A
female
age
30-35,
*ilemaaax
writes:A general question, for everyone out there.Why do so many girls, such as myself, go for complete JERKS? I'm meet these lovely, kind, hard-working and attractive men, who have similar interests as me and whom I can really talk to, but I'm just not interested in them! I know it's crazy and stupid, and I try to convince myself to give them a chance, but I just can't. And then I manage to end up with the most awful "bad boy" punks who couldn't care less if I was hit by a bus walking out of their driveways. Why do we have this innate desire to be with complete assholes -- is it our age, the fact that our fathers might be pricks, or just a natural urge to have a "tough" mate who's going to treat us like crap? And is it possible to train ourselves to like to nice guy? I ask not only for myself, but on behalf of many of my friends, all who suffer from the same "Asshole Addiction".Any opinions, past experience or advice would be greatly appreciate as we tackle this mystery of the female mind. :) Reply to this Question
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (3 July 2011):
If this was a young male specific problem instead of a female one then we would just be calling it what it is: Immaturity.
We would just be telling young men to handle it like how adults handle any other self-destructive impulse: Grow up, get some self-control, and don't do what hurts you.
If young men did it anyway and caused themselves trouble, then we would not be expecting women to change and compromise to deal with it. We would just be telling young men to accept responsibility for messing up their own lives and tell them it's their problem to cope and fix it.
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (3 July 2011): Good question. Been a nice guy and got no action. Acted like a jerk and did, but just couldn't live with myself. Went back to nice guy and now I am too boring.Ladies, I was the same damn guy all along! Sometimes I think women aren't perceptive at all! That's okay. I would rather be myself and wait for a nice girl to like me for who I am. No point acting like a jerk in order to attract stupid women.
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female
reader, chigirl  +, writes (1 July 2011):
 "the ones with a good grasp of their emotions and controlling them, are secure"
Aww, thank you Cerberus, lol
I'm not going to flatter myself with being one of these rare women though. I'm wondering if we live in different worlds however. Me and my girlfriends all like the nice guy. We're all very different women, and the men we've dated and been with have also been very different from each other.
Cerberus mentioned some very good points, in that some men just sit around and wait for a woman to land on his head while he wonders why such a great guy as him doesn't get any women. He isn't going out there to get her, that's his problem. I've seen it over and over! I have a friend who's swarmed by the ladies, he's been approached over and over by all kinds of women, from the short and ugly to the tall and stunning models (one actually was a model too), from girls with nice personalities to party queens who dragged him to the bathroom and tried to get it on with him. And do you know what he manages to tell me? He said that women aren't interested in him, that he can't ever get a girlfriend. He was just the guy they wanted to talk about the jerks with, the one who had to listen to them rant up all the problems with men...
Which, in return made him believe all men are jerks and that there is no way he can get involved with a woman without making the same mistakes, and that all women think men are horrible, and relationships aren't worth it. Quite dramatic thoughts, but I'd say he's a so called nice guy. Only thing being he completely lacks confidence.
But back to me and my friends. It's about setting a standard really. And not accept anything that crawls below it, not excusing behaviour. People skills come a long way too, if you're naive it's easy to fall for the lines of a player.
By the way.. what is a jerk per definition?
I do have one friend though who dated a lot of jerks. She placed herself in horrible conditions, ended up being raped by her boyfriend too, but downplayed it and never filed a police report. She lacked confidence, I dare say, because she would take anything that jumped at her without questions. She was the biggest slut I've ever seen, because she'd just sleep with anyone really, and somehow imagined things would work out even if she was just a guys one nighter. Never understood her really, because a lot of these guys reeked "jerk" from a long distance, and they were for most part older than her, ugly as shit, and offered nothing at all other than their dicks. Go figure.
She's getting married now, to the only guy I ever approved of. He was older than her and didn't want to have sex with her because he worried she would be pregnant (she was only 17 when they got together), so they waited a year with sex. And that's the only meaningful relationship she had. She did wind up pregnant as soon as they started having sex though, I guess she wanted to tie him down due to fear of being left alone, if I am allowed to play hobby shrink. 4 years later and they're getting married.
