Nice Guys and Relationships

So a while back someone I knew was very drunk and complaining to me. Of course, it was about a girl.

He liked this girl, she didn’t like him back…that was really it. BUT, he was going on and on and on about how he was so nice to her and she STILL didn't like him, that she doesn’t know what’s good for herself and maybe he just shouldn’t be nice at all anymore.

Now he was intoxicated, but I still couldn’t believe the words I was hearing. This is that "nice guys finish last" thing you hear in high school!

So I'm writing this post as a sort of response to that idea, and hopefully it can help anyone else, guy or gal, who is struggling with a similar situation.

~~Let's roll~~


Ok so first off, he’s thinking that basically because he’s so nice to her, she should fall for him. This seems to kind of make sense, until you consider some things:

1. If niceness is all that makes someone attracted to someone else, then what's to stop someone from being nicer to this girl than you were? Based on your logic, this person would leave you instantly! But this doesn't happen, and that's because of the next thing...
2. What attracts us to people is complicated, and not one-dimensional (i.e. it'll never be niceness alone). I mean, you could meet the nicest person in the world and not be attracted to them for many reasons! This is because we're also attracted to elements like ambition, personality, physical attractiveness, and sense of humour. Attraction is a complex combination of so many things that one alone would never sway a person (or, at least, it shouldn't). 
3. Finally, you said “oh maybe I shouldn’t be nice in general anymore.” Okay, I’m assuming you meant you'd stop being nice just to people you're romantically interested in and not the general population, because the latter would be pretty stupid. So now that we have that established, here's the thing about this: yeah, niceness isn't the sole determinant for relationships, but girls like people who are nice!! Why would a girl, or anyone want to be with someone who’s mean?? I realize I’m not a girl here, but you gotta just trust me on this one. If a girl you like is attracted to someone who (in your view) isn't as nice as you are, it just means she sees another meaningful and attractive quality in him or her besides niceness.

So after I explained this to him, he proceeded to analogize his affection for this person: "What if you find the prettiest, most beautiful flower in the field, and you know it's the one for you and that there are no other flowers like her, but you can't have it. What then?"

There are a lot of reasons this analogy isn’t great.

1. The idea that this is the most beautiful flower you’ll ever see becomes true when you decide you’re not going to explore the field anymore! If you just stand there admiring it, of course you’ll never find anything better! There’s a whole field of other beautiful flowers to find!
2. But for argument’s sake, let’s say that this is indeed the most beautiful flower in the field, okay? Well to this I'll tell you that our personal standards of attraction change as we mature physically and emotionally. We will be attracted to different things at different points in our life, so even if that flower is (improbably) the most beautiful in the field, as you mature it probably won’t stay that way! And look, I know it’s really hard to get your mind around this and the last point when you're really into someone. I've been there. But I promise you that it always gets better with time. 

BUT OKAY let’s say it really is the most beautiful flower and you’re never going to change the way you feel (unlikely). There's still one huge problem with this analogy: women aren't flowers! You see, flowers are passive objects—they get admired and picked. But women (and people) are not!!! Except in extreme circumstances, people get their say in deciding who're they're attracted to. That’s just how relationships work.

Instead of looking at a relationship like admiring a flower, I think a better analogy is those hotel doors that connect rooms. If you’re attracted to someone, you can open your door and show it. But nothing will happen unless they open their door too, and just like in an actual hotel, they have the right not to open it.

Now when I was explaining all of this to him…well, most of it wasn’t getting through because he was really drunk. But I was also getting really angry that I even had to explain this stuff to him! But as I thought about it more, I realized something: he had never had any of this explained to him. Maybe it seems basic to you or me, but without hearing this concretely it can be a confusing and difficult concept to grasp. 

And when you view someone's actions through this lens, it becomes really difficult to stay angry with them. You just want to tell them "hey man, this is how the world works, and you’ll be happier and healthier when it sinks in." Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this in the moment and was getting incredibly frustrated with him…but yeah. Hopefully this helps some of you deal with this type of stuff. It would have been helpful to me too when I was younger.