Nice Guy, Reformed: Part I

They say nice guys can never win, and most often this is true. The dating department has never been easy for me, and without sounding cocky it’s fair to say that I’m not ugly. I’ve been working out since I was 16, and I have a great body to show for it. I have 2 beautiful red sports cars, a great paying job, a sense of humor, and the list goes on. Yet if I was 50 lbs heavier, grungy, and couldn’t hold down a $10 an hour job at Walmart I bet I could get women like nobody’s business. Why? Because there’s one huge difference between me and Rocky the part time Jiffy lube oil changer: he acts like a jerk. Not just to his friends, but to women, too. And they love him for it.

Since the dawn of time women have associated kindness with weakness. Regardless of the fact that I could bench press Rocky’s family and crush him with my pinky toe, have any woman sit down and talk to the two of us for fifteen minutes and she’ll identify him as the tougher guy every time, simply because I’m too nice, and for some reason nice guys are incapable of defending themselves or standing up for themselves, which by the way is completely untrue if I might reminisce upon the time a guy speeding through the grocery store parking lot almost ran me over and I kicked a 2 inch deep dent in his car.

So what does this mean in terms of dating? Well, at the most basic, primitive level, a woman does want, to some degree, a guy that’s capable of defending her, because let me tell you, I can’t count how many times I’ve gone on a date and been attacked by rabid monkeys or a gang of ruthless ethnic stereotypes. But the fact remains, a guy that looks like he can ‘defend’ his girlfriend or wife (whether he can or not) is more appealing.

Also, as my social experiment concluded this weekend, so is a guy that has to be worked for, that has to be ‘earned.’ But I’ll get to that later.

See, none of this started off as a social experiment. It just started off as two dates that happened to be back to back—Thursday and Friday—each with very nice girls I had been talking to on and off. We’ll call the first one Alaina and the second one Michelle. Okay, so the second one’s name IS Michelle. But that’s because I’ll probably be talking about her a lot now.

Now about Alaina. She’s a therapist and knows her people. She’s also a very common sense oriented woman who knows what she wants. She’s talked about it a lot. She’s sick of the games and wants a nice guy who respects her and cares about her and blah blah blah. I’m boring myself just telling you this. I had a date with her on Thursday in which we did dinner and a movie.

We held a great conversation and there was never an awkward pause. I made her laugh, and she looked to be enjoying herself. A couple of times I had gone to touch her and she had pulled away, so being respectful (what she said she wanted), I withdrew and kept to myself. She’ll open up eventually, I said, and I won’t push that. So imagine my surprise at the end of the date when she told me she got a huge ‘friend vibe’ from me and that I just wasn’t aggressive enough for her. See, when I went to touch her and she pulled away, she wanted me to keep trying instead of being nice and respecting her boundaries. Feel free to observe the irony.

I came home feeling not upset but baffled. Why would she say one thing but want another? And most importantly, why had being a nice guy failed me yet again? Instead of dwelling on a girl who obviously was not worth worrying about in the first place, I formed a game plan for date #2 that would lead to a social experiment; what if this time I wasn’t a nice guy? What if I made the date about me and not about her? What if I made HER come to ME and on MY terms? Would she gobble it up or call me an arrogant ass?

In essence, it made sense. At any given time, any woman big or small, short or tall can get a guy, and she can get that guy to do anything for her. Guys like that grow on trees, practically. So what sets me apart from them, aside from the fact that I can replace her car’s waterpump while Sammy No-Spine can only mow her lawn? Nothing. And that’s exactly the point, to show her that if she wants me to do those things for her she has to first do something for me, unlike Sammy who offers to do it just to be ‘nice’ and without any return. I’ve then become a challenge to her. And who doesn’t like a challenge?

So I went into my date with Michelle with a whole new attitude. This was no longer about me trying to win her over, this was about HER trying to win ME over. I even started it before the date began; I sent her a text message letting her know I was on my way and if I got there before her I’d put our names on the list for a table. But then I did something uncharacteristic: I ended with a smartass remark. It concluded, “And don’t be late. I charge by the minute.”

Within a minute she responded with a text of her own, in which a girl I had talked to only a handful of times came to life and said, “You sound like an expensive date but I hope you’re worth it!” Not to be outdone (Remember, this is about me, not about her), I texted, “Sometimes you have to pay top dollar for high quality.”

I got to the restaurant and we did our introductions. Also, as it was July 4^th, the restaurant was closed, so she wondered where we should go. As a nice guy, I would have left the decision up to her, but this was not about her. This was about me. I told her I remembered her saying Pasta Jay’s was good and we should go there. I took something she wanted to do and turned it into something I wanted to do.

Needless to say, she seemed very pleasantly surprised by my assertiveness and said, “That sounds great.” And to seal the deal, I added, “And this place better be as good as you told me it was, otherwise you’re in trouble.” She smiled and said she was sure I wouldn’t be disappointed. And from there it was established that she was working to win ME over.

At dinner we talked, and though I asked her a lot of questions about herself, I also made sure to playfully tease her. Example: I asked if she had had any bad blind dates, and she said one had been so awkward she told the guy half way through she had to hurry home and give her cat medicine because she needed pills three times a day. Immediately after, I told her that things were going well, but if they headed south, I’d have to hurry home and give my dog her hemorrhoid cream. She loved it.

After paying, we still had 2 hours until the fireworks began, so we walked out of the restaurant and I asked, “So what now?” I didn’t give her a chance to answer, because again this was not about her but about me, and I playfully wrapped my arm around her and said, “And don’t give me any crap about going home to give your cat medicine, because you already used that line once.”

She stopped, thought for a moment, and then said something I thought I’d never hear. “Actually, you want to meet my cats? We can go back to my apartment for a bit.” Having just met this girl only an hour before, I was already invited back to her apartment. I know to some of you that use sex as an ice breaker this really isn’t anything special, but being as how I date nice girls that don’t do the whole casual sex thing, this is a pretty big step.

We went back to her place, and she opened up to me a lot more as I got to meet her two adorable cats. When the time came, I told her that we should get going to see the fireworks, and we headed out. She asked if we wanted to drive separately, or if we wanted to take one car and whose, and I told her since this was her neck of the woods she should drive.

So we went up to the mountains, spread out a blanket, and waited for the fireworks. I felt like putting my arm around her, so I did. When the fireworks started I pulled her closer to me. Whenever I said something that made her smile, I touched her arm to associate my touch with a positive experience. I also still playfully teased her. And she loved it.

At the end of the night we drove back to her place and we exchanged our goodbyes. I told her that I had such a good time that next time would be half price. She agreed that there would be a next time.

The next day, she sent me a text message to thank me for our date. Let me repeat this; SHE thanked ME. Standard procedure says the guy should call the next day to thank her, and look at this, I had a date go so well the woman wanted to thank ME. The roles were officially reversed, in which she is vying for my affection; I’m not vying for hers (though I am).

We have another date next weekend, and in the meanwhile, I’m keeping up the playful teasing. I’ll keep you posted, but so far I’d say it’s pretty overwhelming evidence not only that nice guys sabotage their own dates without thinking about it, but that you can be confident and assertive without sacrificing your morals. Remember kids; we want to learn from Rocky, not become him. The confident guy gets the girl, but it’s the nice guy that always gets to keep her.