I did assume you were aware of this next thing I will say, but maybe you and your friends are like the friend I just told you about..? No offense, just that she's the only one I knew who would be attracted to jerks. Here's the thing: if you're serious about someone you don't sleep with them right away. Wait until you are in an official relationship and preferably some weeks/months into an official relationship before you have sex. That weeds away at least the jerks who only want sex from you. You'll still have some work left to weed out the rest, but that comes with getting to know them. Exclusiveness, honesty, and loyalty, look for that. Imagine what you really want and compare the guy to that, is he what you really want?
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (1 July 2011): To conclude this discussion... people are idiots.
We have a knack for choosing exactly the things that are worse for us. Women go for the bad-boy because that offers danger and excitement, never really grasping its that danger that will make them a terrible, terrible choice for a prospective parent.
Then they wonder why the nice guys are jaded when they finally get the idea that maybe, just maybe, being with someone who treats you like shit is not a good way of spending the rest of your life and that maybe you should try and curb impulsive actions before you get yourself into serious trouble.
Anyone who treats another human being with anything less than the utmost respect is not deserving of the moniker of 'human' and I have no time for such creatures. If it takes some idiots a while to figure that out, then good riddance to them.
Flynn 24
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 July 2011): Nice guys = friends, bad boys = drama. Drama is the sexiest thing in the world to women. It's that simple.
Nice guys give you security, predictability, consistency and stability. Bad boys give excitement, drama, mystery, drama, spontaneity and raw masculinity (drama).
I've been both, as a bad boy I could get as many idiots I wanted to sleep with me, they just couldn't get enough. As a nice guy I became girls "friends" and wasn't given any attention but as soon as I became a slut that treated women like dirt, they fell all over me. I dated fixers, I dated women who thought they could play me as revenge for all the women I've hurt, I've dated the romanticists that believed love conquers all and if they could make me love them the world be roses and daffodils. What did they all have in common, they loved drama. Sure they like to use the words edgy, brooding, exciting etc but at the end of the day they just wanted someone dramatic. Not all women do of course but the ones that don't are either the ones with a good grasp of their emotions and controlling them, are secure, or have just become broken down and jaded from dating bad boys that a nice guy is a relief.
As to why, well that's also the easiest thing in the world. What are the most popular genres in literature, movies and magazines to women? that's right drama and romance but the romance genre isn't separate because it's filled with drama too. There is no male lead in any romance novel, romantic comedy, nor magazine that isn't broken somehow. Most are violent or have a reason to be violent at some stage, they kill, they have emotional problems, drug addictions, are aggressive, have a hard time opening up, etc. you get the picture. I'm not blaming those things as to why, but they give you a good indication of what women want. Most women I've dated just didn't feel right about things unless there was some kind of drama, suffering for your love is the pervasive attitude among the girls I've dated, no drama and things get boring. Things become routine and a grind. So why would a girl go go for mr. nice, when mr. drama is there admiring the smell of his own shit?
I honestly have no advice for you on how to change that because you just can't. You'll either find a guy who is both nice and edgy, discover that nice guys have deeper lying traits that are worth having or continue life dating bad boys who give you drama until your priorities change and you go for stability instead.
OP when you hear about guys that say they're nice, that they're too nice and they can't get girls etc. That's a load of bullshit. There's nothing nice about guys who are bitter because they don't have something or are not man enough to take what they want out of life. Because that's the key underlying concept in all of it. What bad boys figured out that nice guys just don't get is that this is their world and anything in it is theirs for the taking. "I don't give a damn, I'm going to have you" instead of "I'm going laugh at your jokes and listen to your problems".
We guys are hunters, creators, providers, protectors and most of all we're competitors. Most "nice" guys are losers in love and women want to date winners. Nice guys are the ones who believe in fate, that will wait for the right girl to magically appear or hope someday they can befriend a girl and they'll fall in love. They just don't compete so how will they succeed?
I mean when I was the "nice guy" it always perplexed me why these girls would talk so negatively to me about their boyfriends, call the assholes point out all the bad things they did, yet it was that guy they were dating and I was only good for emotional support. It took me trying out the bad boy thing to learn that all those times they were talking about those guys to me it wasn't hatred nor disgust it was passion, excitement and emotional arousal. Because even the most negative emotions can make a person passionate about something. There is very little difference between love and hate, and to the women who love drama, there is no difference, they're both exciting and arousing.
