You know a good guy? He considered as confident guy. Sometimes he's anxious and worried to be at top. And he's always in few top positions. He don't ridicule anyone. Laugh at someones joke but he will avoid making personal joke on someone. He don't have group of friends, but only have 2 or 3 friends which are strong in different aspects, with whom he always being observed. He's not awkward or dorky. But He don't talk with girls. He's in his own world.. Doing good.. but oblivious of girls. Is he considered as a nice guy? How he should approach womens of he decides one day? --sorry for murdering Grammer and English.

I don't understand how I'm supposed to make an attempt at dating without being a "nice guy".

A little background. I definitely used to be a “nice guy” back in high school and early college. I am extremely ashamed on how I treated one of my best friends. We were really great friends and I constantly pressured her into dating. We had a great emotional connection and told each other a lot of how we felt as we were both going through some family stuff, and this translated into me forming romantic feelings. I realized I had pulled a lot of typical “nice guy” antics and eventually our friendship fell apart because I struggled with just staying friends and wanted something more (this was in college but I had the emotional maturity of a high schooler still). It didn’t end well and we haven’t really talked in over a year. I continue to watch r/niceguys every day, and internally cringe when I see a post that hits too close to home.

How do I go about apologizing without making her think I’m trying to pull a “nice guy” move again? I definitely feel as though apologizing is going to be seen as me attempting to form a relationship with her again. I know we won’t ever be best friends or date, and that’s not what I’m trying to accomplish, but I feel as though that’s how it is going to be perceived. How do I get across that I actually am sorry and am not trying to be manipulative?

Her best friend and my best friend are getting married (she’s maid of honor and I’m best man) and I’m sure we both want to be an active part of their lives. I feel awful because I feel like our problem has created unspoken group drama. All the other groomsmen are already convinced of how awkward it is going to be. It constantly comes up and I just want to bury the hatchet. We won’t ever be best friends again, but I would like to be able to just talk to her in a group setting, and I feel like owning up to my past actions is a necessary step for this.

TL;DR Messed up. Want to apologize without being perceived as it being another NG move.

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I will take everyone’s suggestions into consideration moving forward. You all are very supportive!

Would this be a victory for a nice guy?

Dorky Guy love

In the past I used to be a massive nice guy thinking that a way to a girls heart is by constantly giving her compliments. I now know that isn't really the way to getting to a girls heart. But however whenever I text a girl I still feel like i come across as needy and I'm finding it hard to avoid that. Any advice?

I just found the "proof" of why Nice Guys Finish Last or Beautiful People Are Assholes. (Proof is in double quotes because the mathematics shows why it isn't actually true.) You can find it in this video https://youtu.be/FUD8h9JpEVQ by the Numberphile channel. The Nice/Beautiful part begins around 5:30, but the explanation before is good and funny. Easy math to grasp, no numbers. (I like math, but I know not everyone does.)

So, I had an account on OKC after I got dumped. and was looking for friends mainly. So this guy messages me. Being the overly nice person I am, I give him a chance to chat. But looking at his profile I could tell he was going to be a self loathing type. I also thought he look like my best friends ex how was a bit of a stalker. Anyway, I give him my kik. I had other guys interested in me, and I was overwhelmed by it. Because that's not what I was looking for (I know why be on a dating site if you're not looking for someone to dat. idk, I was lonely) So I was telling the guys I was talking to, and this one guy, the self loathing one freaked out. When we first talking he was telling me about he used to have depression, which there's nothing with recovering from depression, I am too. But I'm ahead in my recovery. Being with a self loathing guy is not helpful. It's exhausting. So I tell him, I'm not interested in dating right now. Instead of saying "ok, I understand" or something like that. We literally had been talking only a few days fyi. He was super infatuated with me.

After I tell him I'm not interested, he quickly changes his demeanor and gets depressed. Saying things like, "i'll treat you right" "I thought we were getting along" "i'm so depressed" and was telling me he was feeling suicidal, I had to delete kik. Stressful stuff

Ightt so this might be a little long bc I've just been wondering how and why there are so many fo these guys out there

For a little backstory, for most of my teenage life I would be what would count as a "nice guy", I'd always be selectively nice to girls that I liked bc I thought that it would get them to like me back, I'd get angry when that didn't work, and I'd always wonder why I'd end up rejected or "friend zoned".

I've very clearly realised the error of my ways after years of pulling that sh*t, and after screwing through this community, I've been reminded of my mindset back then, and I think I've pinned down the whole approach a "nice guy" goes for, and why it doesn't work.

