Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!rcj From: rcj@burl.ATT.COM (Curtis Jackson) Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.singles Subject: Nice guys finish last Message-ID: <1506@burl.ATT.COM> Date: Sun, 12-Oct-86 20:56:18 EDT Article-I.D.: burl.1506 Posted: Sun Oct 12 20:56:18 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 13-Oct-86 06:02:45 EDT References: <54@ritcv.UUCP> <305@joevax.UUCP> Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) Distribution: net Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany NJ Lines: 87 Keywords: Longish, but well worth ev'ry burnt eye socket. Xref: watmath soc.women:314 soc.singles:481 In article <305@joevax.UUCP> dnelson@joevax.UUCP (Dorothy Nelson) writes: >> but unfortunately no matter where I travel that is all I find. >> No it is not just me, anybody I know that has a girlfriend doesn't >> treat them like they deserve and yet they still stay with him. >> Perplexing eh ? >Here's the phenomenon as I see it. There's a very healthy reaction >humans have called, "Picking partners who feel good about themselves." >Feeling good about yourself has classicly been interpreted as not giving >a shit for anyone else. (NOTE to would-be flamers... I don't like this >attitude). >The indifferent male has always been presented as a romantic figure whereas >the male who cares is a foot licking woos who has dinner at Mama's on >Fridays. Similarly, the "hard to get" female is the most luscious, whereas >the female who is nice is portrayed as a clinging vine. Binary modes, pure >and simple. Some of this is hard-wired already in our brains-- and it's >difficult to extract it. Hear, hear, Ms. Muffin! I included this for reference later - read on! >> I guess this is where the saying "Nice guys finish last." came >> from. OK, time to step in with the old "before and after" story. Really until about two years ago or so, I was what Laura Creighton likes to call a puppy dog. I was the epitome of the nice guy. All the girls liked me. They liked talking to me, they liked doing some other things as well. They never stayed for very long. Here I was, being as nice as I could, and they didn't appreciate me. How often I quoted the old "finish last" line! Then, two of them, both of whom I really respect, and at two times three years apart, told me that they loved me but I wasn't a real person. They felt that I was living my life for them, and they didn't like that. They wanted the person they met (when I was being as dashing as I knew how and all that courtship stuff that really shouldn't die; just mellow a little). They wanted someone who was nice but who didn't always put them before himself. They wanted a real person! How dare they!? ;-) So, I decided that I was basically a nice guy and I didn't want to change that, but that "it's a short enough ride as it is" and I should be living for me and *sharing* that with someone else. I went into seclusion for about eight months after my last SO left and got my shit together by myself. I then tentatively stepped back into the dating world. Well, as Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise, Surprise!" I have several lady friends, I have a great time with them all, I think they have a good time with me, and most of all I feel good! I had no idea all the stuff I'd been repressing to be so nice to ladies at the expense of my own self! I feel so at ease now; I like *me* for what I am, and the part of me that can be good for someone else is just a part of me I'm glad of now, no longer my raison d'etre. To answer your original question, I think that a lot of women these days are so fed up with the Alan Alda syndrome, and so tired of looking for men who aren't either total assholes (really bad) or already married to their upwardly mobile 80's careers to the exclusion of all else; especially to the exclusion of being real with themselves about who they really are. So they stick with the guys who, as someone I know said about someone else today, "sometimes have the sensitivity of a small soap dish." They stick with them because these guys are real people (not puppy dogs) and they are not complete assholes. A lot of these women could do a lot better, but it seems that (just like a lot of men) they give up the search because it can be a long and painful one. Better the slight pain you know than the unknown pain, and all that stuff. >I'm curious, if you've traveled extensively, why you *haven't* gotten an >opinion from a woman about this. Very strange. I agree with Dorothy -- talk to your female friends. You might be surprised at how much they'll open up to a man who really cares enough to find these things out. >Men. Can't live with them, can't shoot them in the back of the neck and >have a talented taxidermist stuff the pe... wait a minnit... I *can* do >that, can't I? (*MOO* *HA* *HA*) > >Scuse me. I'm off to buy me a Luger. ;-) Hmmmm. Better keep a low profile when I'm in NJ -- I might run into this sex-crazed lunatic; much to my chagrin! What? The MAD Programmer hiding from a sex-crazed woman? Well, as my Daddy said to me once (he really did, too): "Boy, stay away from them what takes trophies...." -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd allegra ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua watmath ]!clyde!rcj