What I'm Reading...

[Suuse]

As some of you know, my husband (whom I met on TBD1), is the co-chair of NOMAS: National Organization Of Men Against Sexism. This 30-year-old group works well behind the scenes--often in conjunction with other groups including NOW (National Organization for Women) and NCADV (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence) to address sexism, racism and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sexual preference. One of the other board members, Barry Goldstein (With Mo Hannah) is publishing a book, "Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody."

You can see excerpts at: http://www.civicresearchinstitute.com/dvac.html

I'd heard and read a lot about Barry before I ever met him--and was extremely curious about who this man *is*--because he's portrayed as both angel and devil for his work on custody cases. He is currently unable to practice law due to the actions of a judge whom he criticised. I suppose that if his criticisms had remained confined to a website, his punishment might have been less than it ultimately was--but Newsweek picked up the story on which Barry's censure is based, and, well....

You can read a detailed analysis of the case here: http://batteredmomslosecustody.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/broken-ny-c...

Barry is also the author or "Scared To Leave, Afraid To Stay". He served on the board of directors of the local battered women's shelter for 14 years including four years as chairperson.

Suffice it to say the man I met is an ardent advocate for women's rights in the courts.

His books aren't easy reads--but they are well-written and wealth of information.

[Dazzling Zoomer Gal Diana]

Thank you Suuse! I will study this. My mother and I were "victims" of my late father's abuse. "Scared To Leave, Afraid To Stay" were words my beloved mother grappled with daily, until one day - when I was 16, I couldn't stand it anymore and became the catalyst for change that saw my mum and I leave Washington D.C. for Montreal and her sister's house, with just the cloths on our backs and a suitcase to hand to start life all over again. We were "allowed to get away" and that in itself is a story. I know a good deal about domestic violence and psychological abuse.

To my dearly loved late father's credit - he apologized to me, most sincerely many years later, and to my mother. Much of his attitude had to do with his upbringing (Greek) the wars he fought in (three of them) personal deprivation and starvation (his beloved mother died of breast cancer when he was 13, and he lost his home at that age, esp. difficult as he was an only child, hence from riches to rags in one day) and the simple fact that that generation of men born in the 1920's were raised to be misogynistic, and to believe in the "value" of corporal punishment. Excuses? Yes, to some extent. There were no bench marks, no men's groups, no help for shell shocked war torn men . . .

Now - in this day and age, there are no such excuses for bad behaviour - other than the fact that men are stronger, and can get away with it still. No woman should ever enter into a relationship if at all possible without understanding the warning signs of domestic violence and psychological abuse and being prepared to bail immediately upon the threat of any show of violence or abuse. And we must guide and teach our daughters and granddaughters the warning signs too, whilst ensuring that our sons and grandsons understand that this sort of behaviour is unexceptable.

Wonderful post Suuse - let's talk about this some more . . .

[Suuse]

There's a line from a Bruce Cockburn song that has been my mantra these past some years: "You have to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight."

Domestic violence is still a "dirty little secret"--one which, too often, victims are ashamed to tell. Not unlike rape, the more we talk about these things, the less power they have over us. However, when the courts side with the abuser and the custody of young ones is at risk--time to kick and kick hard!

One of Barry's cases is recounted here: http://ca3cacaca.blogspot.com/2009/07/barry-goldstein-believer.html

I've excerpted this from that blog:

In his first book, SCARED TO LEAVE AFRAID TO STAY, Barry told the story of three children who complained their father was abusing them physically and sexually. Their mother obtained an order of protection and sought custody. The children told the judge, evaluator, their attorney and CPS caseworker what their father did. As happens too often, these "experts" decided the mother was brainwashing the children and threatened to change custody if she didn't stop. Right before the first unsupervised visit, the baby sitter confronted the father in the presence of the law guardian and the father admitted to kissing the girls on their privates. The law guardian immediately filed a motion to stop the visitation. The judge consulted with the evaluator who said the father used bad judgment but there was no reason to stop the visitation. Barry called CPS to report the father's admission. When the judge found out he yelled and screamed at Barry saying CPS already investigated so there was no reason for a new report. The four-year-old was penetrated during the first unsupervised visit. A different caseworker investigated Barry's complaint and found the father's actions were even worse then reported. They filed charges against the father and he never again had anything more than supervised visits.

