When we think of nice guys in the dating sense, we tend to think too nice (because that’s bad apparently), boring, unassertive, too compliant, overly agreeable, doesn’t mess us about, isn’t ambiguous about his feelings, dying to settle down, possibly wears brown corduroy’s (joke!) and lots of words that we associate with unexciting, ordinary, not very fairy tale-ish, dry, lacking oomph etc.

The first thing that should be cleared up is that nice guys are not waiting for you to come along so that they can roll over, declare their undying love for you, and pander to your every whim. They’re men, which means that it’s likely that they’re a pain in the arse, but the type of annoying things that they do are very different to your average Mr Unavailable or out-and-out Bad Boy.

Nice Guys get a bad rap because a lot of us ladies have got it into our head that there is something far more fulfilling to be had with a man that isn’t very good at fulfilling us. We often forget that if we’re expecting things to be out of the fairy tales or the movies, the bad guy doesn’t get the girl, the nice one does.

A nice guy is not a wimp. A ‘Nice Guy’ will strive as often as possible to say what he means and mean what he says, even though he’ll undoubtedly cock it up as the communication between the sexes does tend to go awry. However a ‘Nice Guy’, if he likes you will make an effort to try. He will call you, and not because he’s looking for a shag or a filler for his evening but because being with you makes his whole evening, makes his whole week in fact.

A ‘Nice Guy’ will call within a reasonable period of time (keeping in mind that he is still a man so he can get confused about how long that should be) and won’t be ambiguous about arranging to see you again.

They tend to make sure that the path is free and clear for you both to tread on instead of attempting to juggle you with another woman. Even if he happens to be in a relationship when you meet him, because he has morals, because he is attempting to start out on the right footing, he will put an end to the other relationship pronto and without you threatening all sorts of outcomes.

Nice Guys don’t come out with bullshit like, ‘I’d love to be with you properly but you know my situation’. In fact, the dreaded word ‘situation’ doesn’t feature because he doesn’t make things difficult for himself.

Some Nice Guys are open about their feelings, they show their keenness, and ambiguity is a foreign word with them….and this scares away women. This is seen as being super-keen (‘keeno’,) or weird (weirdo) because for some idiotic reason, many women think that the way to show interest to a woman is to either be vague about it or not show any at all.

There are lots of different people out there which means that you get extroverts and introverts, and Nice Guys and erm, the rest. Nice Guys can still be exciting but their version and your version of excitement may differ. ‘Excitement’ to a lot of women means that the guy treats them mean and keeps them keen, maybe he lives life on the edge a little, bit irresponsible, needs fixing, and they think he needs nurturing to change his errant behaviour.

Nice Guys take their pleasures from enjoying the good things in life but not at the expense of someone who they profess to care about, and they ultimately don’t feel comfortable with having no regard for someone else’s feelings. When they do hurt someone’s feelings, they genuinely feel bad about it because they’re in touch with their feelings and not just thinking about what suits them.

Nice Guys don’t go around telling everyone that they’re one; they just are. The type of guy that suffers from ‘Those Who Doth Protest Too Much Syndrome’ isn’t a Nice Guy; he just thinks he’s different for some convoluted reason and is far too aggressive about how ‘nice’ he is to actually be that nice. He talks about being ‘nice’ but doesn’t realise where he’s not congruent with it and actually, the type of guy that goes on about how ‘nice’ he is, is playing a role and this results in him feeling entitled to the other party reciprocating and rewarding in a particular way. When those expectations aren’t met, you might just get to see how not-so-nice they are.

Mr Unavailables  as a point of reference aren’t necessarily ‘bad guys’ but they do have issues and are far too caught up with themselves that for whatever reason they are emotionally, spiritually or physically unavailable.

Ultimately what really determines a nice guy is that the woman isn’t spending the relationship feeling insecure about the status of the relationship, where he is, what he’s doing when she’s not about, and she doesn’t feel that sense of unease and lack of self-worth that’s associated with dating Mr Unavailables and Bad Boys. It’s definitely a better experience.

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