... And Then One Day Their Eyes Met; or, Nice Guys, revisited
It's a trope of both literature and film. We have two protagonists thrown together by circumstances, allies working together. They don't particularly react to each other as attractive romantic possibilities, and instead we find them interacting as people with skills and talents, areas of expertise and passionately held principles. And they come to regard each other very highly for this, to respect each other as a colleague who is a formidable force to be reckoned with. Then there's that moment when they've just pulled off a triumph or gotten past a major hurdle and they look at each other for the first time with erotic interest; their eyes meet and their lips meet and things get all sexy and steamy.
Raise your hand if you have no idea what I'm talking about. No one? Good... so hang on to that image, if you will...
So: the Nice Guys thing -- I first ran into the complaint about Nice Guys from a website called Heartless Bitches International, back in the 1990s. I'm under the impression that HBI were the folks who publicized the concept and made it a part of our shared social repertoire. They said Nice Guys were the ones always complaining that women don't really want nice guys, that women gravitate towards sexually predatory jerks. Or to be more specific about it, they complain that women don't really want to date nice guys. That nice guys get "friend zoned", treated as friends who aren't heterosexually eligible. The Heartless Bitches' complaint about us (yes, us, because for presumably obvious reasons -- if you've been reading my blog -- that description certainly hit home so far) was that we only pretend to like them, that our real motivation is to worm our way into their affections by being nice to them, in hopes that they'll dispense sex to us. And that when that doesn't happen, we get all bitter and hostile. And this all means that we really just viewed the women as sexual opportunities, as sex objects, and were only being nice as a ploy to make them like us, and think we're entitled to have sex happen as a consequence of being nice, which, when you sum it all up isn't very nice at all, now is it?
Well, look, Ms. Heartless... may I refer to you as HB? (It's one thing for you to refer to yourself as a bitch, but...) Look, HB, I wasn't pretending to like you as a person. I really do, I admire you and greatly enjoy your company, and no, it's not a calculated attempt to sneak my way into your pants. Do I hope that some percent of my associations with women I like and admire will develop like the romantic films and stories, where one day a moment will come...? Oh hell yeah. Sure I do. I'm attracted in your direction, why wouldn't I hope for such things? Frankly, I think that for a lot of people who have never thought of themselves as genderqueer, or as nice guys for that matter, they'd like for more of that kind of thing to happen in their lives, so it's not just us.
But somehow it's creepy to hope that one day she'll decide I'm kind of hot and that she wants to kiss me and make out? "She" isn't a specific person; it doesn't have to be you, personally. This trajectory doesn't have to be how all my nice warm collegial friendships with female people end up going, and I don't expect them to. I'm certainly not thinking about it every moment of the time we spend together.
Let's revisit: I grew up with girls saying they were tired of being treated and regarded as sexual opportunities instead of as people. And we Nice Guys, perhaps we are the males who grew up liking girls as people, like their company, share their values, and want their approval as a person, as well as being attracted to them. That's certainly where I'm at. So -- Ms. HB, over here, she says she prefers the bluntly honest horndog, the fellow who clearly signals that his interest in her is of a sexual nature.
What's the complaint here? Oh yeah, that we Nice Guys go around claiming that you prefer the bluntly honest horndog aka sexually predatory jerks and don't want really want to date nice guys, although you're fine with having us as friends. Sounds like we're pretty much in agreement with how things are.
Oh, but we're bitter and hostile about the situation. That we act like we're entitled to have it play out differently, that we deserve better. Hmm, yeah, I can see how that impression could develop. Mind you, when I do my complaining, I complain about the overall situation, not about one individual woman or her sexual preferences. I've heard some of the bitter and hostile guys, incels and all that, making it sound like we, the nice guys, are the victims of a social situation that puts us in double-binds where we're damned if we do and damned if we don't, but that you, Ms. HB, and your sisters, are free to act in a different pattern if you so chose, and that since you don't so choose this is somehow all your doing. I'm personally going to plead Not Guilty on that one, but I concede that there's a lot of that behavior coming off the Nice Guys in general. It's not nice and it's not fair, but people are often hostile towards individuals when what they're actually angry and frustrated about is how things are set up socially. A lot of us Nice Guy types don't like aspects of our gender role, that's what it comes down to, and we complain about it being unfair, and sometimes we get downright adversarial and confrontational about it. Sometimes we act like the individual person in front of us is somehow personally responsible for setting it up that way. And is free in a way that we are not. That's just wrong.