It's long past time we pull this behaviour--kicking and screaming, if necessary!--into the light. And I'm with Dazz: we need to teach our daughters and granddaughters what to watch for, even as we teach our sons and grandsons that this is never acceptible behaviour.

One of the things I went through in my first marriage (can we just call him "the lying, cheating ragoholic"??) was his frequent raging about oh-whatever--and then the words "You make me so fucking angry sometimes!"

Oh, the irony of hearing our marriage counselor say "She doesn't *MAKE* you angry--you have any number of possible responses--but you *CHOOSE* to be angry."

Amen to that.

[Dazzling Zoomer Gal Diana]

National Domestic Violence/Abuse Hotline

1-800-799-SAFE
1-800-799-7233
1-800-787-3224

TDD 24-hour-a-day hotline staffed by trained counselors ready to provide immediate crisis intervention assistance to those in need. Callers can be connected directly to help in their communities, including emergency services and shelters as well as receive information and referrals, counseling and assistance in reporting abuse.

This is a vital lifeline to anyone - man, woman or child - who is a survivor of domestic violence, or who suspects that someone they know may be the victim of abuse. Calls to the hotline are confidential, and callers may remain anonymous if they wish.

"Cut the cycle of silence"

[Suuse]

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THESE PHONE NUMBERS!

[Dazzling Zoomer Gal Diana]

(((Hugs))) It's imperative that all women are awake and aware of the signs of abuse. Often abuse sneaks into one's life like a slippery spider . . . this is a good link with a list of warning signs.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs...

Sometimes we get complacent - at our age we think we can spot all the signs . . . but one can be distracted, or in denial, or co-dependent or feeling obligated - without realizing it. Always have a safe house, and the means to make a get away if need be, and do not ever advertise this intell. Even if you never need to use it, there is great comfort in knowing that you can.

If you are in a new relationship - and the person does something you don't like, say so RIGHT AWAY. If you permit someone to do something that makes you upset once, even twice, then you have tacitly accepted that behaviour, and it will make it much harder to set boundaries after the fact.

[Suuse]

From
http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html


Five Geek Social Fallacies


Within the constellation of allied hobbies and subcultures collectively known as geekdom, one finds many social groups bent under a crushing burden of dysfunction, social drama, and general interpersonal wack-ness. It is my opinion that many of these never-ending crises are sparked off by an assortment of pernicious social fallacies -- ideas about human interaction which spur their holders to do terrible and stupid things to themselves and to each other.

Social fallacies are particularly insidious because they tend to be exaggerated versions of notions that are themselves entirely reasonable and unobjectionable. It's difficult to debunk the pathological fallacy without seeming to argue against its reasonable form; therefore, once it establishes itself, a social fallacy is extremely difficult to dislodge. It's my hope that drawing attention to some of them may be a step in the right direction.

I want to note that I'm not trying to say that every geek subscribes to every one of the fallacies I outline here; every individual subscribes to a different set of ideas, and adheres to any given idea with a different amount of zeal.

In any event, here are five geek social fallacies I've identified. There are likely more.

Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil

GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them.

In its non-pathological form, GSF1 is benign, and even commendable: it is long past time we all grew up and stopped with the junior high popularity games. However, in its pathological form, GSF1 prevents its carrier from participating in -- or tolerating -- the exclusion of anyone from anything, be it a party, a comic book store, or a web forum, and no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or aromatic the prospective excludee may be.

As a result, nearly every geek social group of significant size has at least one member that 80% of the members hate, and the remaining 20% merely tolerate. If GSF1 exists in sufficient concentration -- and it usually does -- it is impossible to expel a person who actively detracts from every social event. GSF1 protocol permits you not to invite someone you don't like to a given event, but if someone spills the beans and our hypothetical Cat Piss Man invites himself, there is no recourse. You must put up with him, or you will be an Evil Ostracizer and might as well go out for the football team.

This phenomenon has a number of unpleasant consequences. For one thing, it actively hinders the wider acceptance of geek-related activities: I don't know that RPGs and comics would be more popular if there were fewer trolls who smell of cheese hassling the new blood, but I'm sure it couldn't hurt. For another, when nothing smacking of social selectiveness can be discussed in public, people inevitably begin to organize activities in secret. These conspiracies often lead to more problems down the line, and the end result is as juvenile as anything a seventh-grader ever dreamed of.

