cruel to be kind

I stumbled across an ode for the nice guys: “There IS someone who understands!“.

Ode to the Nice Guys

(This rant was written for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal and revised for this facebook group.)

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining about what jerks guys are, while disproving the very point.

This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. […]

It is something you read with a smile on your face, stating how true that is yada yada. It would have been just a nice link, but it kept bugging me for some reason.

And now I know why: Usually the nice guys stays the nice guy until somebody finds out about this unpolished diamond. Now meet the greatest polishing machine of the world: The net!

Not popping up on the radar
Yes, fellow women know: nice guys are a much better choice to spend our time with but they rarely pop up on our radar.

It does not help that those guys often are the quieter guys, more willing to listen, perhaps even a bit insecure to put himself in the spotlight. He who does not brag about what he did or what he likes and how cool he is. How sensitive, interesting, wonderful, intelligent etc he is. He who probably reflects too much on himself and is too self aware to push this.

We would have to discover that on our own. Which, basically, women do not often do because we are busy doing other things.

When the second move is the first move
I read a book once way back and it talked about how especially the nice guys use the wrong strategy when approaching women. They make their move and when they are rejected or feel like rejected they stop having interest at all. Whereas the women often is irritated and rebuffs a move out of initial shock, but then starts getting interested and looks into him more. Gets perhaps more interested and starts noticing things she had not before. But if she then makes a move back, she is rebuffed, because the man already is on “bah, she did not like me! Now I don’t like her anymore” mode.

I found this very often to be true. I would assume that the ‘non nice guys’ just ignore this and hit as many times as they want perhaps having learnt that they will get what they want in the end. You might see where the problem lies for the nice guys if he is not aware of this. So far nothing new. Well, kind of.

Popping up on the radar differently
Through the net I have met so many people I would never have met otherwise. And not the usual way “shell first, content later” but the opposite: “inside out first” and later the ‘shell’. In real life you do not run around and broadcast what occupies your mind. You do not run around and spend a lot of time with just anyone.

With the new media, you do. It is so easy to consume or interact with a wider base of people that someday someone pops up and you can click so much faster than through traditional methods.

The thing which hit me when reading the text was how many ‘nice men’ I got to know from the net. And they “score” so much more “points” in this “game” than out in the wild. Not just on the getting laid score, but much more important on the “I would like to get to know this person better because (s)he is really interesting / has something to say / is respectable / has knowledge” scale. They pop up on the radar in a new and different way. Shiny new nice guy, 2.0 if you dare to say.

The net increases chances for communication of all kinds
Which is one of the many reasons why I find the Net so wonderful in its possibilities to actually let us evolve as a society. It is my strong believe that the Net and the things we do with it is a major keystone to what society will evolve to, not only on a small and local level, but to what Science Fiction has long told us can be the future.

For now, I can connect with people or use the tools to connect them with my contacts and benefit from it on so many different ways. I am not restricted to my direct surrounding but can look out for people I like to interact with on a global scale (as long as internet connection is given and I do understand the language of course).

So, will using the possibilities of the new media help the nice guys to get more women? ;o) Probably more than other tricks. But jokes aside: most important it will connect people and take away the stigma of ‘just being nice’ and make others aware of the qualities a person has.

It is the nice guys and girls who add to the experience and bring in new and clever thoughts, not the ‘hot studs and babes’. It broadens *my* horizon to see how many different talents and interests are out there. *I* can experience how wonderful it is to get to know them, talk to them and more.

Thanks to all of you. Now go out and tell the rest of your nice friends to use new technology as well. ;)

[thx to Falk for the inspiration and the link.]

Technorati Tags: nice guys, communication, friendship, net

Tags: Things I would like to see