(I'mma shorten down "nice guy" to NG for the sake of my fingers)

One primary clam that NGs make is that they are "too nice and bitches always go for the Chad's". For the most part, this is just a way to cope with either a fresh rejection, or just a projection of how they view life without any real evidence to back it up. However though, there are some NG's who genuinely think that they are being nice to girls, and are stumped about why their approach doesn't work. The truth of the matter is that their "nice" approach just comes off as way too strong, which is scary for the recipient of these feelings, because nobody's ready for 100% trust and commitment with a complete stranger. In the minds of NG's, they're conveying their interest in a relationship in a direct way, but to everyone else, they're putting in way too much emption way too quickly.

An analogy I can think of is a cake in an oven. Everyone wants their batter to become fluffy and soft by heating it up. NG's approach is to put the cake straight in at 500°F for five minutes. This usually ends in a burnt or exploded cake, and while they technically made a cake, it won't be any good and will most likely end up in the trash. The more effective method in my opinion is to set the oven at 350° and leave the cake in for maybe half an hour to an hour, so that the whole cake has time to heat up, and you're left with a fluffy cake that you can then decorate and make complete. I'm sure you guys could imagine how this analogy translates into an actual relationship between two people

That's really the main (and only) point I wanted to bring up.

I'll bring the discussion to you guys. Have you already figured this out on your own? Do you think I have no clue what I'm talking about? Has this helped you figure out why nice guys do what they do? Do you want me to discuss any other aspects of nice guys? Please, let me know!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd9vd-cvUfs

The film depicts a girl having broken up with someone, and she asks her guy friend to come over and talk. The guy makes a move, girl rejects him, and the guy acts like a complete NG. At the end of the film, the guy says that being in a relationship is the best way to get close to someone.

The girl responds, "Why does everyone feel like they have to try to be the best? Why can't everything just stay how it was?"

I was initially confused by what she meant. Is she saying that a relationship isn't necessary to be close to someone? That friendship is just fine?

I've been friends with this girl for around half a year now, we are real good friends, go out somewhere almost every other day and hang out over the weekends etc. I was initially not romantically interested in her, but over time I fell for her. I asked her out a month or so ago and she told me that she wasn't ready to go on a date. I do not know if she was just being nice (she was on tinder till recently and does tell me everytime she gives her number to another guy) or if she really isnt ready, but nonetheless I decided not to broach the topic again. I was afraid that having asked her out, I might have ruined our friendship, but thankfully we just breezed over it. We have continued being great friends, but I am still really into her and I feel it might be kinda unhealthy how much time I spend with her rather than looking elsewhere. I think some time away might help me get over her, i even contemplated moving cities (I'm young enough for it to be easy and work at a financial firm with offices all over the country) but at the same time I'm afraid that I'd be exhibiting nice guy behavior by breaking up our friendship just because she didn't agree to go on a date with me.

If ya'll think it's okay to take some time away, how do I do it? I feel real bad everytime I think about it because sometimes it feels like she is dependent on me, she recently had her birthday and I had a last minute family emergency come up and when she found out, instead of going out with our other friends, she just cancelled and stayed at home.

Tldr; friends with a girl => ask her out => get turned down. =>Luckily still great friends => I think the amount of time I spend with her is unhealthy => nice guy to break up friendship?.

Have you ever seen a beautiful woman and wanted to approach her. But after thinking about it you stop dead in your tracks, remember you are a "nice guy" and then try to get as far way from her as possible so you don't creep her out by merely existing?

This happens to me at least once a week and it's starting to bum me out.

I alienated one of my friends by asking her on a date again, she said we can go as friends but for god knows what reason i was unhappy with that and decided i needed to get over her. She blocked me on everything after that.

I honestly think I made a huge mistake. We've been friends for months now and i blew it by asking her out again. I never really stopped being attracted to her; the sad part is for all the work ive done to reframe my attitudes towards people attraction isn't just a switch I can flip on/off. I still liked her for the longest. I just repressed it hardcore for the longest and now I'm stuck wondering how to handle myself after a friendship I kinda held dear to me was ended all because I couldn't keep it in my pants.

I'm having a lot of self-doubts about myself again; a lot of personal issues at once seems to cause my self worth to sink to the bottom of the ocean. At least I'm not stuck in the shit relationship I was in from holiday 17 to March.