Geek Social Fallacy #2: Friends Accept Me As I Am

The origins of GSF2 are closely allied to the origins of GSF1. After being victimized by social exclusion, many geeks experience their "tribe" as a non-judgmental haven where they can take refuge from the cruel world outside.

This seems straightforward and reasonable. It's important for people to have a space where they feel safe and accepted. Ideally, everyone's social group would be a safe haven. When people who rely too heavily upon that refuge feel insecure in that haven, however, a commendable ideal mutates into its pathological form, GSF2.

Carriers of GSF2 believe that since a friend accepts them as they are, anyone who criticizes them is not their friend. Thus, they can't take criticism from friends -- criticism is experienced as a treacherous betrayal of the friendship, no matter how inappropriate the criticized behavior may be.

Conversely, most carriers will never criticize a friend under any circumstances; the duty to be supportive trumps any impulse to point out unacceptable behavior.

GSF2 has extensive consequences within a group. Its presence in substantial quantity within a social group vastly increases the group's conflict-averseness. People spend hours debating how to deal with conflicts, because they know (or sometimes merely fear) that the other person involved is a GSF2 carrier, and any attempt to confront them directly will only make things worse. As a result, people let grudges brew much longer than is healthy, and they spend absurd amounts of time deconstructing their interpersonal dramas in search of a back way out of a dilemma.

Ironically, GSF2 carriers often take criticism from coworkers, supervisors, and mentors quite well; those individuals aren't friends, and aren't expected to accept the carrier unconditionally.

Geek Social Fallacy #3: Friendship Before All

Valuing friendships is a fine and worthy thing. When taken to an unhealthy extreme, however, GSF3 can manifest itself.

Like GSF2, GSF3 is a "friendship test" fallacy: in this case, the carrier believes that any failure by a friend to put the interests of the friendship above all else means that they aren't really a friend at all. It should be obvious that there are a million ways that this can be a problem for the carrier's friends, but the most common one is a situation where friends' interests conflict -- if, for example, one friend asks you to keep a secret from another friend. If both friends are GSF3 carriers, you're screwed -- the first one will feel betrayed if you reveal the secret, and the other will feel betrayed if you don't. Your only hope is to keep the second friend from finding out, which is difficult if the secret in question was a party that a lot of people went to.

GSF3 can be costly for the carrier as well. They often sacrifice work, family, and romantic obligations at the altar of friendship. In the end, the carrier has a great circle of friends, but not a lot else to show for their life. This is one reason why so many geek circles include people whose sole redeeming quality is loyalty: it's hard not to honor someone who goes to such lengths to be there for a friend, however destructive they may be in other respects.

Individual carriers sometimes have exceptions to GSF3, which allow friends to place a certain protected class of people or things above friendship in a pinch: "significant others" is a common protected class, as is "work".

Geek Social Fallacy #4: Friendship Is Transitive

Every carrier of GSF4 has, at some point, said:

"Wouldn't it be great to get all my groups of friends into one place for one big happy party?!"

If you groaned at that last paragraph, you may be a recovering GSF4 carrier.

GSF4 is the belief that any two of your friends ought to be friends with each other, and if they're not, something is Very Wrong.

The milder form of GSF4 merely prevents the carrier from perceiving evidence to contradict it; a carrier will refuse to comprehend that two of their friends (or two groups of friends) don't much care for each other, and will continue to try to bring them together at social events. They may even maintain that a full-scale vendetta is just a misunderstanding between friends that could easily be resolved if the principals would just sit down to talk it out.

A more serious form of GSF4 becomes another "friendship test" fallacy: if you have a friend A, and a friend B, but A & B are not friends, then one of them must not really be your friend at all. It is surprisingly common for a carrier, when faced with two friends who don't get along, to simply drop one of them.

On the other side of the equation, a carrier who doesn't like a friend of a friend will often get very passive-aggressive and covertly hostile to the friend of a friend, while vigorously maintaining that we're one big happy family and everyone is friends.

GSF4 can also lead carriers to make inappropriate requests of people they barely know -- asking a friend's roommate's ex if they can crash on their couch, asking a college acquaintance from eight years ago for a letter of recommendation at their workplace, and so on. If something is appropriate to ask of a friend, it's appropriate to ask of a friend of a friend.

Arguably, Friendster was designed by a GSF4 carrier.