While I'd love to agree with strontiumdog he's completely wrong when he says "you and all your friends and every woman out there is completely capable of controlling your own actions" because first you have to able to control your emotions and I've rarely known any woman that can when it comes to romance and love. Seriously, romance and love are so high up women's lists of priorities in life that they're slaves to it. (Not all of course but the vast majority)
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reader, Odds  +, writes (1 July 2011):
 It's a primal thing. What we are attracted to is pretty much hardwired in by natural selection, and it hasn't changed much since we were living in caves. Jerks are more strongly expressing the dominant, powerful tendencies of the kind of cavemen who were more likely to be good hunters or tribal leaders. They had the best genes, and people are programmed to seek out the best genes.
That instinct gets expressed in different levels for different women. Some just want a guy who plays by his own rules, who she can't control. Some go for guys who slap them around a bit. Some express this tendency very weakly, and just want a decent guy with an edgy sense of humor.
Most of these women can fall in love with a decent guy just fine; there's just a powerful, undeniable attraction to jerks, even if they ignore it.
So when chicks are young, they go for jerks; when they finally decide to go for a nice guy instead, they wonder why most of the nice guys seems inexperienced at flirting and dating. Hmmm, wonder if there's a correlation there. Or, the woman dates all the jerks around, then when she's finally done with that, she finds a nice guy who couldn't get any when he was younger, and wonders why he has pent-up frustration with chicks.
Truth is, women are less viscerally attracted to nice guys, and are much less likely to forgive them for outbursts or offenses than they would the jerks. She dates a jerk, he dumps her and takes her back ten times; she finally leaves him and dates a nice guy, he has one outburst, she decries his "true colors."
The thing is, this all happens on a macro scale. The girls who go never went for bad boys get to deal with the fallout from the ones who did, just like the guys who weren't players get to deal with the fallout from girls who got played. Life's like that.
@ StrontiumDog
While I agree with most of your post, I think part of the problem is that modern, western society is too safe. We evolved in a much, much more dangerous environment - and that included being surrounded by dangerous people. One imagines murder between cavemen was perhaps a bit more common than between men in western civilization today. I think part of the problem is that society is so safe we simply aren't equipped to deal with it, and seek stupid thrills. It's not hard to see how men do that; what I think women do is date "dangerous" men, if you can even compare riding a motorcycle to killing tigers with a stick.
I'm not proposing we make society more dangerous or anything - just saying that facing life-threatening danger on a daily basis is not something that happens to the majority of people in the western world, and that almost certainly has an effect on our psyche.
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male
reader, krit  +, writes (1 July 2011):
 Well I'm tired of this NICE GUY ,not so nice or a jerk guy thing .The funny part is that even if you asked these so called badboys about what is that they really have in them which gets them girls everytime then they would be also as clueless as any other guy on this planet.The nice guys and jerks are the extreme ends of the spectrum and both are unsuccessful. The nice guys know only one Way of getting a girl and that to please them but they overdo it and forget that they are humans with their own voice which are yet to be raised. The fear of losing the girl is so much over them that they suppresss their emotions and thoughts in order to keep the girl. They form a mask of this honesty and goodness to keep the girl happy . So in this way they are even much more bigger cheat then the jerks or badboys. Bad boys know that they are bad , everyone knows that he's bad including the girl who still prefers to join him.So the key to success is to be somewhere in middle of both the nice and jerks. Pick the good qualities of badboys and ignore the bad qualities of nice guys.
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female
reader, chigirl +, writes (30 June 2011):
Yeah I don't know. I've been with nice guys who didn't get much female attention and they were in total immature when it came to relationships. Great givers in the sack, best lovers I've ever had for sure, but overall they had no idea about relationships. They wouldn't ever argue, but were happy about everything, and it came down to them not really knowing how to express themselves (yes, several guys were like this!). So it all bottled up and one day explodes. One nice guy I was seeing had planned to go on vacation with me for months, and only last minute did he cancel saying he never really wanted to go, it was just that I was so happy about it and he went along with it! How nice of him.
That's what nice guys can do. Or they try to be overly nice, and start to doubt themselves. Like one guy who I was serious with, a sweet nice guy, a little slow, but ok. He asked me to move in with him, and THAT'S when trouble began. Because not more than a week later did he change his mind about the entire relationship and didn't know if he had ever really loved me or not (after a year of telling me he did love me). That was also very nice. And he was a nice guy, no yelling, no being unfair, no cheating, dedicated, loving, the entire package. It came out of nowhere.
