Even though I thought that I lowered my standards significantly in terms of the level of attractiveness that I was looking for, I still got dumped. I thought that the problem was my looks (too short), but now I am thinking that it is my personality. I have been getting a lot of "you are a nice guy", "you are a sweet guy", and "you are a gentleman". I am starting to think that these comments are honest, but they are the specific reason why I was rejected. After getting dumped, I was hanging out with some friends who showed me the text which can be found at the end of this thread which was written by a woman and found on an online dating site. I only skimmed it, finding that I couldn't bear to read it. My friends though that it was great and it didn't seem to bother them. I am in the worst depression of my life and I currently see no way out of it. If it was the case that my position was dissadvantaged relative to others, if society was messed up, or if the wrong people were in power, I could always hope that things might get better. Now it seems as if it is nature that is messed up and nothing can fix this. Women seem to be attracted to evil and nothing else. Everything that is the opposite of good and moral is what they are attracted to. I knew a woman who was outwardly a feminist but wanted rough sex from her boyfriend. Women to not want you to be honest or genuine, yet they say that they do for some unknown reason. Now that I have a truck and work in construction, I thought that I could compensate for my short stature. I thought that this was incredible unfair that I would have to always try so much harder than everybody else and become undesirable if I got old or sustained an injury. I am led to believe that women find "confidence" (in reality arrogance and general douchebaggery) to be the only quality that really matters in a man. I was brought up to believe that humility was a virtue. All evil in the world ultimately begins with a man trying to be attractive to a woman: hierarchy, war, environmental destruction, exclusion, competition, etc. My conscience and my intellect are sabotaging me with the ladies (when women say that they find intelligence attractive, they are only referring to having a "good job".) Please tell me that there is some hope, that all women don't like violent sex, that I can be myself and not an actor, that there is more to life than competition, that not all women like "bad boys". I am losing the will to go on. Woman's perspective follows:
The Friend (War) Zone : The Nice Guy, the Cute Girl and the Jerk
“You are a very nice guy, I really like you as a friend. One day you will someone very special. I don’t want to ruin our friendship” Familiar? Love is a battlefield where nice guys fight with heart, mind and soul, but the cute girl is entrenched and heavily armed. It’s not possible to continue advancing, no matter how much the nice guy wants it. He’s not aware, but he’s fallen in the friend zone pit, easy to get there, but very hard to get out. And here comes the jerk, blowing his horn (of battle) to conquer the battlefield and thus, the heart of the cute girl.
The nice guy, defeated and humiliated, wonders how it came to this. His shoulder was always available for her. Gifts, kind words, all for her. He gave her everything a girl would want. Yet it didn’t work and the jerk came with nothing and took her away. Or at least that’s how he sees it. I don’t even like the term “jerk”, but I will use it from now on for simplicity, but a jerk is the “bad boy” archetype. He may not even be a “bad boy”, but from nice guys it may appear so for many reasons…and one is that the jerk got the girl.
The friend zone, a term popularized by the TV show Friends, involves either a man or a woman (from now on, I’ll talk from the male point of view, but the friend zone affects all kind of relationships) and his romantic interest in a situation of a one sided platonic love. The man attempts to pursue a romantic relationship through a friendship or the feelings may arise at any point of the friendship. Unfortunately for the man, getting out of the friend zone is a quite challenging task and the same reasons that brought the man into the friend zone will cause him to be unable to get out.
Why did the nice guy end down there?
As blunt as it may sound, being unattractive (for the girl) is the main reason to get in the hellish friend zone. The girl may consider the nice guy to be intelligent, funny, charming, nice, etc. but if there’s no attraction, physical animal attraction, she’ll not develop any deep feelings. Some men (boys) will unfairly call the girl “shallow” or some other nasty adjectives, but there’s little to do there. If someone is not attracted to someone else, it’s not a problem, it’s life and love. Some will call it chemistry, some others being in the same wave.
The nice guy will do many things in order to get her attention and her love, but all of them are in vain. Contacting her everyday, being available for anything at all times, buying her gifts (flowers, chocolate, teddy bears, etc.) and so on will not improve the situation but instead, will make it worse…for him, because the girl may reap all these benefits and exploit her recently acquired male girlfriend. Probably the worst thing the nice guy will do is sacrifice his own self in attempt to be more likeable and in her eyes this is like castration by harakiri.
