net privacy generally. Secondly, sorry this is so long, but...
I love this question - this, "do nice guys finish last/why are we nice people all alone"? I have a hypothesis to share, one that doesn't so much contradict yours as complement it. In short, that we nice people (I include myself in this group) are alone, at least for the moment, because we choose to be. Here's the deal:
Relationships are not like math. Nice guy + nice gal does not equal happy couple. It's about more than just being a nice person and having a good personality and being attractive to someone, it's even about more than being respectful. (No, respect is not the norm, but a lot of us nice girls know we deserve it, and know we give it, so it's more of a minimum qualification than a big bonus.) There's an intangible element to relationships that cannot be easily pinned down. It's not something you can tell about a person beforehand, since it can only live in the space between two people. It's rare, in that you don't find it in the space between just any two people. Many people, I guess, never find it, for one reason or another.
I would submit that most of us "nice folks" are looking for that intangible thing. We want a real partner, someone to connect to and love and trust and share a vision of life with. For a month or a year or a lifetime, whatever. We wait for this rather and don't want to settle for something else, and so will be alone until we find it, or until we decide we want something else.
We nice folks tend to know ourselves pretty well and have goals and principles that are important to us, whether they be about family or lifestyle or career. We don't need someone to make us feel secure - we are capable of our own security. We think like the Little Prince - we understand that what makes someone unique to you is the time and care you put into them, and that this brings special rewards but is also a big responsibility. We aren't willing to sacrifice our principles because they are part of us, and we don't take that responsiblity lightly - even when we crave companionship. Instead, we look for someone whose own goals and principles make a good fit for ours. Consequently, though we might meet lots of people who would make kind, respectful, even animally attractive romantic partners, we don't often meet people who are good partners for us personally.
Not everyone is that way, of course. Some people look first for the security you mentioned, or for that glamour, or for something that makes them feel like they've succeeded.
These superficial things are more easily found (or bought, or manipulated, if you like), so relationships that depend on them are quite common. But they can be fleeting and deceptive, whereas that intangible compatibility tends to last and is much rarer. We nice folks tend to have a lot of genuine friends, but don't often get into romantic relationships because we're not so interested in the superficial benefits if they aren't accompanied by that intangible thing that makes for deep companionship.
Basically, we make choices, and because we're not interested in the superficial we often choose to stay out of relationships or situations that could lead to relationships. It's harder for us to find a workable relationship because the thing we want isn't cheap and easy.
We have a hard time realizing that our aloneness is a result of choice, though, because the things we're declining don't seem like relationships to us. The guy you meet at a bar who just wants to talk about himself and get you into bed - to us, this is not a relationship, no matter how many months it lasts. But most of what we see around us, especially when we're in our 20s, is that kind of relationship or something like it.
In my naive youth I had a hard time telling the difference between lecherous charm and true warmth of personality, but now I'm much better at telling which men will make good friends and which won't, and I steer clear of the latter. I have no doubt I could go to a bar and get a good-looking guy to take me home, but I have zippo interest in that. I like men very much - too much, in fact, to relish impersonal encounters.
So I'm starting to accept that there's nothing wrong with me, or with those nice guys out there whom I adore as friends but not as romantic partners. Consequently, I find myself meeting guys with a much different mindset than I was six or seven years ago. Nowadays, when I meet someone, I'm more intersted, as you said, in the "pleasure of getting to know another human being," than in "starting an affair," even if that someone happens to be a 25-35, single, articulate male. I like it much better this way, even though it hasn't brought me demonstrably closer to a romantic relationship than I was before. I've met some wonderfully interesting fellas lately, many of whom have become part of my life in some way. I still have faith that one day I'll find that something intangible, but I've learned to place higher value on other types of relationships, too.
I'd like to tell all those nice guys who are finishing last that I would really appreciate if you could start taking the phrase "let's be friends" at face value, at least when it comes from us nice gals. Some of us like to get to know a guy real well before we accept the burden that romance places on our emotions. And some of us just like having men for friends!
I'm glad you comment occasionally on my blog entries, and I'm perfectly fine with whatever means you use to do so.
You have clearly given this issue much more thought than I have, and I hope the men and women who spurred me into writing this entry in the first place take the time to read your remarks.
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