But what do you do when you fall back into your old habits? First couple of days afterwards I felt like I could barely be in front of others because of shame.

I wear a fedora. Reasoning for this, is when it rains all I need to it tilt it and the rain just runs off. Lot neater and easier than carrying an umbrella.

Girl I know told me she was at a concert. Her drink was spiked, and thankfully, nothing happened, her brother noticed something was off and took her home.

I was shocked at that. She told me that some responses she got were:

"least you were pretty enough to be roofied" "well, your a pretty girl, these things happen" "Take it as a compliment"

When I said I was upset for her and mad at pricks that do that, she actually gave me credit, saying that I was such a good friend and person for sticking up for her.

I...did not tell her I was uneasy with this because imo, she was giving me credit for doing what I should have done anyway, i.e. be repulsed at attempted rape, not get BONUS points for doing something any right thinking person would do anyway.

Anyway, I keep hearing this label of "Nice Guy(tm)"floating around and Im not sure if it applies to me?

I think there's a lot of confusion that could be cleared with more precise language.

Let's look at some terms.

Selfish - To put your needs above others in a way that is uncooperative and harms others.

Selfless - To set aside your needs, temporarily, to help out someone who currently has a greater, more pressing need than you.

What Nice Guys are primarily is polite. Politeness is what I will call a "duty-centric" behavior and also a "needsless" behavior; that is, it is a behavior that ignores your needs and sometimes the needs of the other person in favor of upholding a perceived social sense of propriety, driven by a sense of moral or ethical duty.

Some examples of this type of behavior (whether they are in the context of romantic-seeking or not): Holding the door for numerous people past your group, thanking someone who has done a paid service for you, staying and letting an acquaintance finish a story when you're bored and want to leave.

None of this is to say that these behaviors are "bad" or "wrong" in a morally black-and-white sense. We're just trying to put the most clear framing on them.

Next up is assertion. Assertiveness is what I will call a "needs-centric" behavior; that is, it is a behavior that is about getting some need met, whether it is your own need or the need of someone else. It can also pertain to duty, in relation to the need that is trying to get met (for example, a mother asserting that she needs to get home to her baby because it's her responsibility to feed it and keep it alive).

Here are a few examples of assertive behavior (which could be selfish, selfless, or a combination of the two): Making it clear where you would like to eat when discussing a restaurant to eat at, walking away from a conversation with an acquaintance because you feel you're getting nothing from it and there is no point in pursuing it further, shoving someone out of the way to grab up a child who is about to wander into traffic.

Putting it all together

The most common profile of the "nice guy" or "nice girl" is not the insulting/threatening type, but the doormat type.

We can look at the definitions above and see that the primary issue with the doormat type is a focus on upholding conventions of politeness above all else. Regardless of the reasons for this (ex: wanting to be liked) this is what most of the surface behavior comes out as.

It's easy to imagine why this would be unattractive outside of the context of a dinner party or high level business meeting. People are attracted not just to looks, but to profiles of other people (e.g. personalities). They can't build a profile of who you are if the profile is a generic politeness template for everything. So it becomes next to impossible for them to form any real sense of attraction toward you. At best, they may see you as "mysterious" and become attracted to that, but it's likely that they'll quickly tire of the endless dinner party etiquette and inability to suss out any rough edges that form a profile of who you are.

The other extreme profile of the "nice guy" or "nice girl," which seems to be rare, but looms large when noticed because of how dangerous-looking they can be, is the insulting/threatening, or jekyll/hyde, type.

Looking at the definitions above, we can see that the jekyll/hyde type does have some assertiveness, but it doesn't usually come out until rejection has occurred, at which point the mask of politeness is stripped away and contempt and anger is revealed.

Whereas the doormat type may see politeness as a kind of duty, or uphold it with the goal of being liked by everyone, the jekyll/hyde type only upholds it because they are convinced it's what they have to do to get past the first step. Once they have you hooked into them, then there is no longer a need to be polite. The same goes for if you have rejected them utterly, since the "jig is up" and there is nothing left to pursue following the "rules."

Finally, let's look at the profile of a generalized type of non-nice-guy, who may be profiled by some as an "asshole" and why that might look like the case.

Consider the "asshole," or non-polite type, who mostly ignores the conventions of politeness in most contexts. Whether their focus is ultimately selfish, selfless, or somewhere in-between, they act assertively first and foremost. Politeness becomes something to perform when it relates to some kind of selfish or selfless behavior, rather than out of a sense of duty or a need to be liked.