(Hell, it's a patriarchy, and women, including you, Ms. HB, have been complaining about the unfairness to women of these rigid roles and pointing out how you're constrained by them, so it's quite amazing that Nice Guys can be so opaque about how no, you and your sisters didn't personally set it up this way. But the whining Nice Guy who is doing this didn't personally set it up this way either, and neither, for that matter did the bluntly honest horndog fellow, whose bluntly honest tendency to treat you like a sexual bonbon right from the outset is only preferable under some circumstances).
Let me explain a couple things from a personal vantage point, if I may.
First off, some women do prefer Nice Guys. You personally, Ms. HB, are free not to, and I'm still on board with being your friend. But the sexist courting and dating scenario paints the honest horndog fellow as the male who is doing it right, so it's harder for us to figure out how to make our situation work.
Second, let's posit for the sake of example that I'm attracted to you from the outset when we first meet. That's not special. I'm attracted to an incredibly large percent of your very cute morphological variety, and at the stage where I've only just met you that isn't any more personal for me than it is for you, you see what I'm saying? And just like a lot of nice girls, I tend to want to feel personally appreciated for who I am and treated individually and not like an interchangeable Tab A, and even if that were not true, I've heard all the nice-girl complaints about being treated like sex objects and sexual targets and opportunities, so no, of course I'm not going to express to you the fact that I find you sexually attractive, I don't even know you!
Thirdly, let's assume some time goes by and we do get to know each other, and I'm liking you. I'm liking you on many levels. Well, when that happens to you, do you, umm, find it awkward to express a type of interest that would move the connection in a romantic direction? I sure do, so I wait. Not only is it not my responsibility as the person with the male anatomy to be more blunt and honest in saying so, I'm totally into being less so precisely because of how it's all set up.
-----
All of the above set of notions and concepts are things I more often express as "I am of a different gender than the one that is conventionally assumed of male people". You do need to realize that there is more than one way of putting things into words. If you never before thought of Nice Guys as people unhappy with sexist expectations, or as people whose assumed gender is a bad fit for who they actually are, it may be because they aren't being called that, aren't typically discussed that way.
You do, I assume, realize that Nice Guys, in the sense promulgated by the Heartless Bitches International characterization, is labeling from the outside, right?
Well, that was true of the label "bitches" too, wasn't it? Good on you for reclaiming it.
I'm following your example.
-----
My book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, has been published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, is also being published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It's expected to be released in early 2022. Stay tuned for further details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
comments at Dreamwidth -- https://ahunter3.dreamwidth.org/84386.html#comments
Raise your hand if you have no idea what I'm talking about. No one? Good... so hang on to that image, if you will...
So: the Nice Guys thing -- I first ran into the complaint about Nice Guys from a website called Heartless Bitches International, back in the 1990s. I'm under the impression that HBI were the folks who publicized the concept and made it a part of our shared social repertoire. They said Nice Guys were the ones always complaining that women don't really want nice guys, that women gravitate towards sexually predatory jerks. Or to be more specific about it, they complain that women don't really want to date nice guys. That nice guys get "friend zoned", treated as friends who aren't heterosexually eligible. The Heartless Bitches' complaint about us (yes, us, because for presumably obvious reasons -- if you've been reading my blog -- that description certainly hit home so far) was that we only pretend to like them, that our real motivation is to worm our way into their affections by being nice to them, in hopes that they'll dispense sex to us. And that when that doesn't happen, we get all bitter and hostile. And this all means that we really just viewed the women as sexual opportunities, as sex objects, and were only being nice as a ploy to make them like us, and think we're entitled to have sex happen as a consequence of being nice, which, when you sum it all up isn't very nice at all, now is it?
Well, look, Ms. Heartless... may I refer to you as HB? (It's one thing for you to refer to yourself as a bitch, but...) Look, HB, I wasn't pretending to like you as a person. I really do, I admire you and greatly enjoy your company, and no, it's not a calculated attempt to sneak my way into your pants. Do I hope that some percent of my associations with women I like and admire will develop like the romantic films and stories, where one day a moment will come...? Oh hell yeah. Sure I do. I'm attracted in your direction, why wouldn't I hope for such things? Frankly, I think that for a lot of people who have never thought of themselves as genderqueer, or as nice guys for that matter, they'd like for more of that kind of thing to happen in their lives, so it's not just us.
