Or so they say. I've asked my male friends who uttered this mantra and what it means.

They say that they take women out on dates, talk to them, hold doors open for them, and such -- are in fact the very definition of a "nice guy". And yet, all they end up with is friends, rather than girlfriends who will make them feel special (and, hopefully, get them laid) -- that is, they "finish last".

So, let's analyze this. These "nice guys" expect that the ultimate chivalrous act of being friends with various women is not an end in itself, but rather will lead to them acquiring a girlfriend. They're frustrated because all this work they've been putting in actually talking and listening to their female friends hasn't paid off.

Not very nice, is it?

This is something that baffles me to no end.

Sure, women are drawn to jerks. Why is this? Maybe because it's such a challenge to try and change that asshole into something more of what they really want?

I don't know about you guys but I think the tide is changing. Women still go through their jerk phase, but most of them grow out of it.

What do they really want? Maybe someone that thinks about them and ways to make them smile instead of thinking of a way to get a quick blowjob out of them before her sister's wedding. They want stimulating conversation. Someone capable of thinking into deeper issues like nanotech, distro wars and antitrust suits.

I'm certainly not a pro, but I'm learning a lot on the fly and it seems to be working well. Keep the faith nice guys.

Nice guys finish last. A common myth. Many have the sentiment that nice guys finish last, due to personal experiences, but this is simply not true. It all depends on how you approach the issue.

Overly nice guys usually will finish last. The point to remember is that it is good to be nice, but not to an extreme. If you go to extremes with it, (some) women will take advantage of that, or find it a turn-off.

The key is to not be on the extreme end of being nice, or to work it to death. Those kinds of guys are viewed as 'pushovers', and women will see that as weak (besides, if you have to work at being nice, what exactly are you trying to be?) Women dont want a weak guy. Just keep in mind that its ok to be nice, but if you feel you are being taken advantage of, dont let it happen.

The idea of women wanting a 'wild' man seems to be a common theme. I think they just dont want a boring man. heh. I mean think about it; what makes you think a woman wants a boring man, any more than you want a boring woman? (for some reason, memories of the movie 'American Pie' pop into my head, reminding me of the 'band camp girl' hehe) Anyway.. the key to remember is, be nice when appropriate, dont be a pushover, dont be 'fake', be a little adventurous now and then, and dont be afraid to say no. Keep that in mind and you'll do reasonably well. It's worked quite well for me. =)
"In the end it all comes down to talent. You can talk all you want about intangibles, I just don't know what that means. Talent makes winners, not intangibles. Can nice guys win? Sure, nice guys can win -- if they're nice guys with a lot of talent. Nice guys with a little talent finish fourth, and nice guys with no talent finish last."

- Sandy Koufax

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.
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."

Hardly. I'm not a tomboy by any stretch of the imagination - long hair, cultivated nails, high heels, make up. I like Meg Ryan movies. And still men have always found me just as fascinating as women have. I have as many male as female friends, even in the closest most intimate circles.

And no, they're not just all trying to get me into bed. This has happened, both with men and with women, but somehow I feel that hanging on to a friendship for seven or ten years just because you're hoping to sleep with someone is a bit far-fetched.

So what's wrong with them? I hear you ask. What's wrong with these men that instead of chugging bruskies with their buddies they're wasting their time talking to a goil?

It's not what's wrong with them, sweetie, it's what's wrong with the picture you just painted. I refuse to accept that men are really as narrow minded, as limited in their interests, as fickle in their resolutions and as devious in getting sexual gratification as you are trying to portray them.

The first people who should be jumping up are not, as you flatter yourself, women (any woman with half a brain will stay away from a guy with your opinions, not waste her time trying to convince him that she's "worthy"), but men. You've just universally insulted any man who is mentally grown past a life which revolves around playing computer games and getting his gun off.

* Give yourself the courtesy of reading what you wrote. You're not stereotyping women. You're stereotyping men.

The oft-quoted phrase is originally attributed to baseball manager Leo Durocher.

