I made a similar post a couple of years ago, but I think it’s time again after seeing a few nice-guy/incel posts here. So, guys who have made it to the other side, what would you say to your previous self? I’ll leave my own personal answer in a comment below.
For me, the best advice I ever heard was “Being nice isn’t a personality, it’s literally the bare minimum”.
I always thought of myself as the “Nice Guy”, who just couldn’t ever find a girl to be with me. I didn’t understand it, I was funny, I was nice to girls, I did things like read books and watch intellectual movies, and so many stereotypes. I was single for most of high school and college and all the while I thought this.
It got worse with message boards/Reddit, where I had other people convincing me that yeah, I’m right, it’s the women who are wrong. They don’t want nice guys anymore, they want bad guys, they don’t know what is best for them. This caused resentment and anger in me.
In college I was lucky enough to meet some new friends that brought me out of this mindset, who sternly but lovingly told me that hey, maybe I wasn’t actually as nice as I thought I was. Maybe thinking that women only want bad guys and being upset no one wanted to date me was much more obvious then I let on, and the biggest gut punch that I think most nice guys need to here: Everyone knows you’re not being nice, you’re trying to manipulate them. Looking back, yeah I was, I was trying to be nice so they would want to be with me, not because I wanted to be nice.
After that I worked on myself. Not the cliche hit the gym or anything, but just worked on being more pleasant to be around. Being more self aware. My sarcasm is funny - to people who I know get it and understand I’m being sarcastic, otherwise they probably think I’m an asshole. Just be nice to people and don’t expect anything, just be a good person. Work on my personality, nice isn’t a personality, build hobbies and things to talk about, and show interest in other people’s hobbies - genuinely.
Which worked. By being less self absorbed and focused on getting a girlfriend, I became someone who was attractive, and not because I was buff or attractive physically, but because I was not exhausting to be around. I came out the other side a better person, and I hope others can too. Looking inward and having those hard conversations with yourself are not fun, but that’s life. Nothing in life comes easy, and working on yourself emotionally is one of the hardest, but also rewarding things you can do.
Wholesome. Good on you for getting out of the women love bad guys mindset. It makes no sense and it’s very toxic.
Some women like excitement, I imagine. Some “bad guys” might bring that. But most people just want to be with someone genuine who can take care of themselves and care about them. And people want to laugh. Be seen. Be heard.
I was very shy growing up but I cracked after I realized that people just want to be treated like I want to be treated. With respect, and the other things I mentioned. Once I realized I had the ability to give those things, I grew out of my shell. Also getting over the fear of unsuccessfully attempting to be someone’s friend. We don’t have to be friends with everyone. Not everyone will like you, and that’s okay. I don’t like everyone either.
Once you find someone who likes you, latch on. Whether it’s a friend or a romantic partner. 😊
I like how you said that. Women just want you to be interesting. Some women like excitement like you said, but almost all women just want you to show interest in things. I think a lot of nice guys see “jocks” and sports bros as annoying but they have women so there is resentment there too - but they wrongly put the blame on appearances and their views of “they’re jerks” so women must like jerks. No, in all honesty the thing is that those bros probably have more of a personality than you do right now, or at least can express it better. Sure they like sports, I bet they talk passionately about them too, and have conversations, ask follow up questions of their partners about them.
For me, eh sports they’re fine, but I do have other passions that I can talk about and ask others about. Now I have a wife who does drag me to games every once in a while, but she also goes and watches trains with me, and we play video games, and we share passions like that. Nice guys think they need to “worship” women or something. No, just be interesting.
And like, “jocks” in high school or college don’t even have to be that nice, or good at conversation or whatever, because being good at sports—being good at anything—can be interesting enough. Add to that a good physique… 😙👌 More than a good enough catalyst for a (quick) romance. Especially with young people who confuse love and infatuation. Been there.
I see, so rather than trying to make people want to be with you by being nice, you should be nice to people and then they’ll be attracted to you. Uhh… wut? Sounds like you haven’t changed at all.
How is what you did “after” different from what you did “before”?
“niceness” from incels is very different from genuine niceness with no ulterior motive, with an incel mind, its always expectation of gain, when they dont gain something from its always a mysogynistic response. its very easy to detect when someone is being Actually nice, and someone is faking a niceness.
I disagree.
That seems very naive to me.
No, over text they might sound similar, but in person it’s easier to see that the difference is between being performative in his niceness as a means to have friends/a girlfriend versus being nice as a means toward being his better self, with friends following naturally from that.
Thanks, yeah it’s hard to state over text. The big thing was realizing I wasn’t being nice - I was acting nice so that a girl would like me. Huge difference. You have to just be a good person, and many other things. Acting nice is very transparent. Being nice is a completely separate thing.
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No, OP said “which worked”, which implies that his being nice was not just a means toward being his better self but also a means to get what he wanted from other people. Like before.
I think I can forgive someone using the language of their past self when reflecting upon that past. In the context of the paragraph, I think it’s fair to say that “which worked” means something more along the lines of “and things did get better.” Maybe he could have improved his word choice in that instance, but I don’t think that negates everything else said.
I can already hear you saying “but that’s not what he said, and that was his choice of words.” And to that, I point to one of the key lessons I learned in college philosophy: questions of meaning come before questions of truth. In this case where one short two word sentence does not fit the rest of what he is saying, I think it’s best to ask what they could mean that would fit.
I disagree. The two word sentence fits precisely everything else he said, which seems to describe exactly the same behaviour with exactly the same end goal as he had originally. There doesn’t seem to be any difference between “before” and “after”.
One Key difference is that you are nice because you think it is good. Not because it will gain you something. The mindset is different. You don’t complain when you are nice and get nothing in return. Because you just did the right thing. Like you also don’t expect people to thank you for not punching them in their face when you walk by. Not punching them is simply the right thing to do. So now you are a baseline decent human.
OP saying “which worked” implies he hoped it would gain him something.