Geek Social Fallacy #5: Friends Do Everything Together

GSF5, put simply, maintains that every friend in a circle should be included in every activity to the full extent possible. This is subtly different from GSF1; GSF1 requires that no one, friend or not, be excluded, while GSF5 requires that every friend be invited. This means that to a GSF5 carrier, not being invited to something is intrinsically a snub, and will be responded to as such.

This is perhaps the least destructive of the five, being at worst inconvenient. In a small circle, this is incestuous but basically harmless. In larger groups, it can make certain social events very difficult: parties which are way too large for their spaces and restaurant expeditions that include twenty people and no reservation are far from unusual.

When everyone in a group is a GSF5 carrier, this isn't really a problem. If, however, there are members who aren't carriers, they may want occasionally to have smaller outings, and these can be hard to arrange without causing hurt feelings and social drama. It's hard to explain to a GSF5 carrier that just because you only wanted to have dinner with five other people tonight, it doesn't mean that your friendship is in terrible danger.

For some reason, many GSF5 carriers are willing to make an exception for gender-segregated events. I don't know why.

Interactions

Each fallacy has its own set of unfortunate consequences, but frequently they become worse in interaction. GSF4 often develops into its more extreme form when paired with GSF5; if everyone does everything together, it's much harder to maintain two friends who don't get along. One will usually fall by the wayside.

Similarly, GSF1 and GSF5 can combine regrettably: when a failure to invite someone is equivalent to excluding them, you can't even get away with not inviting Captain Halitosis along on the road trip. GSF3 can combine disastrously with the other "friendship test" fallacies; carriers may insist that their friends join them in snubbing someone who fails the test, which occasionally leads to a chain reaction which causes the carrier to eventually reject all of their friends. This is not healthy; fortunately, severe versions of GSF3 are rare.

Consequences

Dealing with the effects of social fallacies is an essential part of managing one's social life among geeks, and this is much easier when one is aware of them and can identify which of your friends carry which fallacies. In the absence of this kind of awareness, three situations tend to arise when people come into contact with fallacies they don't hold themselves.

Most common is simple conflict and hurt feelings. It's hard for people to talk through these conflicts because they usually stem from fairly primal value clashes; a GSF3 carrier may not even be able to articulate why it was such a big deal that their non-carrier friend blew off their movie night.

Alternately, people often take on fallacies that are dominant in their social circle. If you join a group of GSF5 carriers, doing everything together is going to become a habit; if you spend enough time around GSF1 carriers, putting up with trolls is going to seem normal.

Less commonly, people form a sort of counter-fallacy which I call "Your Feelings, Your Problem". YFYP carriers deal with other people's fallacies by ignoring them entirely, in the process acquiring a reputation for being charmingly tactless. Carriers tend to receive a sort of exemption from the usual standards: "that's just Dana", and so on. YFYP has its own problems, but if you would rather be an asshole than angstful, it may be the way to go. It's also remarkably easy to pull off in a GSF1-rich environment.

What Can I Do?

As I've said, I think that the best way to deal with social fallacies is to be aware of them, in yourself and in others. In yourself, you can try to deal with them; in others, understanding their behavior usually makes it less aggravating.

Social fallacies don't make someone a bad person; on the contrary, they usually spring from the purest motives. But I believe they are worth deconstructing; in the long run, social fallacies cost a lot of stress and drama, to no real benefit. You can be tolerant without being indiscriminate, and you can be loyal to friends without being compulsive about it.

Hey, Are You Talking About Me?

If I know you, yeah, probably I am. It doesn't mean I don't love you; most of us carry a few fallacies. Myself, I struggle with GSF 1 and 2, and I used to have a bad case of 4 until a series of disastrous parties dispelled it.
I haven't used any examples that refer to specific situations, if it has you worried. Any resemblances to geeks living or dead are coincidental.



Back to Main Page
© 2003 Michael Suileabhain-Wilson. All rights reserved.

[Suuse]

From
http://divalion.livejournal.com/163615.html

No More Mr. Nice Guy

Jul. 12th, 2005 at 6:01 PM

Permit me to be a bitch for a moment. I've been inspired.

I've known a lot of guys in my time. Many of them have been dear friends; there've been times when my best friends were all male. I have a dad and two brothers and lots of male relatives. I live with three guys. I've dated a lot of guys, including the one I'm still committed to after eleven years. Point being, I've seen a pretty wide spectrum of male personalities and behavior and I even think I have a little insight into guys.