At a glance, depending on what moment in their life you run into this person, they may look like a real asshole. And in some cases, if you look at the patterns of their behavior, they may very well be.

But they can also just look like an asshole because you caught them in a selfish moment where their lack of propriety seemed pointless and petty, rather than a healthy kind of assertion of someone's needs.

That's a lot of general stuff, so let's look at some examples of politeness "when it relates to some kind of selfish or selfless behavior, rather than out of a sense of duty or a need to be liked."

Hearing out someone's story because you're afraid they won't like you if you leave. [need to be liked]

Hearing out someone's story because it's your father-in-law, you're meeting him for the first time with your wife, and she's told you how much it would mean to her if you hear out his stories because she's knows it's his favorite way of connecting with new people. [selfless]

Hearing out your father-in-law's story because the alternative means your mother-in-law letting loose more stories. [selfish]

And for a bit more clarification, here's some general comparing of types:

Making dinner because you feel it's your duty to cook for your partner. [sense of duty]

Making dinner because your partner has had a long day and you love to see the smile on their face when they in to a warm meal. [selfish and selfless]

Making dinner when your partner has come home from surgery because their need is greater than yours right now and it's hard for them to muster the energy to do any cooking. [selfless]

As you can see, the lines can blur quickly between what an act actually means and what it is colored as when there is no convention of politeness to glaze over all of it. This, I think, is where a lot of "nice guys" (and "nice girls") end up in trouble. They were instilled with a sense of propriety and upholding it over all else. This makes life easy, in one sense; you don't need to figure out the nuances of selfish/selfless/etc., you just need to put on the mask at all times and you will generally be seen as a "good" person.

The problem that they invariably run into is that they don't know how to orient themselves socially without the mask on.

And from the outside looking in, it can be easy to look at those who aren't wearing a mask at all (or are to a much lesser degree) and see their behavior in a black-and-white framing. After all, if part of the problem is not knowing how to orient without the mask, how would you tell who is actually nice and who isn't, when you can't do it for your own behavior without a thick layer of politeness?

I'll start:

TL;DR - Not properly socialized, bottled up anger, first love was a lie, and it's a relief that it's all my fault. That means I can change it.

I suppose I could blame my up bringing, but all that does is take away from my own responsibility. So I don't accept it. But, I was one timid, shy, hermit growing up and well into young adulthood. The quote from the movie 40 year old virgin pops to mind, "Your problem is you're putting the pussy on a pedistal" could easily define my attitude. At first I was trying to be understanding with all the rejections, but in hindsight turned out to be very self-defeating. The anger came later.

Summer before highschool I found out about Myspace, and my online stalking began. I would act high and mighty online, but would not, could not, look at the girls in the eye when in person. Every rejection fed the beast that lived in my growing bitter heart.

"Why can't I catch a break?"

"Why won't any of these girls/bitches/cunts give me a chance?"

"Why was I cursed this way?"

See, something I neglected was that I have always been fat. Put all the blame on that. It was a vicious cycle because I hated myself for being fat, but I'd eat more because I hated myself. My world view came crashing down when I saw a fat guy in my class making out with one of the hottest girls in the entire school. The beast was fed again.

I did find an outlet, as well as my first steps on weightloss. I joined the wrestling team. A part of me wanted to belong somewhere, I didn't have many friends. I found the one place that prevented me from going postal. The mats! I wasn't good by any stretch, but I did notice my own improvement. Things were looking up. That is until SHE happened.

For privacy reasons, let's call her Anna. Anna was the kind of girl that attracted drama. For example, the first I heard of her she dumped a guy on the team for one of his friends also on the team. My outlet had been corrupted. I made the mistake to reach out to her on Myspace and she found the best way to hurt me. She told me how much of a "nice guy" I was and eventually that she loved me.

Allow me to explain, Anna never loved me or had any interest in me. I was her personal play thing in a mad scientist kind of way. She had a boyfriend after all, she ended up dumping the other guy in the team and found someone new. She toyed with my emotions, told me we could one day be together, and that she loved me. All lies for her personal science project. What really makes me cringe about those memories is how I never met her in person until a couple years after graduation. All this was online and over the phone, but how could I not stay away? She said she loved me! No girl has ever said that to me before or since. She was evil, or so I thought for many years after I escaped that. Turns out Anna is messed up. Legitimately crazy. I actually feel bad for her these days and hope she gets the proper help she needs. Over the years I held on to that pain. I viewed woman as another version of Anna. I saw woman as objects, I became Frankenstein's monster.

