There’s No Such Thing as a Nice Guy
The difference between pretending to be a nice guy and being an authentically good man
Author’s note: I originally wrote this three years ago as my very first article for the BBG. I had no readership. I set out fairly anonymously, save a few people on Facebook who “didn’t know I was a writer”. I didn't have to worry about what people would think because there were no people back then. It was really a diary of my rage following my divorce and my utter disappointment jumping back into the joke that was (and still is) dating. I simply wanted to purge so things were a little bit more raw, such as format, cohesion, and my use of expletives. Having said that, rereading this three years later with just a few minor changes, I have to say it is not only still very applicable, it’s probably even more so true as the dating trends have shifted monumentally and the “male loneliness epidemic” has reared it’s ugly head (something I think I'll be following up with next). I hope you enjoy! - Melanie the Bitter B
Guys. Men. Boys. The other sex. Those who have a penis. You can classify them however you’d like but they all have one thing in common:
most of them identify as “nice guys.”
For millennia women have been led to believe that there are two types of men out there: good guys and bad guys. First, there is the traditional bad guy. While there are a million different versions of this one, my particular brand is the hard partying, forever single narcissists who also simultaneously share the unemployed-losers-who-still-live-with-their-moms subcategory. They have ideas of grandeur because their mommies raised them to believe that they were kings, and even kings can still live at home at the age of 35 and get their lunches made, right? Why stop drinking every night with the bros and playing beer pong in someone’s garage when you have no mortgage or responsibility to consider? Why not spend $300 of your $435 check on an ounce of weed when surely your lady can pick up the rest of the bills that week? Why worry about education, career, or savings when you can barely keep a part-time job at Walgreens? Hard to believe but these are the men I find absolutely titillating. I’ll let them move-in, share my space without a single monetary contribution or shred of respect.
Keep this in mind when I call myself an expert later, ok?
Bad guys are a complex and varied bunch. There is the emotional sabotage as well as the physical and mental abuse. Bad guys are womanizers, liars, thieves. They manipulate, abuse, force. They brainwash you. They guilt you. We’re not talking about dudes with tattoos and beards who ride motorcycles. This is not about physical attributes as I’ve been manipulated by some of the cleanest looking mother fuckers there ever were. There’s nothing like crying over a clean cut midget in an Abercrombie polo to make you want to jump right off a parking garage.
Who and what makes up the bad guy demographic isn’t hard to pinpoint. But what makes someone a good guy?
Good guys, not that I’ve ever come across one in the wild, are the rarest of unicorns, a true mythological creature if you will. This is the man that wants to fix a woman’s problems, get married and raise their children, be active in their partner’s life, supports dreams, gives back rubs without reciprocation, and raises your credit score just by being in your presence (sigh). These are the men that stand up for what’s right in the face of adversity, iron their work shirts all by themselves, and call after fucking you on the first date. They are generous with their feelings, know the importance of communication, and are willing to listen. I know plenty of people who tell me they know a good guy and rarely, if ever, is this mother fucker on the market. Again, they are like rent controlled apartments or 0% interest loans. They are an extinct breed from the legends of yore.
And then there are the “nice guys”. Nice guys are not to be confused with good guys. Every time someone is trying to set me up with their defunct friend, they throw in that he’s a good guy. For example:
Hey girl, did you hear John is single? You should call him. I know he’s a midget with anger issues, but he’s really a good guy.
No Heather, he is not a good guy, but I would give every dollar I’ve ever earned that he’s referred to himself as a “nice guy” more than twice. And that is where the first red flag flies. Any man who refers to himself as a nice guy is most definitely not a good fucking guy. Usually this takes place while complaining about how, yet again, another woman has done this nice guy wrong. For example, he took her out and paid for dinner, drove her home, and she didn’t even have sex with him. In nice guy speak, he means he pretended to be a good guy and gave her a modicum amount of false respect and in turn he should’ve gotten his dick sucked because, after all, he could’ve been much worse. He could’ve pressured her, insulted her, made her feel helpless, forced himself on her, but he didn’t, because HE’S A NICE GUY (say it with me everybody).
I know such a guy. He has an immaculately clean home. He drives a brand new vehicle. He always looks good, dressed in a suit, and takes superb care of himself. His credit score made me blush the first time I saw it. He pays every time we go out. Fuck pressure; he wouldn’t even kiss me without consent. At first he seems to be an underrated gentlemen overlooked by the masses, faulted for simply being a “nice guy”. And for a really long time I believed all that shit. It took me years to figure it out, but here’s the scoop:
THERE’S. NO. SUCH. THING. AS. A. NICE. GUY.
This self proclaimed nice guy is not so nice at all. In fact, he is an overbearing, self-important workaholic who refuses to make time for anyone in his life. When he does let a woman in, she will always be second best to him in every way. Her career will be less important. Her awards will be less prestigious. Her wants and needs will only be met when they align with his. The maintenance of their relationship and lives together will be solely her responsibility. He will have her arrange her schedule around his whims and then leave her waiting, beholden to him and his plans. He doesn’t care how much of her time and energy he’s wasted. And when it doesn’t work out because that woman got tired of being a second class citizen in her own home, he will again be the wounded nice guy who was punished for all the things we, as a society, deem to be good guy qualities, and thus the cycle will start over. This particular one wears the I-got-cheated-on badge of honor proudly, while he was getting his dick sucked in their living room by a friend’s girlfriend while alleged “cheater” was at work. Doesn’t sound so nice does it? I guess it only counts if she did it first then, huh.
Let me be clear when I say that a “nice guy” is not a good guy. Nice guys are simply assholes in good guy’s clothing, parading themselves through the streets as beacons of hope when they are really pathetic little weasels riding the coattails of better men everywhere. They are, in essence, a poor man’s bad guy.
I know how many people are going to say, hey, wait a minute, what the fuck?! I am a nice guy. Well, if you think that, it might be time for some introspection. What actually makes you a nice guy and why do you think that particular phrase is the right one to label yourself with. Maybe you’re not a complete piece of shit but are you actually a good guy? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s time for a little rebranding my friend.
At the end of the day, men are just men, and I believe we should be treating them as such. In fact, I believe we should be using a more scientific method than did he or didn’t he cheat on his last chick. They should be evaluated on a sliding scale, and we should be rating them as such. Similar to the Scoville heat scale, which measures the heat of a pepper based on properties, we should be using a similar method, like the Douchebag Dickometer or Fuck Boy Barometer. John the mailman smiles at everyone he meets, pays his taxes, and hasn’t spoken to a woman in years. He has no underlying desire to kidnap or rape them and is addicted to porn. He’s a 100 on the Scrotal Scale. On the other end is Sean, the ad exec who beats the shit out of his wife every night and cheats on her with prostitutes sans protection. He’s a 9000. You get the gist.
So the next time you hear some whiny little bitch in a bar complaining about how yet another woman has broken his heart and what a malicious, disgusting cunt she is, all because he was just too nice of a guy, remember, the Dickometer might disagree.