Love Stories Suck by Tom Giebel (via Flickr Creative Commons)
*To Brian, Tyler, Cody and Thatcher … this one’s for you.
Nice guys finish last.
We hear this all the time. Along with endless “articles” about why girls don’t like nice guys, why they would, and what age they will be when they finally do.
It’s a little insulting. It’s also kinda true.
I realize this isn’t true for every girl. I realize that there are hundreds of girls with thousands of dating histories and millions of reasons that they did or did not go for “nice guys.” I realize this.
I also realize that my dating rap sheet — with its impressive spread and varied list of characters — is kind of the perfect sample set of data. There are a few nice guys peppered in among the assholes. And I mistreated every single one.
This, too, follows the tired trope. Girl meets nice boy. Boy likes girl but girl likes asshole. Girl dates asshole for, oh, infinity, until she gets tired of being treated like crap and realizes she has overlooked nice guy. Cue dramatic reconciliation and happy ending.
That’s what it looks like on TV, or in the movies. In real life, it looks a little different.
In real life, it is compliments met with self-criticism. It is crippling insecurity that manifests as ugly jealousy, constant doubt and persistent questioning. It is a paralyzing lack of self-esteem that builds a wall so thick and so high that the stoutests of knights could not scale it. It is fear, in the most primal sense, at being discovered as a fraud, a bad person, that drives you to hide. It drives you to pick fights. It drives you to lie. It drives you to cheat.
Guys cannot be expected to put up with these things. They should not be expected to put up with them. Because they are not two-dimensional characters whose job is to stand sentinel, waiting for her coming enlightenment. They are human beings, with needs and desires and expectations of a relationship with another functional human being.
I was a non-being for most of my life. I was a cyborg, a robot, a puppet with a painted mask going through the motions of intimacy without giving anything of myself.
I hid. And I lied. And, when I got too scared, I fled. Sometimes I fled straight into the arms or lips or bed of some other guy, some less nice guy. Guys who treated me in a way I was used to: Long periods of neglect interspersed with brief flashes of passion and affection.
I’m not saying this to offer excuses. I’m not trying to explain away my actions. I am just telling you, Nice Guys, that you scared me. Because you were different. You may have been better, but you were unknown. And nine times out of 10, people will choose the unpleasant familiar over the potentially fabulous exotic. (Just look at how many grown adults still eat chicken tenders but won’t try sushi.)
So I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Nice Guys, for the lying and the cheating and the hiding. I’m sorry that I didn’t give you the chance to see me. I’m sorry that I never gave you the chance to be compassionate. I’m sorry that I wrote you off as The Nice Guy that could never understand. I’m sorry.
I’m sorry that I made myself the Bad Guy in your story. I never wanted to be the Bad Guy.
Most people would say I’m not allowed to ask anything of you, the wronged parties. But I will, because I hate being the Bad Guy. So, please, change the story. Or better yet, throw it out entirely.
Realize that I am more than a character in a played-out anecdote. Realize that the narrative is as harmful and limiting to you as it is to me.
Being labeled Nice Guy strips you of your humanity. It allows you no weakness, no faults, no desires, no free will, no choice to make allowances or pass judgement or demand anything.
You are not a character. You are a human being. A human being that I hurt.
And I’m sorry.