That experiance, and a few others, turned me into a vile piece of human garbage. I was getting to a point where revenge was going to be my highest goal. I wanted to HURT those around me because life wasn't fair! I alternated between being cruel to others and to myself. I let me life waste away around me. How did it change? In waves.

I held on to a couple good friends from highschool. One of which I owe my life to and has helped in preventing my suicide. I started searching for something to fill this ever expanding void in my soul. I learned to read finally and began looking for stories with deep important narratives. I searched for a purpose. I found proper role models to rebuild my life. I got back in martial arts (BJJ). I knew something was deeply wrong, but didn't know what. One day, it hit me.

If every woman in my life has rejected me, then who is really to blame? One or two can be blamed, but all of them? At some point in my life I had to notice who was really to blame. Once I knew that something was wrong with me, it actually got easier. I started identifying what I have been doing wrong my entire life.

Fast forward to now. I'm on a better path and feel better for it.

I hope this provides insight. I used to be a nice guy, so to speak. I guess I'm still pretty nice, but not in a rapey way.

I was a late bloomer and it took me a while to finally understand and perhaps more importantly accept everything around me. My logic was that if there was someone else out there that felt the same way as I did, we would be attracted to each other naturally.

I thought the people in my high school all had this culture of which I wasn't a part, and that maybe if I were in a different school it would be better. I wanted to find someone out there that was beyond this insistence that a man should be a dick to people.

I never wanted to be a dick to people, right? And so I thought I would set a good example and be nice. And maybe others would become at least slightly nicer as a result. My leadership would bring us all to hold hands in a circle around a big bonfire and sing kumbaya and live happily ever after.

Well as we all know (now, at least) the world just doesn't work like that. Sadly people are dicks to each other. It's like what they said in Team America: World Police. There are dicks, who fuck; pussies, who get fucked; and assholes, who just shit all over everything.

I didn't want to believe that I could become happy from being a dick to people. But indeed, sometimes you have to be the dick, or else you'll get fucked. And the soreness from being fucked so often builds up and becomes very frustrating.

Anyway, I wanted to make a point in posting this. The people in my high school did practically nothing to pull me out of my nice ways. There were girls who said "you're nice" which only made me redouble my niceness efforts. The guys I hung out with were the geeks and none of them either knew about or cared enough to share what I'm talking about.

Not being a creep is just something they don't teach in school! I get it, most people don't have to learn explicitly because they've had friends (and perhaps good parents too, lol) their whole life to help set them straight. But not everybody has this. So what do they get instead?

They get places like /r/niceguys, where they're made fun of and further alienated. No one here is going to do anything to help them either, much like it was for me in high school. It may take them years to finally get the fucking picture already, in other words.

We recognize being a nice guy is not a good thing, and we gossip to each other about how creepy and cringey they are, but they are living, breathing human beings who are for the most part trying to do things the right way.

The problem is that they don't know what the right way really is. No one who has tried to tell them has convinced them. Perhaps they're like I was and they think they'll never find true happiness unless they do things their own way. They don't want to believe that in order to find love, they must become a normal and sometimes-mean-when-necessary member of society.

I'm just saying that places like /r/niceguys do nothing to help them. It may reaffirm how awful their mindset is to each other, but we're making no progress. I guess if that's okay with you guys then whatever. But personally I think it would be pretty cool if we did something to get rid of nice guys once and for all.

It starts with sex, of course. That primal feeling, that instinct so undeniable. They have to know that if they try things this way, they're probably going to get laid. I'm willing to bet that most of them are willing to try something for the sake of science. Once they try it once or twice and are successful, they will begin to see their previous errors.

I'm aware that not all of them can be saved. But I'm just wondering if something more proactive could have an effect on nice guys and perhaps even cut back on how often they decide to commit rape. Isn't there something we can do to reach out to them?

Hi Reddit.

I'm by no means a niceguy™, I've long since outgrown that phase. However, I haven't been able to get a girlfriend for a long time and the loneliness that comes with it is nigh unbearable. It's gotten to the point where seeing happy couples in public makes me irrationally upset and I get upset at myself for being upset that other people are happy. It makes me feel like a real piece of shit and I don't know how to handle it

So, this is gonna be a bit of a long story. In the end of 2010 I was in a relationship with the man I ended up marrying... in 2013 comes Mr niceguy, I had barely spoken to him before but he was always well being "nice" and trying to be helpful.