He will bend his will to her, he will change his taste in anything (music, movies, politics, etc.) to accommodate to her, he’ll disregard his own needs and wishes to make her happy, he will never confront her on anything, he will continuously give away his manliness (if he had any) in pieces just for her, just to be liked more and ironically, this will have exactly the negative effect.
Attractiveness and why the jerk is a winner
So why is the nice guy not attractive to a girl? Or most of them? I have come to make two lists, one is what I call “basic attraction traits” (BAT), the other is “relationship sustaining traits” (RST). A woman is wired to fall in love with BAT due to many biological (animal!) reasons. However, our society is mostly monogamous and keeping a relationship alive requires a big effort and the RST really help to establish a healthy and solid family. The nice guy may be piled on RST (or not), but he certainly lacks BAT. While the jerk has these basic attraction traits that makes him so attractive to girls.
Inside BAT we could include confidence, security and assertiveness. These three traits give a man the possibility to live his life however he wants, ignoring what other people may think of him, leading his life to where ever he wants. He sets limits and boundaries and people who are to deal with him must respect those. While I’m talking about men here, these traits are also highly desirable and welcome in a woman, but as I said, I’m using the male point of view.
So why is the jerk a winner with women? Because he has these traits and they show at all times. This also makes him a challenge because while the nice guy will walk around with a banner that says “Please like me”, the jerk could not care less if some random girl doesn’t like him. There will be more…and that means more competition as well. He’s assertive enough to tell someone that what he/she did or said was wrong and when he does something, he does it with confidence. This is such an important trait in a person, at any moment, stage or situation of life so why wouldn’t it be so attractive?
The stereotype bad guy that teenager girls go crazy for is careless, arrogant, decisive, even bit disrespectful…he’s confident, assertive and secure. He just doesn’t need the validation of other people.
What about the relationship sustaining traits? Responsibility, education, courtesy, sensitivity, intelligence, etc. Very useful traits in life, but they don’t make a girl go crazy (in general!). The nice guy may have all this, but he’s missing confidence with what he’s doing, he lets others, and especially the girl, influence too much on him and he’s unable to say “no” or to confront her or other people. This leads him to be unattractive in her eyes.
So why not have traits from both categories? BAT are much easier to attain, they are reachable by anyone and while there will always be levels, becoming confident, secure and assertive it’s not that complicated, but it starts with brutal honesty with oneself and admitting that some things can be done better. Not focusing so much on women (or men) can also help since we’ll see things from a different point of view.
Avoiding the friend zone
Getting out of the friend zone is hard, very hard, so the easiest solution is to not to get there to begin with. Although first of all we should always keep in mind that we can’t control anything but ourselves. Even if we really wish it, if the other person is not interested it’s not the end of the world. As said above, there are many factors that come to play in this battlefield. Being ourselves at all times helps immensely and this includes confronting the other person when we disagree or we have been wronged. It will also filter out people who are not a match so we can avoid incompatibilities in the future. Not being available at all times (there’s no need to talk everyday, really), being focused on oneself’s projects
The Friend (War) Zone : The Nice Guy, the Cute Girl and the Jerk
“You are a very nice guy, I really like you as a friend. One day you will someone very special. I don’t want to ruin our friendship” Familiar? Love is a battlefield where nice guys fight with heart, mind and soul, but the cute girl is entrenched and heavily armed. It’s not possible to continue advancing, no matter how much the nice guy wants it. He’s not aware, but he’s fallen in the friend zone pit, easy to get there, but very hard to get out. And here comes the jerk, blowing his horn (of battle) to conquer the battlefield and thus, the heart of the cute girl.
The nice guy, defeated and humiliated, wonders how it came to this. His shoulder was always available for her. Gifts, kind words, all for her. He gave her everything a girl would want. Yet it didn’t work and the jerk came with nothing and took her away. Or at least that’s how he sees it. I don’t even like the term “jerk”, but I will use it from now on for simplicity, but a jerk is the “bad boy” archetype. He may not even be a “bad boy”, but from nice guys it may appear so for many reasons…and one is that the jerk got the girl.
