Comments | jen_aside: 4134: Love Stinks

jen_aside

4134: Love Stinks

Feb 12, 2012 21:50

So, prompted by the usual stream of consciousness that led to mentioning how calikat linked to this article on FB [the link is on FB, not the article], the topic of The Ex came up, which was an interesting discussion. All the advice columns say that it's bad for a relationship to constantly bad-mouth [or even sweet-talk!] The Ex, but our discussion was ( Read more... )

holiday, ihatepeople, boardgamey, internety, psychologically, x

Comments 7

digoraccoon February 13 2012, 03:00:01 UTC

What if it's that the nice guy lives in a crappy neighborhood where everyone's a jerk? XD

jen_aside February 13 2012, 05:41:14 UTC

At the heart of the topic is the "nice guy" is, ironically, not nice at all so much as the "completely-afraid-to-offend-anyone guy" [contrast: "kind guy"], so if everyone else is a jerk, they're likely the ones walking all over the "nice guy"...

There was another article that went into that, but I wanted to stick to the ones on-topic... and eventually write my own summation =p [most likely not under my real name]

digoraccoon February 15 2012, 03:45:04 UTC

Right, right.
One shouldn't be too nice to the point of becoming a marshmellow.

jimboomega February 16 2012, 23:18:55 UTC

The real flaw in nice-guy-ism is a lack of confidence and experience, and no specific strategy will replace that. I am of the belief that so-called "Pick Up Artists" are really just mastering how to act confident through tremendous focus and practice.

Having no experience with women, pursuing a strategy derived from no experience, and then failing at that strategy is a fairly predictable set of events. It's a strategy, as you say.

The problem is that it's somewhat self-reinforcing. If you fail to have positive interactions, you might just keep trying failing strategies... and in any case, you're falling behind your peers. Being hopelessly awkward at 15 is acceptable, but at 25 it'll get you almost nowhere. What's worse, is that the failures only sink you further, make you feel less confident, etc. And who are you going to blame if you're really trying hard to be "nice"? Well, the women you are interacting with, of course.

Of course if you have success, that makes a huge difference. Just knowing that you can succeed ( ... )

jen_aside February 17 2012, 00:22:38 UTC

There are so many accurate [in my experience] descriptions of Nice Guys that I honestly do want to plagiarize everybody and collect all the gems in one place, among them an anonymous chat comment, "So-called 'nice guys' that whine about finishing last aren't really that nice. For one thing, they whine ( ... )

jimboomega February 17 2012, 16:10:25 UTC

Actually, the "Pick-Up Artist" community is primarily composed of guys who where not outspoken/aggressive/successul with women. But they saw others who were, and, through a lot of work, learned to emulate them. It is (or at least is sold as) a thing for geeks - for smart guys who lack confidence or the ability to talk to women ( ... )

jen_aside February 17 2012, 22:51:26 UTC

I said that, there are those who emulate what they saw, like, "Acting like a jerk works for jerks, so maybe it'll work for me!" My ex was like that--he decided it was better to have no filter so to prove he had nothing to hide [in the process learning how to be completely oblivious to being completely rude ( ... )