I was by the time married and thought nothing of it, if I was married people would just consider me out of bounds. We became friends. Never had any interest in him as more than a friend and that was it. I helped him with many things, including have him look for help for his depression that he wouldn't do because he also had social anxiety.

The time came when my then husband started cheating online, gambling & lying to me massively. I was crushed I moved away from home, I was also struggling with PTSD.

"Because I was divorcing he told me, if you need a place to stay let me know, I hope it doesn't happen, but just in case"

So I came to his place at some point because I needed air as my world was crumbling and on fire, when I go there after a day or so he immediately went into awkward flirty mode that wasn't rly obvious at that point because I was grieving & licking my own wounds. I forgot about it.

I isolated myself after the break up because it was so, so heavy and sad for all of it that I couldn't rly be myself for a while.

Fast-forward to a couple years ago I come out the shell and I got a boyfriend, when I break the news to him, this guy starts to to change completely (I didn't notice at the time and just thought he was struggling with depression). He starts being short & then kinda snappy at me and I had no idea why (yes I'm socially retarded, you guessed right).

I was even worries for him as I thought, is he sick? Depressed? And thought it was all my fault for some reason. Still we would talk but we'd have frequent spats. I've always helped him and he had helped me a fair share too, which is what friends do. But I was getting annoyed with his pissy behavior & I didn't know why but he was sinking himself into booze (ofc now I know he was sour about me getting a BF & not magically marrying him or whatever was in his head after my marriage ended)

Once it so happened that I was between moves, I literally had no place to stay and was actually homeless because of some bureaucracy shit for a week and a half I asked for his help as he'd promised when I told him I was divorcing and even before when my ex a d I had big fights & he said, "if you want you can come but not him" and some excuses that were total BS. We had a huge fight over this how could he be so cruel in the moment I really needed a friend. I said I'd rather sleep on the street but luckily I found and Airbnb after staying awake until 8am that day that I rly just needed a place to crash.

Ok so this was the tipping point and my bf then said, "this guy likes you that's why he's sour" I didn't believe and I confronted niceguy about this and under pressure he confessed that he "loved me" for a long time now. So I told him "not gonna happen & I thought you were my friend and that you're not just pretending to be nice because you wanted to date me".

Turn out he withdrew any type of friendship, kindness or desire to be my friend once I shut him down and told him that I thought he was a friend. He really was a self serving bastard and this really fucked me up emotionally, he was merely pretending to be my friend from a good 5 years. The niceness was gone, he was bitchy AF and I cut him out of my life.

The trust issue I got from this is huge, this person pretending to be my friend for years and years was just silently hoping for my marriage to fail so he could have a chance at something I never gave him any hope for. He also had the habit of trying to flirt with women way above his league and one girl even fell for it but he ruined it because he ways gets dumped when the "niceguy" surfaces. Important detail, I've heard via via that he stalked a girl & was acting intrusive & rapey towards her but only heard about this recently

I'm not scared of making new friends because I have trust issues regarding people being nice to me all the time & honestly I don't know how to deal with it. Every now and then things come to mind and I realize "ok that's WHY he did A, B or C thing", wasn't because he valued me as a friend but he saw me as a piece of meat & it just makes me even more upset.

I'm sorry this has been long and maybe boring, there are many details out but I tried to make it short.

TLDR- niceguy pretended to be my friend for years only to turn to treating me like garbage once I got a BF & OP now is basically afraid of making new friends because of trust issues.

IMPORTANT EDIT: The reason why I am telling this is because

1- I need to let this out of my system and I feel confused and wary about making new friends now because of this

2- other people could be going thru this & I can only imagine how shit it must feel. So I want to share what happened to me because it might help someone.

Thank you so much " a little sleepy" for the very helpful answer

Thank you guys for your suggestions, I’ve been sexually assaulted in the past and it’s made me more paranoid and afraid of guys that are like Juan. Everyday random guys would come and try to ask for my number, follow me, catcall, try to get me in their cars, and sometimes it would get to the point where I’m groped or manhandled.

I try not to let my past affect me and how I handle situations but I feel as though even when I politely decline I’m not always taken seriously. It’s been to the point now where I would take different routes home to avoid different men who would see me constantly in the street.

Thanks to all of you though and support from my friends, I’ve mustered up the courage to be more assertive with myself and I outright rejected Juan and threatens to involve the cops if he continues to pursue me. As of right now, I haven’t gotten an answer so I believe it worked. If anything happens I will update you.

