Well, you're the FIRST person to complain about my writing style, I usually get commended on my through and concise manner in which I write.... So my apologies if YOU didn't understand what I was trying to say here.

I see this question posted all of the time in the personals section, so I thought I'd take a minute to explain things to the ladies out there that haven't figured it out.

What happened to all the nice guys?

The answer is simple: you did.

See, if you think back really hard, you might vaguely remember a platonic guy pal who always seemed to want to spend time with you. He'd tag along with you when you went shopping, stop by your place for a movie when you were lonely but didn't feel like going out, or even sit there and hold you while you sobbed and told him about how horribly the other guy that you were screwing treated you.

At the time, you probably joked with your girlfriends about how he was a little puppy dog, always following you around, trying to do things to get you to pay attention to him. They probably teased you because they thought he had a crush on you. Given that his behavior was, admittedly, a little pathetic, you denied having any romantic feelings for him, and told everyone that you were "just friends." Besides, he absolutely was not your type. I mean, he was a little too short, or too bald, or too fat, or too poor, or didn't know how to dress himself, or basically be or do any of the things that your tall, good-looking, fit, rich, stylish boyfriend at the time pulled off with such ease.

Eventually, your platonic buddy drifted away, as your relationship with the boyfriend got more serious and spending time with this other guy was, admittedly, a little weird, if you weren't dating him. More time passed, and the boyfriend eventually cheated on you, or became boring, or you realized that the things that attracted you to him weren't the kinds of things that make for a good, long-term relationship. So, now, you're single again, and after having tried the bar scene for several months having only encountered players and douche bags, you wonder, "What happened to all the nice guys?"

Well, once again, you did.

You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating with physical intimacy. You laughed at his consideration and resented his devotion. You valued the aloof boyfriend more than the attentive platonic friend. Eventually, he took the hint and moved on with his life. He probably came to realize, one day, that women aren't really attracted to guys who hold doors open, or make dinners just because, or buy you a Christmas gift that you mentioned, in passing, that you really wanted five months ago; or listen when you're upset, or hold you when you cry. He came to realize that, if he wanted a woman like you, he'd have to act more like the boyfriend that you had. He probably cleaned up his look, started making some money, and generally acted like more of an asshole than he ever wanted to be.

The fact is, now, he's probably getting laid, and in a way, your ultimate rejection of him is to thank for that. And I'm sorry that it took the complete absence of "nice guys" in your life for you to realize that you missed them and wanted them. Most women will only have a handful of nice guys stumble into their lives, and only if they are lucky.

So, if you're looking for a nice guy, here's what you do:

1.) Build a time machine.
2.) Go back a few years and pull your head out of your ass.
3.) Take a look at what's right in front of you and grab a hold of it.

I suppose the other possibility is that you STILL don't really want a nice guy, but you feel the social pressure to at least appear to have matured beyond your infantile taste in men. In which case, you might be in luck, because the nice guy you claim to want has, in reality, shed his nice guy mantle and is out there looking to unleash his cynicism and resentment onto someone just like you.

If you were five years younger.

So please, either stop misrepresenting what you want, or own up to the fact that you've really screwed up. You're getting older, after all. It's time to excise the bull**** and deal with reality. You didn't want a nice guy then, and he certainly doesn't want you, at least not now.

Sincerely,

Jimmy F

An Actual Nice Guy

I'll agree with you there Lexy Lexy, but it goes both ways...and all of these "nice" guys want the model women without a brain in their head...so as they can fill the plastic mold with their own bullsh*t and have a stepford wife.

Absolutely true, and that's just as bad as the other way around. It gets back to the "I want to change you because you'll work better if I make all the decisions on what to change" mentality. I guess I just have a hard time with people who can only accept someone who has visible strings (or my proverbial steering wheel).

Hiker, I used to feel pretty much the same way. But one thing I've learned -- over and over and over -- is that the girls on dating sites simply are not looking for "smart" or "interesting." They don't want a "challenge" or even a "partner." They're looking for a guy who buys into every traditional conformist brainwashese platitude out there, a guy who either comes with a steering wheel or has a place to put one. The guy who is smart and interesting doesn't stand a chance in a venue like this unless some girl thinks she can domesticate him.

Excuse me, Lex, but am I not a girl on a dating site? Or do I somehow not count? I am looking for smart and interesting.

You should know better than to generalize that way.

As always, I'm speaking strictly in terms of my own personal experiences. Maybe I should have made that clearer in my first post in this thread; but in my second, I stated:

"Your mileage may vary. Nonetheless, that has been my repeated experience in ten years of using dating sites. Intelligence and being interesting are NOT assets in this sort of environment."

Of course, I can't address the issue as a universal condition. At the same time, I can't use someone like yourself as a counterexample, since we haven't met and I don't know you well enough to place you inside or outside of my experience parameters. I believe you when you say you're looking for "smart and interesting" -- but I have run across many, many more who make that same claim, but do so falsely. I simply can no longer take statements like that at face value.

What I'm doing is not so much generalizing (something I have vigorously railed against during the entirety of my time here) as it is explaining my own (admittedly limited, in terms of statistical sampling) experiences with dating sites.

Ah..I should have known better than to accuse you of sloppy thinking. And I hadn't read your second post when I posted my protest.

Mea culpa

No problem. One of the things I like most about you is your willingness to speak your mind. Don't ever change that. I have no issues with someone telling me I'm wrong -- I've been wrong billions of times (just ask my ex-wife) and I'm sure I'll be wrong billions more. I respect anyone who has no reluctance to bring it to my attention.