Nice guys can take you by surprise. You think they're so nice and dependable, but they're just like any other regular guy. They often lack confidence too. Which is why they are being so nice to everyone, trying to please everyone, trying to make everyone like them. They are never angry or upset, they never talk behind someones back, but it's not because they're SOOO NICE. It's because they're scared of people not liking them, and they get scared of speaking their will. Many men with no backbone, so called push-overs, are also being grouped in with the "nice guys".
Instead I propose a different separation, rather than "jerk" and "nice guy", how about "boys" and "men"? Because being nice isn't the same as being mature, responsible, knowing yourself, trusting yourself, having character and being loyal. Of course, being nice means they'll never hit you, raise their voice, cheat, or do any other nasty stuff. But being nice alone doesn't really qualify to be a good partner. A nice guy is a good friend. A nice guy doesn't mean he'll be a good boyfriend. A good boyfriend is a grown man, and not an immature boy.
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male
reader, Danielepew  +, writes (30 June 2011):
 Interesting. I see ChiGirl's point and I fully agree with her. Being "nice" is not the same as being "a wuss".
On the other hand, I wonder if you girls have heard the Spanish expression "Amor serrano", "the love of the mountain man". The expression is "Más te pego, más te quiero" (The more I beat you, the more I [prove I] love you". Many a woman finds herself in this situation and, for some reason, they just won't leave the jerk. Feminists here would fully agree with me; in fact, they do.
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female
reader, DanceInTheDark  +, writes (30 June 2011):
 Nice guy's just don't ignite your attraction. Really.
Most of the time the nice guy isn't going to be the upfront guy who flirts with you and makes you feel sexy.
Bad boys they make you feel sexy, their body language, their attitude.
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female
reader, chigirl +, writes (30 June 2011):
I actually must say I have no idea what this is all about, and maybe I'm the odd one out, but I can't stand all women being labeled as only wanting jerks. We don't. Maybe some women do, but I don't know of any. Girls/women I know go for good guys if they've got any sense in them.
Here's an article that agrees with you though, and my reply in that article might as well work as a reply to your questions:
http://www.dearcupid.org/question/nice-guys-.html
There is no trick to liking nice guys, it's just that why on earth would anyone find being treated like crap attractive? I sincere doubt anyone likes it. And if a guy treats you like crap from the onset just stay clear. Shouldn't be that hard. Now of course, to my awareness, guys stay on their best behaviour the first 6 months and it takes up to a year to get to know them in and out. The jerks pretend to be nice guy at the beginning, and then show off their true colours later. But by then, we do leave them, don't we?
Because, no one wants to be with a jerk.
As for the characteristic "nice guy" I have little praise. The ones you usually define as a nice guy have no idea how to flirt, is too shy to even ask you out, is a bored because he's got nothing interesting to talk about, or sure: he's a nice guy, but he can't be bothered with you. Many of these "nice guys" have their own issues, you just don't see it upfront because, like I said, it takes a while to get to know someone completely.
That kind and attractive guy who you can talk to about anything... we'll he might be the one to bang your sister while you're on vacation. Because she also thought he was kind and attractive, and could talk to him about anything.
I'm not a scorn lady. I just know that nice guys come with their own issues, and there really shouldn't be a label called "nice guy" because it doesn't truthfully reflect reality.
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male
reader, Danielepew +, writes (30 June 2011):
Good question. Women should answer that. It's well-established fact that "nice guys" just don't get girls.
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male
reader, Partyboy123 +, writes (30 June 2011):
 Hey,
I kinda have a similar situation! I know many nice, cute, kind girls, who have similar interests and values to me... but my past 2 relationships were with girls who were bossy, mean, neglecting, and who partied, and who were gone a lot.
They say opposites attract, I do believe that it is true, but we need to see past that, and that ANY TWO PEOPLE can attract. I am looking for the nice girls now, because i am tired of being treated like SH*T. You too, will realize that the nice guys are the good ones to be with, you'll eventually get tired of those jerks, and then you will be very happy with nice guy.
hope i helped, that kinda helped me as well! :)
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (30 June 2011): Very low self esteem and these guys tip the scales on your drama meter. They provide the excitement, albeit negative, that you can't create for yourself and also confirm whatever negativity you carry within yourself, about yourself.
Being attracted to confident alpha males is natural and biological but jerks who toy with your emotions? That's low self worth.
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