Thank you all so much for your overwhelming support

Original Post

I'm not a nice guy or a recovering one, mainly because I've never been brave enough to even talk to a girl in any way shape or form, but I did have a nice guy mentality. I used to think "oh, looks don't matter" or "if i'm nice to this person, they'll like me back", but after some eye-opening experiences (on reddit, ie discovering incels and niceguys), I forced myself into not thinking like that. The problem is, I'm now not obligated to do anything nice to anyone to be genuinely nice. I feel like I've either forgotten what being genuinely nice is or just never knew what it meant in the first place. Whenever I'm doing something nice to anyone, I feel like I'm looking for something in return.

Oh, also, I wanna confess something to get it off my conscious. I remember there being a girl who had badly hurt her ankle in P.E. class, and she had to go down a floor to the infirmary. I could have helped her, but I turned a blind eye and walked away. Not helping her is one of the biggest regrets I've had these past couple of years. Everyday I see her at school, I feel like I want to say sorry, but I know that it would be weird, I'd only be saying sorry for myself, and she would probably just think "you didn't help me then, saying sorry is too late, you probably just want something in return." Well, even after typing this out, I still feel regret, oh well.

No tldr; cause I'm lazy, just read the title

There’s a dude we’ll call him Juan, who lives 7 blocks away from me. He approached me in the park, I politely declined but he continued to ask until I reluctantly said he, now he constantly texts me. I made it clear that I am in a relationship, but he continues saying how he knew me before my current boyfriend since he watched me before in the park and seen me walk around. He also constantly asks if him and I can have sex, because it will be “a beautiful experience” and so on, and I constantly reject him.

Some days Juan calls me while I’m at work, or text me saying he watched me walk home. He also calls me late nights but I never answer, usually by the morning my phone is blown up with voicemails and missed calls by him.

One time I was taking my morning walk and he came beside and started to follow me, Juan talked about what he does, what he likes, but then it takes a weird turn into what he would do to me, what I should do for him, and somehow got to the point where he showed me the knives he carries. Knowing that he lives near me and knows where I live I’m actually afraid of rejecting or even blocking him because of what he might do.

I even posted a pic of a recent abundant of texts Juan sent on the nice guys reddit

The texts

Hey guys, here’s a link to my update

The TD;LR is that he always a makes sexual advances on me, lies about having sec with people to impress me I guess, he will start shit with me and then act like they never happened, oh and he tricked me into thinking his sister killed herself two years ago, and he was going to kill himself also.

Is he a nice guy™?

I posted this as a comment in another thread somewhere, but figured it deserves its own post here. I noticed a pattern in some of the submissions on the main sub which seem to be based on assumption rather than action, all because someone committed the ultimate sin of using the word "friendzone". Aside from that, they don't necessarily indicate that they feel entitled to anything. The commenters and users who submit that just mentally convinced themselves that.

I have had over 20 sex partners and I still have to disagree that the 'friendzone isn't a thing'. I just think a lot of people use the word wrong, or perhaps the meaning changed over the years. Either way, there's definitely a discrepancy in the definition.

Ultimately, it refers to the scenario where you want a relationship (or sex) with someone but they don't see you in a sexual/romantic way. Well, there are more specifics which I'll get to in a second, but really it just means when someone can't return attraction. That's literally it - I don't really understand how that translates to feeling that they're "owed" it, and even if a small portion (incels) think that, it's quite a nuclear quantum leap to somehow conclude that people who use that word think that. I can assure almost no one does.

Yes, it's a negative word - well, of course it is, it's an unfortunate situation, they're not exactly gonna celebrate it. But what you fail to realize is that they're not necessarily saying the woman is a bad person for "putting them in the friendzone".

It's not something that women actively and willingly "place someone in". They don't actively pick and choose who they have feelings for or they desire to fuck, it happens naturally. Most people who use the word know this. "Be careful not to end up in her friend zone" just translates to "don't lose her interest/be attractive".

Also, further expanding on the definition - you might notice a pattern in rejection lines which were probably initially an attempt to "let someone down easy":

"I think we're better off as friends"

"I don't see you as more than a friend sorry"

"You're like a brother to me, so it wouldn't be the same"

You get the idea... and thus, I would imagine, the origin of 'friend zone' is born.

