A frequent refrain among heartbroken and sexually frustrated young men: "She doesn’t like me because I’m a nice guy." No, not really.
Straight dudes have liked women, it seems, for a while now. And they’ve written about it for just as long. Women have written about liking men — and other women — but you probably didn’t find too much of this on your high school reading lists or bookshelves, with the probable exception of the works of the Brontë sisters. Instead, you were probably left with John Green novels, Morrissey lyrics and the like to make sense of the romantic world.
Perhaps you’re unapologetically horny. That’s fine; Dante was and he turned out OK — after a short trip to Hell. My point is, young men have often had very little exposure to narratives where straight dudes don’t end up becoming the victims of their own romantic or sexual desires.
I get it: Feelings suck. Virtually everyone over the age of 13 has thought this once or twice; there’s nothing cis-heteronormative about that. But there is something terribly wrong about the concept of a nice guy.
What is a nice guy? Nice guys are straight boys and young men who believe, because of their extraordinarily good nature, they are unattractive to the opposite sex. I’m sure spending any amount of time in high school made you, our readers, well-acquainted with the term.
No one thinks they’re a shithole: That’s not human nature, and everyone is the hero in their personal narrative.
I did know a guy, however, who didn’t text a girl for three days, watched her nearly cry and then turned to his friend and said, "Watch. I’ll get her back tomorrow." He’s unique, really. But his misogyny isn’t.
So why do people believe in the concept of a nice guy?
Admittedly, it may be because some men are quite nice. But, as previously illustrated, some men are the walking, talking equivalents to used condoms. I’d like to think I’m closer to the former, but every day I discover little things about my own internalized misogyny.
It’s not as if "nice guys" don’t understand a bit of this.
Everyone makes mistakes. Life is a growing process. But nice guys believe if they opens doors enough, compliment women enough, listen to these women’s thoughts enough, they’ll have proven themselves to be nice. And thus, they’ll "deserve" a woman.
That is a very frightening thought: that a woman must be interested in a man’s advances so long as he fulfills certain conditions. To suggest so would be to suggest a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose her romantic partners.
Because after all, nice girls only date assholes, anyway. Subtly manipulating a woman’s life choices isn’t what I would call nice. This is the issue with buying into the idea of the nice guy, as it paints embedded misogyny as genuine affection and care.
Now, I personally believe many men who call themselves "nice guys" don’t exactly understand what it is they’re doing. You, the reader, may strongly disagree or point out that it ultimately doesn’t matter. I would agree with that second point, but I will be the first to admit at one time in my life, I referred to myself as a nice guy.
In the beginning of the column, I railed against moody young boys who took their romantic ideas from John Green novels and overly sensitive British post-punk and who thought themselves the victims of their own emotions, believing that engaging in supposedly chivalric behaviors like opening doors for women was all it took to be deemed a suitable partner. Despite my criticisms, I might as well have just given the paper my high school portrait and called that the article.
I’d like to think I’ve come a long way. But this is what is most difficult about the idea of the nice guy and sexism as a wider concept. People we may consider to be genuinely nice may not completely hold nice ideas. We ourselves might not hold nice ideas.
But we can challenge that. We can change. We can recognize if someone isn’t interested in us, there might be a legitimate reason beyond being seemingly cursed to celibacy.
Neel Bapatla is a UF English sophomore. His column appears on Thursdays.