There are two kinds of nice guys in the world. Or, perhaps more accurately, there is a spectrum of niceguyishness.

At one end, are the guys who are just pure and simple good guys, decent people, humanly flawed perhaps but nonetheless likable *and* lovable, caring and smart, who have a lot to offer. Ironically, these guys often do not realize just how wonderful they are and how much they are valued by the people around them, and sometimes they even suffer crippling shyness/low self-esteem. I am fortunate to know, and have known, and to be related to, an unusually high number of guys towards this end of the spectrum.

At the other end are the guys who identify as "nice guys", often quite loudly and defensively, and who believe themselves to be underappreciated martyrs; usually they don't understand why they never get the girl and have at least once in their lives bitterly uttered the phrase "Nice guys finish last" usually in reference to a female who isn't dating them. It is this latter group I shall be addressing.

Now according to the Five Geek Fallacies I am about to be rather un-PC. Specifically I believe I am violating #2, Friends Accept Me As I Am, even though I am not directly addressing anyone but rather ranting into the void.

I have had my fair share of encounters with Nice Guys over the years; and I find that nowadays, meeting people in various online communities, it is even easier to run into them-- but in some ways, also easier to spot them coming.

Here is a classic example of a Nice Guy experience that I had in high school, which I think summarizes the issue. I was friends with a circle of about four guys who were all very tight with each other, all to varying degrees both nice guys and Nice Guys. Contrary to my more fluid physical boundaries now as a polyamorous adult, back then there was no gratuitous making out or any such thing lest anyone Get The Wrong Idea. One of the guys was someone I was close enough to, to consider one of my best friends. Another of the guys, the most recent addition to the group who was very quiet and who I probably knew the least (and knew me the least)-- in fact we didn't know each other well at all-- decided he had a huge crush on me. This did not prompt him to, say, talk to me more or anything, so I remained blissfully ignorant until I slowly began to piece together the cryptic comments, weird behavior, and snickers of those guy friends whenever I was around. I might have been trying to date someone else at the time, I can't recall, but either way I just wasn't interested romantically in this particular guy so I tried to ignore the signs and act like everything was normal. Eventually the other guys decided it was time to confront me with it and ask if I was going to go out with him, and the social pressure mounted, from them as well as a few female friends. Since there was no longer any chance of just ignoring the situation, I had to tell the guy that most awful of things, that I liked him well enough but "not that way".

I knew he would be hurt and feel rejected by that, and having been overlooked myself in the past I felt bad about it and tried to at least be gentle, figuring that was that, and he'd get over it. What I was not quite prepared for was that the entire group of guys-- including the one who liked me-- would be furious at me for it and promptly stop talking to me. I don't remember exactly how long the snit lasted, but it was quite a while before they would deign to talk to me again, and even then things were never quite the same.

I'm telling this not because I feel particularly scarred by it still but because it has some of the classic hallmarks of the Nice Guy experience, which I KNOW some of my chick friends reading this will be able to relate to only too well:

1) He fell "totally in love" with me, as it was relayed to me, without having really gotten to know me at all and based mostly on surface attraction. (And although the romantic in me likes to believe that "love at first sight" is possible, the true manifestation of that phenomenon is a *mutual* one IMO, and in any case it is quite reasonable to remind oneself that there is a difference between a swift and powerful attraction and actual love, and that one might wish to take some time to explore whether there is a point of convergence there before proceeding.)

2) The assumption was made, by all the guys including him, that because he was a Nice Guy, I was obligated to place that above any of his other qualities and to date him for it, regardless of whether or not we were otherwise compatible.

3) My feelings or desires did not seem to matter nor enter into the equation; he liked me, ergo, I must go out with him-- because who in her right mind would pass up a chance to date such a Nice Guy?

4) When his feelings were not returned, even with a rejection delivered as gently as possible out of consideration for those feelings, he and the other guys turned on me. All my good stuff turned to bad stuff and I was to be reviled.