The friend zone, a term popularized by the TV show Friends, involves either a man or a woman (from now on, I’ll talk from the male point of view, but the friend zone affects all kind of relationships) and his romantic interest in a situation of a one sided platonic love. The man attempts to pursue a romantic relationship through a friendship or the feelings may arise at any point of the friendship. Unfortunately for the man, getting out of the friend zone is a quite challenging task and the same reasons that brought the man into the friend zone will cause him to be unable to get out.
Why did the nice guy end down there?
As blunt as it may sound, being unattractive (for the girl) is the main reason to get in the hellish friend zone. The girl may consider the nice guy to be intelligent, funny, charming, nice, etc. but if there’s no attraction, physical animal attraction, she’ll not develop any deep feelings. Some men (boys) will unfairly call the girl “shallow” or some other nasty adjectives, but there’s little to do there. If someone is not attracted to someone else, it’s not a problem, it’s life and love. Some will call it chemistry, some others being in the same wave.
The nice guy will do many things in order to get her attention and her love, but all of them are in vain. Contacting her everyday, being available for anything at all times, buying her gifts (flowers, chocolate, teddy bears, etc.) and so on will not improve the situation but instead, will make it worse…for him, because the girl may reap all these benefits and exploit her recently acquired male girlfriend. Probably the worst thing the nice guy will do is sacrifice his own self in attempt to be more likeable and in her eyes this is like castration by harakiri.
He will bend his will to her, he will change his taste in anything (music, movies, politics, etc.) to accommodate to her, he’ll disregard his own needs and wishes to make her happy, he will never confront her on anything, he will continuously give away his manliness (if he had any) in pieces just for her, just to be liked more and ironically, this will have exactly the negative effect.
Attractiveness and why the jerk is a winner
So why is the nice guy not attractive to a girl? Or most of them? I have come to make two lists, one is what I call “basic attraction traits” (BAT), the other is “relationship sustaining traits” (RST). A woman is wired to fall in love with BAT due to many biological (animal!) reasons. However, our society is mostly monogamous and keeping a relationship alive requires a big effort and the RST really help to establish a healthy and solid family. The nice guy may be piled on RST (or not), but he certainly lacks BAT. While the jerk has these basic attraction traits that makes him so attractive to girls.
Inside BAT we could include confidence, security and assertiveness. These three traits give a man the possibility to live his life however he wants, ignoring what other people may think of him, leading his life to where ever he wants. He sets limits and boundaries and people who are to deal with him must respect those. While I’m talking about men here, these traits are also highly desirable and welcome in a woman, but as I said, I’m using the male point of view.
So why is the jerk a winner with women? Because he has these traits and they show at all times. This also makes him a challenge because while the nice guy will walk around with a banner that says “Please like me”, the jerk could not care less if some random girl doesn’t like him. There will be more…and that means more competition as well. He’s assertive enough to tell someone that what he/she did or said was wrong and when he does something, he does it with confidence. This is such an important trait in a person, at any moment, stage or situation of life so why wouldn’t it be so attractive?
The stereotype bad guy that teenager girls go crazy for is careless, arrogant, decisive, even bit disrespectful…he’s confident, assertive and secure. He just doesn’t need the validation of other people.
What about the relationship sustaining traits? Responsibility, education, courtesy, sensitivity, intelligence, etc. Very useful traits in life, but they don’t make a girl go crazy (in general!). The nice guy may have all this, but he’s missing confidence with what he’s doing, he lets others, and especially the girl, influence too much on him and he’s unable to say “no” or to confront her or other people. This leads him to be unattractive in her eyes.
So why not have traits from both categories? BAT are much easier to attain, they are reachable by anyone and while there will always be levels, becoming confident, secure and assertive it’s not that complicated, but it starts with brutal honesty with oneself and admitting that some things can be done better. Not focusing so much on women (or men) can also help since we’ll see things from a different point of view.
Avoiding the friend zone
Getting out of the friend zone is hard, very hard, so the easiest solution is to not to get there to begin with. Although first of all we should always keep in mind that we can’t control anything but ourselves. Even if we really wish it, if the other person is not interested it’s not the end of the world. As said above, there are many factors that come to play in this battlefield. Being ourselves at all times helps immensely and this includes confronting the other person when we disagree or we have been wronged. It will also filter out people who are not a match so we can avoid incompatibilities in the future. Not being available at all times (there’s no need to talk everyday, really), being focused on oneself’s projects