But somehow it's creepy to hope that one day she'll decide I'm kind of hot and that she wants to kiss me and make out? "She" isn't a specific person; it doesn't have to be you, personally. This trajectory doesn't have to be how all my nice warm collegial friendships with female people end up going, and I don't expect them to. I'm certainly not thinking about it every moment of the time we spend together.
Let's revisit: I grew up with girls saying they were tired of being treated and regarded as sexual opportunities instead of as people. And we Nice Guys, perhaps we are the males who grew up liking girls as people, like their company, share their values, and want their approval as a person, as well as being attracted to them. That's certainly where I'm at. So -- Ms. HB, over here, she says she prefers the bluntly honest horndog, the fellow who clearly signals that his interest in her is of a sexual nature.
What's the complaint here? Oh yeah, that we Nice Guys go around claiming that you prefer the bluntly honest horndog aka sexually predatory jerks and don't want really want to date nice guys, although you're fine with having us as friends. Sounds like we're pretty much in agreement with how things are.
Oh, but we're bitter and hostile about the situation. That we act like we're entitled to have it play out differently, that we deserve better. Hmm, yeah, I can see how that impression could develop. Mind you, when I do my complaining, I complain about the overall situation, not about one individual woman or her sexual preferences. I've heard some of the bitter and hostile guys, incels and all that, making it sound like we, the nice guys, are the victims of a social situation that puts us in double-binds where we're damned if we do and damned if we don't, but that you, Ms. HB, and your sisters, are free to act in a different pattern if you so chose, and that since you don't so choose this is somehow all your doing. I'm personally going to plead Not Guilty on that one, but I concede that there's a lot of that behavior coming off the Nice Guys in general. It's not nice and it's not fair, but people are often hostile towards individuals when what they're actually angry and frustrated about is how things are set up socially. A lot of us Nice Guy types don't like aspects of our gender role, that's what it comes down to, and we complain about it being unfair, and sometimes we get downright adversarial and confrontational about it. Sometimes we act like the individual person in front of us is somehow personally responsible for setting it up that way. And is free in a way that we are not. That's just wrong.
(Hell, it's a patriarchy, and women, including you, Ms. HB, have been complaining about the unfairness to women of these rigid roles and pointing out how you're constrained by them, so it's quite amazing that Nice Guys can be so opaque about how no, you and your sisters didn't personally set it up this way. But the whining Nice Guy who is doing this didn't personally set it up this way either, and neither, for that matter did the bluntly honest horndog fellow, whose bluntly honest tendency to treat you like a sexual bonbon right from the outset is only preferable under some circumstances).
Let me explain a couple things from a personal vantage point, if I may.
First off, some women do prefer Nice Guys. You personally, Ms. HB, are free not to, and I'm still on board with being your friend. But the sexist courting and dating scenario paints the honest horndog fellow as the male who is doing it right, so it's harder for us to figure out how to make our situation work.
Second, let's posit for the sake of example that I'm attracted to you from the outset when we first meet. That's not special. I'm attracted to an incredibly large percent of your very cute morphological variety, and at the stage where I've only just met you that isn't any more personal for me than it is for you, you see what I'm saying? And just like a lot of nice girls, I tend to want to feel personally appreciated for who I am and treated individually and not like an interchangeable Tab A, and even if that were not true, I've heard all the nice-girl complaints about being treated like sex objects and sexual targets and opportunities, so no, of course I'm not going to express to you the fact that I find you sexually attractive, I don't even know you!
Thirdly, let's assume some time goes by and we do get to know each other, and I'm liking you. I'm liking you on many levels. Well, when that happens to you, do you, umm, find it awkward to express a type of interest that would move the connection in a romantic direction? I sure do, so I wait. Not only is it not my responsibility as the person with the male anatomy to be more blunt and honest in saying so, I'm totally into being less so precisely because of how it's all set up.
-----
All of the above set of notions and concepts are things I more often express as "I am of a different gender than the one that is conventionally assumed of male people". You do need to realize that there is more than one way of putting things into words. If you never before thought of Nice Guys as people unhappy with sexist expectations, or as people whose assumed gender is a bad fit for who they actually are, it may be because they aren't being called that, aren't typically discussed that way.
You do, I assume, realize that Nice Guys, in the sense promulgated by the Heartless Bitches International characterization, is labeling from the outside, right?
Well, that was true of the label "bitches" too, wasn't it? Good on you for reclaiming it.
I'm following your example.
-----
My book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, has been published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, is also being published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It's expected to be released in early 2022. Stay tuned for further details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
comments at Dreamwidth -- https://ahunter3.dreamwidth.org/84386.html#comments