Let me contrast this with another example from my life. Random, who is a genuinely nice guy, was my best friend and roommate before we ever got involved. He developed romantic feelings for me at a time when I did not return them, and when he expressed them to me we had a long talk about it and about how we could keep living together and being friends without things being all weird. Here's the key. Random took a chance and confessed his feelings without knowing if I'd feel the same way, but when I didn't, he BACKED THE HELL OFF. He made it very clear that being friends with me was still important to him and that he wanted us to be comfortable together, that he understood that he had to deal with his feelings and that I wasn't responsible for them, and that it was very important to him that I know that he wasn't going to pressure me or keep trying to put the moves on me and make me feel unsafe or cornered. And he stuck to it, to the point where I *was* quickly comfortable with him again, and tried to make an effort in return to respect *his* feelings and (for example) not rub his face in it when I had a date. Eventually, of course, I did fall in love with him and the rest is history, but NONE of that would've happened if he'd pushed me to "give him a chance" or treated me badly for not returning his feelings. He respected my decision and proved that he was still going to be a good friend to me, and frankly that might have told me more about the kind of guy he is-- the kind of PERSON he is-- than I'd have learned from dating him right then. And that became part of why I fell for him.

Now the moral of the story is not "good things come to those who wait". If you (male or female) have a thing for someone and they tell you they don't return it, waiting around and playing at being a sympathetic friend in the expectation that you'll wear them down and get yours one day makes you an asshole, not a friend.

There are a lot of Nice Guys out there, and they are incredibly insidious, because on the surface they SEEM so sweet, so misunderstood, so very different from the boorish asshole who cheated on you or told you that those pants do, indeed, make your ass look fat. But in the end, they turn out to be using their "niceness" as an excuse to hide behind, much like medieval aristocracy used cloying perfumes to cover up the ass-stank of their unwashed bodies.

I have some news for you, Nice Guys of the world. "Nice" isn't as much of a selling point as you'd think. In fact, for most women, it's like expecting that your new car will come with wheels attached. I know that you think bitcheswomen only like bad boys and jerkoffs, but we'll get to that in a moment.

The guys I have met and known who could legitimately be called Nice Guys were, for one thing, almost invariably bitter. Either they have never gotten over being picked on in junior high/rejected by the popular girls in school, or they haven't gotten laid in a long time, or they've gotten dumped sometime in the last few years and are still licking their wounds. Whatever it is, they have a huge chip on their shoulders about it, and in their eyes the women of the world owe them for it. They don't usually verbalize it, but oh how the resentment seethes.

They tend to befriend women in order to date them. Nice Guys don't usually just ask a woman out and at least make a pretext of friendship to use as a springboard. This is where they can get confused with actual nice guys, who tend to also befriend women before dating them, but the difference is that the genuine nice guy appreciates women as human beings and enters into friendships mostly for their own sake rather than working them as an angle. The Nice Guy, on the other hand, sees women mostly in sexual terms (although he will deny it or call it "romantic terms") but doesn't have a lot of success with the direct approach, so instead he puts on a charming, harmless face in order to befriend women with the expectation that she will reward his niceness and friendship with sex. It can be a subtle difference, but there are clues-- the Nice Guy tends to come on pretty strong as a friend, and often makes "joking" sexual comments that can be dismissed as not intended seriously if the woman doesn't respond to the come-on implied in it. He will hang his belief that you would make great friends on the smallest of compatibilities-- for example a shared interest in a band, which he makes an awful lot of hay out of. He may talk a lot about how victimized he's been by cruel ex-girlfriends in a ploy for sympathy.

One of the more glaring things a Nice Guy will do is to listen sympathetically if you are complaining about problems in your relationship and then talk enthusiastically about what a jerk that guy is and how HE would never do such a thing. Sometimes it's an even more overt "hey, if you dump him, you could always start fucking me". This is because a Nice Guy does not seem to get that women confiding their relationship problems to a friend are not looking for the replacement model, and they see this as their chance to show how sympathetic and NICE and attentive they are and to score points off of your vulnerability. Also, the only thing a Nice Guy hates and resents more than a woman who doesn't return his interest is a man who is actually involved with a woman. It's some kind of fucked up alpha wolf pissing contest but he would just love to lure a woman away from her boyfriend (who he perceives as more alpha because he has a female) and thus prove that the nice identity he's invested so much in is really the bigger-dicked one. And Nice Guys are wholly convinced that they themselves are too NICE to ever do anything wrong, and they genuinely think that they would be a perfect partner, whereas the guy who's with a woman must be having problems because he's an asshole, not because people in relationships have problems sometimes. The Nice Guy thinks he is a white knight who will never fuck up if only a woman would give him a chance. He's wrong, of course, because we all fuck up with our partners, but the Nice Guy also doesn't like to own up to his fuckups and when he gets dumped, tells everyone that he was "too nice" and the girl couldn't handle it.

