Nice guys don’t always finish last. I swear they don’t. They do often finish last early in life in the romance department because a lot of teenage and college age girls are kinda stuck on that whole bad boy thing. We crave the ego maniacs who are so mean to everyone that any slight hint of interest feels like a crowning ceremony. (She’s your queen to be!)
The nice guys get lost in the shuffle in favor of more exciting guys that have drama, intrigue and the power to make a simple phone call into a soap opera level event. While not getting any, the nice guys went on with their lives, diving into academics and work and basically grinding for the future with a woman-sized chip on their shoulders as they posted up against the wall date-less on prom night.
As we, ladies, get older we begin to see the value in the nice guy. Drama for drama’s sake is no bueno. A man who calls when he says he will call is a godsend.
I remember very clearly the day I was cured of my bad boy ways. I was a teen as was my beau at the time. He came to pick me up at my house one day to go to the movies. We stopped at his house (in a not so cute neighborhood in Detroit) because he forgot the movie tickets at home. It was dark outside. He was in a gang and lived in a neighborhood where he was literally surrounded by the rival gang.
He was a kid and lived with him mom, so he had no choice. He was just running into the house to grab the tickets, so he told me to stay in the car while he ran inside. He got out, but when he had walked a few steps away, he turned around and opened my door, the passenger’s side door. He tossed a gun onto my lap and said “Be cool, but if you need to, use it.” He shut the door without giving me a chance to say a word. I sat there with my hands raised like I was getting robbed. Between the gang bangers, crack heads and regular knuckle heads, I was feeling a tad uneasy.
I knew he meant well. My father had taught me how to shoot, so he knew I could and in his mind, I’m sure he thought he was being protective and reassuring. Dude came out about a minute and half later even though it felt like an eternity. Right then and there, I was instantly cured of my bad boy desires.
Bad boys didn’t lose their appeal entirely though. I still dated my fair share of obnoxious men/boys, but they were the types to pay for an essay, not get paid for a hit. Eventually, I figured out that bad boys, whether they filed taxes or rolled blunts, were not worth it. I preferred a consistently fun, available man over the unstable, selfish and fun man.
Given all of that and the horrible stats that we are all too familiar with, sometimes it feels like if we meet a “nice guy” we have to pounce on the opportunity. Au contraire mon fere. Just because a guy is nice, just because a guy is not an a$$hole, does not mean that you should scoop him up. Even with a stable, reliable, nice guy status, a man still has to mesh with you. He still has to have common values and be attractive to you.
Don’t punk yourself into thinking you have to jump on any man that shows interest who has a degree, no children and no criminal history. There are plenty of intangibles that matter and you should not feel guilty about passing on a man that is truly not for you.
Of course passing up on one of the nice guys requires that you are very sure of yourself. You have to know that you are saying “no” for the right reasons and not for something superficial like the kind of car he drives or what stamps are in his passport.
Did you have an aha moment with bad boys? Have you ever had to turn down a nice guy? What was the reason?
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