Nice Guys: The Egalitarian vs. The Traditionalist

[the_rake]

#1 INTRO: THE "NICE GUY"

I already wrote a number of takes debunking the fallacious reasoning a few so-called 'feminists' employ debunking the nice guy. After discussing this stuff with multiple commenters, I was forced to refine and crystallise my ideas because it seems that all of these myths and pervasive stereotypes about the nice guy are very deeply ingrained into cultural mindsets for some reason (not just women, but men also, for some reason). Before I had all of these discussions, I simply relegated these principles that I'm about to explain as assumed knowledge: after all thinking to the contrary is always based on logically fallacious reasoning of some kind ... and people are not that stupid, right?

It quickly became clear that there's enough people with all kinds of negative misconceptions about 'the nice guy' that it's necessary to elucidate a few basic facts. These are:

- Some nice guys are physically attractive: being unattractive is not necessarily the reason they don't have the same dating and sexual freedom as women.

- Some nice guys have interests and hobbies: never getting out of the house is not necessarily the reason they don't have the same dating and sexual freedom as women.

- Some nice guys are genuinely compassionate, interested in and caring towards women and people in general: being nice does not necessarily mean they are only interested in sex and therefore not necessarily the reason they don't have the same dating and sexual freedom as women.

- Some nice guys have strong ambitions and career prospects: living in their parents bedroom is not necessarily the reason they don't have the same dating and sexual freedom as women.

- Some nice guys are powerful, confident people: even this does not necessarily guarantee somebody success in a competitive, individualist world where ruthlessness and manipulative cue-jumping tactics are used to get ahead. Sometimes these are even encouraged by society.

- Some nice guys are down on their luck: taking the time to get things off your chest doesn't mean that all you do is moan and complain and it certainly doesn't mean these guys think women owe them their bodily autonomy.

In her youtube video two years ago, apart from sounding totally odious and non-compassionate, Jenna Marbles made all of these fallacies, or at least failed to describe the kind of nice guy with the aforementioned positive qualities:

#2 THE CONTEXT: FEMALE HYPERGAMY & THE DATING CLIMATE FOR MEN

So what is dating and sexual freedom and why is it most guys don't have the same dating and sexual freedom as women? The reasons are both biological and economic: because women can only fertilise one egg cell over a 9 month period, women have to be more selective and are therefore less invested in sex overall than men who can theoretically fertilise thousands. This is Bateman's Principle and means that women are seen as extremely valuable by most men and therefore she has the BATNA: the best alternative to a negotiated arrangement.

In other words, women are biologically encoded to be attracted to hunter and provider males (usually passing on the genes of the alpha hunter male) and this translates into the average woman having more options in the dating scene. These are the economic and genetic causes of female dating hypergamy. Are there women using this advantage? Of course. This is where the western woman:

Hypergamous trends are especially prevalent in the western world where many young, attractive women are superficial, vapid, attention seekers that often prefer guys with fake tan and low IQ over real confidence, real self-esteem and real masculinity:

This problem has arisen because with the advent of feminism, women now live in a world where they are free to pursue their sexual desires rather than being restricted by the institution of monogamy. However, being free to pursue their sexual desires means that only a relatively small number of men will see consistent and meaningful success with women. Note here that promiscuity is not the issue: hypergamy is. But many sexually frustrated men will confuse promiscuity for hypergamy: that's why on sites like this one you see so many men slut-shaming out of resentment for promiscuous, hypergamous women. It often has very little to do with ethics, hence why I made this take.

So, I have already addressed a lot of this stuff in previous takes, as you can see. That brings me to a distinction between two kinds of nice guys I have not addressed yet:

#3 NICE GUYS: A NEW DISTINCTION

So, among the numerous and erroneous critiques of nice guys I already mentioned, there exists one more pervasive myth about nice guys, although it is strongly tied into the question about being genuinely nice to women:

Nice guys put women on a pedestal: they buy her flowers, open doors, pay for dates and have sexist, patriarchal views about women.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and belittle the traditionalist that goes out of his way to be nice and pleasant to women. Having said that, you do get takes like the ones from guy that demonstrate such cringe worthy levels of traditionalism that really do justify the existence of the term white knight. The point I'm going to get across here is that niceness =/= traditionalism.

There is another kind of nice guy:

- a guy that genuinely believes in equality,

- a guy that is disgusted by trends in female dating hypergamy,

- a guy that does not believe that a man should be dominant with and lead all interactions with a woman

- a guy that disagrees with the social obligation to be chivalrous: open doors for women, pay for dates and buy expensive gifts for already pampered and superficial westernised women

Also related to this is the theory about the friendzone. It always seems to be the traditionalist variety of nice guys getting friendzoned and spending months trying to weasel their way out while the egalitarians would be more eager to be friendzoned if it meant that they could branch out and establish connections with other women. But nonetheless, you see all kinds of dating advice geared towards men that have been friendzoned and so-called 'feminist' assumptions that nice guys are just traditionalist betas that try to underhandedly win the validation of a girl they like through the friendzone. Note that egalitarians don't always get the friendzone connections that would be optimal for them. Realistically, they will end up as acquaintances to a girl they like for the most part if that.

#4 CONCLUSION

I leave this take with an addition to my stance on the pervasive and damaging stereotypes held by certain so-called 'feminists' on the internet. It shouldn't be necessary to spell out these simple facts but as a matter of fact it is, and we have pseudo-feminism and superficial, commercialised trends in western society to blame for that:

[coachTanthony]

Love your stuff bro... I will leave you some words from a famous bad boy.
Virtue is not photogenic. What is it to be a nice guy? To be nothing, that's what. A big fat zero with a smile for everybody. Kirk Douglas

[the_rake]

You said that you agree with what I said, but I don't really see how that quote backs me up.

I'm saying that a nice guy can have style too and we need to ditch these misconceptions...

[coachTanthony]

The quote doesn't back you up at all... it shows how difficult it will be to overcome these stereotypes when you have bad boy movie stars creating the propaganda to begin with. When it comes to nice guys I believe NICE and NEEDY get mixed up in this game of women wanting or not wanting a nice guy. Who doesn't want a nice guy? Unfortunately most nice guys don't do your MyTake any favors because their number one fault is being too needy.

[the_rake]

Ah, ok my bad. I misinterpreted your post.

'Unfortunately most nice guys don't do your MyTake any favors'

Yep, I've noticed this trend. It's extremely frustrating to deal with - more frustrating in some ways than the 'feminists' who attack you from the other side of the spectrum. That basically means you've got to deal with both sides of the argument at once. That's why I go to such depths to ensure as much clarity as possible in my posts and takes.

I wrote a take about the exact phenomena, in fact, but I think the point went over most people's heads: www.girlsaskguys.com/.../a26071-where-men-women-are-going-wrong-about-the-whole-nice-guy-thing