First of all, merely
finishing last doesn't make somebody a nice guy. Whether or not you're a nice guy is for other people to decide. Still, for the purposes of this discussion I'll agree to replace the phrase
repressed weenie with
nice guy.
Moving right along.
I'm nice to my
male friends... I enjoy talking to them, I
genuinely
care about their
problems, we do all kinds of
fun stuff together, if any of them needed me to drive them someplace or help them move I'd do it at a moment's notice, and
I wouldn't dream of trying to get any of these
guys into bed. Why is that
behavior taken for granted as
normal, but if they were women, I bet I'd be
accused of being a nice guy? Why is it that we see
being cool to
women as a
chore, as something we're being
nice by doing?
Because my interactions with my
male friends are actually fun in and of themselves; there are few
women I know with whom I can have a conversation about
nanotech,
distro wars, or
anti trust suits,
jimmyCarter. Because having a
LAN party or going out to the
target range and wasting a couple of hundred
.45 ACP rounds is not what most women would consider
legitimate entertainment. Because with guys I can go to movies like
Mission to Mars, and bask in it's delicious
B-grade badness, while with women I go to movies like
The English Patient and appreciate it for the
quality cinema it is when what I feel like doing is basking in some delicious B-grade badness. Because guys aren't attention junkies-- we can grow together to where we're
like brothers, then move to different parts of the
country, not talk for years, then meet on the street again and pick up where we left off.
Get it? If you take physical attraction out of the picture, men prefer being with other men.
Attraction acts as a
social lubricant, so to speak. It counteracts some of the
alienation the
genders feel toward each other. Except, after a few months, or maybe a few years, the attraction evaporates, and one is left wondering "
What was I thinking? Why have I made all these
commitments to this
person who hardly has anything in common with me?". Hence, the 40% and climbing
divorce rate.
Now, what these proverbial
nice guys do is they go so deeply into denial about this that the illusion of actually enjoying the company of their
female friends is almost complete. It certainly fools said friends often enough. I say illusion because the
guys who actually do enjoy hanging out with women have happy, friend-filled lives and aren't complaining about finishing last.
Of course, there will be like a
dozen E2 women jumping in saying "Well,
I don't fit this
stereotype. Men find
me fascinating.
I'm a total
tomboy." I never said you don't exist. I just said that you're exceptions to the general rule; give yourselves great big pats on the back. In fact, I have maybe two female friends that genuinely are that way, and with them, I never feel like I'm getting the
crappy end of some kind of bargain. With time there will be others, and every single one of them will earn her way in, just like
the guys in my life do.
The cure to the
nice guy syndrome is to always
question your motives for being "nice". Repeat after me, brothers: "Would I still be doing this for her if she was male?". If you absolutely can't
think straight ask
someone you trust whether or not you're being a pushover. Or
go home,
wank off and then ask yourself again if you still feel
compelled to lend her your
car keys and
$400 so she can go visit her friend
Spike at the
State Prison. In
extreme cases, there are even
organizations known as
escort services who for a fee can send over someone who has approximately the same
build,
hair color, and
skin tone as the
object of your obsession. For the price of a few
psychotherapy sessions, these individuals can help you work out all kinds of issues, allowing you to return for a while to that
razor's edge between "
pushover" and "
asshole" that you are expected to tread as a
male in modern society.