The Nice Guy usually has some glaringly big issues in his life that he isn't dealing with-- things that make him unhappy, but rather than address them, he is convinced that if only he could be with someone, everything would magically get better. (Yeah, guess what, it doesn't. You still need to get a job/move into a better place/go back to school/get therapy/clean your toejam/tell your parents to piss off/whatever it is.) For a Nice Guy, all the responsibility for his happiness lies with his future partner. And he *will* put the burden on her, as well as guilting the hell out of her if she gets fed up with mommying him.

Nice Guys think it is enough for them to be so nice, so sweet, so attentive. Because it is enough, they think it's ok to let other stuff slide. Like it doesn't matter if they have good hygiene, because a girl who cares so much about exteriors is shallow and hypocritical if she can't see past a layer of funk to the shining prince beneath. They don't think it's important to develop much in the way of social skills or good manners (although some of them do have a certain amount of charisma). They never stop to ask themselves whether the fact that they haven't dated anyone since 1997 might have something to do with their annoying behaviors or poor sense of humor. In fact, they see no reason to make any extra effort to improve themselves or present themselves well at all-- because they're SO VERY NICE.

Conversely, though, most Nice Guys only fall for a fairly limited range of "hot" chicks. It's because women are all about the status for them, and they are out to prove something to the world. Some of them will deliberately only go after women who are fairly unattainable, if their martyr complex needs some care and feeding.

Nice Guys usually are crap at reading body language and nonverbal cues and usually have serious personal space problems. Women get creeped out because they feel like the guy is literally clinging to them, or is coming on really strong really fast, or doesn't seem to pick up on the fact that they're tensing up or moving away. But since the Nice Guy *knows* he has good intentions, he is deeply insulted by the suggestion that his behavior is unwelcome, creepy, or even threatening. (Whereas a genuine nice guy who misreads a situation is horrified that he might have come across that way and apologizes for it.)

Nice Guys are not patient. This is tricky, again, because sometimes they can *seem* very patient, but in reality they are always chomping at the bit to get into their chosen target's pants. And once they've made a move, they are all about the instant gratification. They demand response NOW. They expect and will pressure or guilt a woman into giving them a chance. It's all or nothing, and if she says no, chances are good the friendship is dead in the water. If it continues, it's almost guaranteed that it's because he doesn't believe she means no, and intends to regroup and try again.

Nice Guys don't actually care what a woman wants, which is one of the keys to identifying a Nice Guy vs. a nice guy, and which runs directly counter to their most deeply held beliefs about themselves. They think that they are great, caring, compassionate partners; usually, they just want a captive audience. They don't have much respect for what her desires and preferences are unless they are for him, because if she wants something different than him, it is attributed to her dysfunction and desire to be treated badly by an asshole. They may spend some time with pick-up books and things that tell them how to get chicks, but they tend to follow the letter of the law and not the spirit. That's why he'll serenade you on a subway platform even though he knows you don't like to call attention to yourself, and then be hurt that you were uncomfortable and embarrassed by the display. He likes to make a big show out of being romantic and considerate, especially when others are watching, but he will still forget to pick up his socks even if you've told him you'd rather have a clean floor than roses delivered to your office.

But the real foolproof way to identify a Nice Guy is to watch how he treats a woman who turns him down romantically. A true-blue Nice Guy invariably will unleash the scorn and contempt and resentment that's been seething under the surface all along, and excoriate the woman he claimed to care about. One of the favored maneuvers is to retreat behind sarcasm, claim that whatever she found unwelcome was "just a joke", and defensively inform her that she has no sense of humor, that she's taking everything way too seriously. Once in a while he'll try to keep being friends-- especially if he thinks there's another chance in it for him-- but he'll let fly with the snarky comments about her, the passive-aggressive "humor" that always points back to her rejection of him, and especially so if she shows interest in anyone else. He's just waiting for that romance to fail so that he can say, "see, she rejects ME when I would've treated her right, but runs after that asshole instead, and now she got hurt. I could've told her that would happen!" And you will never hear a Nice Guy say anything gracious about a guy who dates a woman who rejected him.