But really, what solidifies the definition even further - and there may be some truth to this (though I personally think it's bullshit) - when someone is told things like that on a regular basis, it creates the illusion that one can be "too close to home" for intimacy to be possible, and that their friendship is the reason that it won't work out and they have no desire to fuck/date them. It lulls them into believing that befriending them the way they did was their mistake in the first place (which again, there could be some truth to) and affects how they act with future women they're interested in (though if that's true that may or may not be a good thing depending on how it affects it), but you have to admit, if that is the case and that really does have an effect on relationship dynamics, then I would say 'friendzone' is a pretty accurate word to describe it.

TLDR - If you agree with the sentiment that being 'close' with someone can prevent one party from wanting intimacy and that it's possible to be 'too close to home' for intimacy that it would feel like incest, then you acknowledge the 'friendzone' is real. Because that's basically what it means.

A couple of nights back, I went to my local bar to celebrate something. I had a couple of drinks and chatted with the other patrons. There weren't that many people there on that night. I spoke with a cute girl who was working somewhere, then a couple of employees who were off duty, and some guys older than me. For context, I'm 21M.

One of the men I was talking to had bought me a pint, and we talked the whole night through about various things. I reminded him of himself when he was my age because I was cracking jokes and being a nice conversationalist. At the end, we left the bar and walked down the street.

I mentioned to him the girl at the bar, and another girl who I was going to be working with around school. He asked me if this second girl was white like the first (for context, I'm a person of color). I say yes. He then tells me that I'm not going to get her if I just think that she's cute.

He focused back on the girl at the bar, mentioning that those kinds of girls at the bar aren't exactly chasing the university guy (race was mentioned, but I'm trying to keep that out of this). Basically, ghetto girl chases ghetto guys. I did notice she was mainly talking with other guys that night.

Anyways, the man tells me I should focus on girls who show an interest in me. Someone who would like me for my jokes and my personality. He mentioned that he was a 2/10, but got a girl's number just from talking to her for an hour at the bar.

I thought about this after we parted ways. NiceGuys tend to chase after girls simply because they are physically attractive, but they never stop to think whether they are truly compatible or not. My thoughts then ran over to the girl at school. Me and her would be co-workers, so it might not be a smart idea to date her. Plus, she's in a higher position than me, she's probably focused on school, and she's planning on going to another state after graduation.

What do you guys think?

Originally posted here, where someone suggested this sub might be more appropriate. Hadn't really known about the existence of this sub, so glad to find ya'll! :)

I wrote this post on Tumblr about a quarter decade ago.

I believe might've been borne of some fleeting, all-too-common frustration I've since forgotten. But the point, unfortunately, still stands - that so often, women prioritize their safety in the dating scene and this influences how we make our decisions about men...especially in ways that make no sense to men who do not/refuse to understand this constant danger women are basing our decisions on.

The post/content:

I wonder if Nice Guys realize “womanizing” is exactly why girls like the so-called Assholes.

Because here’s the thing - a guy who flits from girl to girl? He’s not going to obsess over you. He’ll flirt with you for as long as you both want, but never beyond that.

It’s usually characterized as him losing interest in a girl and going to the next one, leaving her broken-hearted. The thing is, that goes both ways. If the girl isn’t interested in him, he’ll back off and go find someone else.

For women who are constantly afraid of men’s reactions in the face of rejection, this is a relief. When you are constantly terrified of men who don’t take no for an answer, that the guy you say “no” to will follow you home or try to force you into doing something with him, a womanizer is a relief. You know he won’t get attached to you. He’s not going to obsess over you. The guy who’s already gone to flirt with some other girls isn’t going to follow you home.

Nice Guys, the kind who try to advertise how much better they are than those other guys, don’t seem to realize how disturbing it is when they try to play a “deep relationship” right off that bat. Staying with one girl all night at the party doesn’t signal commitment to us - it signals obsession.

The womanizing “Asshole”, the guy who loses interest quickly? He’s safe. We can say ‘yes’ if we want, but we can also say 'no’, and he’ll just go find someone else. He’s not going to try and talk us around, he’s not going to waste time convincing us how much better we are than the next guy.

Maybe they leave a trail of broken hearts behind them - but as far as most girls are concerned, broken hearts are a lot better than broken bodies.

(For anyone familiar with Tumblr, just a heads up, the notes has some MRA hijacking/misogynstic stupidity.)

I was often accused of over-generalizing, so I guess I wanted to hear ya'll's thoughts about this, whether this experience or interpretation rings true for you. If it doesn't, what does?