A couple that are friends of mine, Gwen and David, have been going through some rough times lately. She’s a super smart, very pretty girl, who has dated a string of a$$h*l@s who have treated her like dirt. Probably something about being a little too nerdy to ever be that popular and never quite skinny enough to feel truly beautiful has kept her thinking the best she can do is a hot guy who’s probably not going to treat her that well. Until now.
She’s been dating David for almost a year and David is your typical Nice Guy. He’s friendly with everyone, he’s not traditionally handsome but he’s cute and probably cuter the more you hang out with him. Like all Nice Guys, he’s easy going and smart, completely unassuming; everyone always has nice things to say about him and he doesn’t just have sex – he engages in sweet love-making.
The problem is, David hasn’t figured out that he’s the Nice Guy and so the first time he gets in a relationship with the kind of pretty, accomplished girl which causes whisperings about how she’s too good for him, he stops acting like the nice guy to Gwen.
What is wrong with you?! Girls date the Nice Guy for one huge reason – they are sick of dealing with jerks. Actually, a lot of girls end up marrying these guys. Perhaps they do really win out. I’m not sure how it will turn out and I’m not recommending that women pick these guys. I’m just saying if you are the Nice Guy, you need to act like it.
I worry that David thinks that he’s finally got this great girl, and he doesn’t know what to do with a girl like this and so he is taking the advice of the a$$h*l@s. He’s suddenly playing games – waiting to call her back, prioritizing spend time with his buddies so he doesn’t seem too available, flirting with ex’s to make her jealous. He’s even broken up with her once but she she’s never broken it off with him. This just baffles me. You don’t date a guy like David to get treated like this.
I wonder if this is motivated by David’s self-esteem issues. Perhaps deep down, he doesn’t think he’s good enough for a girl like Gwen, so instead of trusting his own instincts, he thinks he has to be something he’s not to keep her.
Another girlfriend of mine recently had a similar encounter. Beth got set up with this guy who everyone billed as the Nice Guy. He has a great job, great pedigree, pretty cute and genuinely nice to people he meets. The problem is that he kept playing hard to get with Beth. He wanted her to know that he was dating other people, not looking for anything serious, too busy to be very available, and only available to see her infrequently. Beth immediately lost interest. That’s just not what she bargained for. She just wanted to be with a decent genuine guy who wasn’t constantly trying to game her. This guy clearly just didn’t get it.
Dating is bad enough when a bunch of a$$h*l@s are acting like a$$h*l@s. Putting up with a bunch of not cute second-rate lugs that are acting like a$$h*l@s is just intolerable.
Tamara Shayne Kagel is a writer living in Santa Monica, CA. To find out more about her, visit ” title=”@tamaraskagel”>@tamaraskagel. © Copyright 2011.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.