The most insidious part of it is the way that Nice Guys turn everything back on the girl, make it all her fault. If she doesn't want to date him-- poor, poor him! What sort of shallow bitch must she be to want a relationship but not with him? Coincidentally, this tactic can sometimes score him a sympathy fuck if he's got a backup girl to run to.

The absolute key difference between a nice guy and a Nice Guy is that the nice guy truly likes and respects women and doesn't feel entitled to the attentions of any woman. The Nice Guy pretends to be that, but secretly he has decided that all women suck (usually for the sins of a couple of them), and he doesn't really care about anything so much as propping up his limp ego.

Guys who are small-n nice sometimes wander into Nice Guy territory, which is why I think of this as a spectrum rather than a dichotomy. But those are usually individual bad habits that are easier to fix because they don't have the deep-seated jerkitude behind them.

The good news is that a Nice Guy can change. I have known guys who went for years with a sucky romantic life and who constantly alienated women who finally sat down with a trusted friend and asked to be told honestly what they were doing wrong. More importantly, they listened and tried to change their off-putting behaviors, and I can't think of one who didn't eventually find real love after that.

But you have to want to change.

There's one of those parody motivational posters that says, "The only consistent factor in all your dysfunctional relationships is you." There's a big ole chunk of truth in that. So if you are reading this and you think you might be a Nice Guy and you can't imagine why you aren't in a relationship, you might want to give that a think. Here's a few other friendly tips, free of charge from me to you:

If a woman doesn't find you funny, it might not be because she has no sense of humor. And telling her as much isn't going to make her like you any better.

No woman owes you her attention, her time, her interest, her admiration, or her love, no matter how worthy you think you are of them.

You are not entitled to have a relationship in your life just because you want one.

If you really aren't getting any women, it might be time to ask yourself (or someone you trust to be honest) what YOU could be doing differently.

Hitting on a woman when she's talking to you about her problems is just not cool. Especially if they are relationship problems.

If you can't be friends with a woman who's turned you down, especially if you find yourself getting really angry about it, you have no business being in a relationship until you work out your issues.

Women generally try hard to make themselves appealing to men when they are interested in or going out with them. So take a shower, brush your teeth, put on nice clothes, and for gods' sakes if you are hoping to get laid, wash your dick. Don't expect her to overlook you being slovenly and foul just because you think you have such a sterling personality.

No matter what you think, you will eventually fuck up in a relationship. Deal with it maturely and move on, and don't try to scam chicks out of their current relationships by selling yourself as the perfect partner.

Don't for the love of pete be Mr. Bad Touch. If she just squirmed over a few inches, it's not because she wants you to close the distance.

Flirting without expecting a return on investment is ok. Active seduction when there are clear signs that it is welcome is ok. Trying to constantly slip in "innocent" gropes, innuendo, kisses, or anything else when she's not interested is the adult equivalent of "are we there yet? are we there yet? how about now? how about now?"

Body language and nonverbal cues are not that hard to learn to read.

If she says you're being obnoxious, there is a really good chance that you are being obnoxious. Even if you think you're all kinds of witty and clever.

Likewise, if she says something you did was weird or pushy or unwelcome, mocking her "paranoia" or getting defensive or saying it was "just a joke" doesn't make you right-- it makes you a jerk. Respect how she perceives you. You might think she was oversensitive, but you have no idea what it is like to be a woman in a world where we have to deal with unwelcome aggressive attention all the time. Treat her feelings as valid even if you "didn't mean it that way". She will respect you more for it.

We can sense your hostility. It is a turnoff.

Bring something to the table besides basic human decency. I'm not talking about money. Be responsible for yourself, your life, and your happiness. Have good things in your life that you want to share with a wonderful woman, rather than expecting her to fill the holes in your life. Even if you're a nice loser, you're still a loser.

There now. I feel better. Maybe sometime soon I will write about psycho girlfriends and how they expect you to anticipate the things they aren't going to bother to talk to you about and how annoying it is when bi chicks treat other bi chicks like nothing more than sex toys or only get bi when it reaches, as Del so aptly put it, "Girlkissing O'Clock". But I will need to muster some inspiration for that post.

Thank you for listening, and best of luck in your future.

Edit: Since there have been several requests, I will just state here that it is ok to link this entry in your blog or website. Attribution can just be made to DivaLion. Please do not repost in whole or part without attribution and a link to this entry. Thanks for all your great comments!

[Suuse]

I'm on it--and thank you soooooo much for the recommendation!