In 1946, the New York Giants, managed by Mel Ott were in last place. Durocher was managing the crosstown Brooklyn Dodgers at the time and was asked about the Giants. He commented that Ott and his team were "the nicest guys in the world. And where are they? In last place!" (another source quotes it as "The nice guys are all over there. In seventh place!"; Yet ANOTHER source says Durocher said "all nice guys. They'll finish last. Nice guys. Finish last").

Regardless of the actual words, the next day sportswriters misquoted him, or altered his quote, changing it to "nice guys finish last". The quote is often used in sports circles to encourage toughness, and also in dating circles (as in the other writeups in this node).

An interesting offshoot of this comes in the titles of autobiographies by both Durocher and Hall of Famer Monte Irvin (who played under Durocher for several years). Durocher named his book (1975) "Nice Guys Finish Last". Irvin titled his book (1996) "Nice Guys Finish First".

The Problem here is that there are several misconceptions raging together at once. In an effort to increase the peace, I'm going to try to do my best to try to work some things out.

  • Nice guys are nice simply to get into womens' knickers.

    Perhaps it comes from distrust of all men, or just a desire to be mean, but this seems to be one of the most common things I hear. Do people assume that the sole goal of every male is to 'dip his pen'? Granted there are some guys who do pull this charade, but the vast majority of guys who hold the door open for a lady do it out a genuine desire to be thoughtful.

  • All Nice Guys' want out of life it to please a woman

    Ranking number two on this list is this little one, is that women don't go after 'nice guys' because they are one-dimensional beings, devoid of any depth of character. This is a half-truth, but a potent one. Many nice guys simply don't know how to go about things when dealing with the opposite sex - they have been rejected all their lives and such have never 'learned' the rhetoric that society expects. And so, going on this, they can tend to go overboard and try to impress the girl as much possible.

    This is where women have to take action. Instead of just dumping them off, like so many are apt to do, try telling them what they're doing wrong. If you "like them except for", you don't like them for many other reason, and you have no right to say "they were too nice".

  • They're not really Nice

    This happens all too often. I will go as far as to agree that this happens - there are guys who only think they're nice. However, the practical offshot of this is, in accordance to the theory that women prefer assholes, they end up getting the girl.

The basic problem here is one simple thing: Respect. Nice Guys are resigned to say that women suck, and women are resigned to say nice guys aren't. This is a flawed philosophy. Stereotyping will not help you choose or keep a mate, full stop.

One last thing: Seldom will you ever hear of any Nice Guy whining about how much Nice Guys are pissed on when said Nice Guy has a girlfriend. This is because, when a nice guy has a girlfriend, few of the above generalizations continue to be true. I am a nice guy and I don't complain for that very reason.

It is entirely appropriate for nice guys to finish last. Because males experience a serotonin rush and inhibition of sexuality during the refractory period, it would be very discourteous for the guy to finish first and potentially leave the girl unsatisfied. Men whose functioning is less seriously compromised, as well as men in homosexual relationships, may discard this law in favor of the variant "nice guys finish at the same time."

I must say that this statement is true from personal experience. I'm not just talking about how I open doors, give women my jacket, or otherwise be chivalrous. I am generally a nice guy. I listen to my friends, help them through problems, and I am there for them when they need.

Many of my female friends, some of them single, tell me, "Any girl would be lucky to go out with me." However, if they say that and believe that, why don't they go out with me. Instead, they go out with these jerks. Whenever these jerks hurt them they come to me crying. I help them through the tough time. Sometimes I think that I have touched them personally or emotionally, that maybe they think of me differently now. However, once they are feeling better another jerk comes along, and I am essentially downgraded back to my position as the nice guy friend and nothing more.

I figured that going to college would change some things. However, everything is just the same. I instantly became friends with many girls who would come to me asking me about what they should do about specific guys since I'm such a nice guy.

The friends that I had before college still treat me as the nice guy. No sooner did I visit back home did one girl tell me about her latest boyfriend. The worst part is, she told me that I make her laugh like no one else does and she wants to be my friend forever, and yet she continues talking about her latest fling. If I'm such a nice guy, can make this girl laugh like no one else, and she loves me enough to want to be my friend forever, why don't we go out, ever.

Finally, probably the nicest guy I can think of is Jesus Christ. How many dates did he go on? I rest my case.

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