I’d been planning to let the issue of the Nice Guys of OK Cupid blog on Tumblr slide. It is pretty depressing from every perspective. I’d squabbled and grumbled about it on Twitter with a few people, and then thankfully the Christmas break pushed it out of my mind.
If it passed you by, the Tumblr scours the dating/social networking site OK Cupid for profiles of men and then posts their pictures (without permission) alongside selected quotes. The typical entry shows a less than attractive guy with a few quotes from his profile proclaiming himself a ‘nice guy’ who is fed up of being ‘friendzoned’ and then a ‘wrong’ answer from the set profile questionnaires such as “Should women feel an obligation to shave their legs? Yes.”
Some of them are unquestionably far worse. They talk about ‘sluts’ and ‘bitches’ or they say women should sometimes be obliged to have sex with them, and a few are downright rapey. Many, however, are not. In between the horrors are a lot like these (verbatim and in toto):
I’m a nice guy 😮
I SPEND A LOT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT: If I will find a relationship via this iPhone App or if every girl is just a friend or demands a Prince Charming rather than the knight I am / why I get into a girl’s friendzone so easily.”
Or
Remember that boy in high school who helped give relationship advice to girls he really liked that were taken? Every time he tries to solve an issue that the girl had, he succeeds, but not with the girl. That boy was me. I was always in the friend zone. The “nice guy.”
These are not rank misogynists and wannabe rapists, they’re not even showing any particular sense of privilege or entitlement. On the contrary, many of the entries come across as more self-pitying, bitter or pathetic than those above. Those are not attractive qualities, but they are sadly common among people who are at an extremely low ebb emotionally, or struggling with depression. I think it is not only immoral, but potentially dangerous to place them in the 21st Century equivalent of the medieval stocks to be mocked, abused and humiliated. The blog struck me less as a blow against privilege, and more as ugly bullying of people who already feel like losers.
I was happy to leave it at that. But then one of my Twitter duellists, the prominent male feminist Hugo Schwyzer, asked if he could quote my tweets in a piece he was writing. Rather than find myself hoisted on a 140 character petard, I emailed him with a couple of comments outlining my concerns
Hugo’s piece has just gone up on Jezebel. In the section quoting me, he says:
“Without entirely dismissing Fogg’s concern that some young men’s rage or despair could be worsened as a result of NGOKC, there’s a lot more to the site than mockery. What’s on offer isn’t just an opportunity to snort derisively at the socially awkward; it’s a chance to talk about the very real problem of male sexual entitlement.”
The first thing to say is that after saying he is not entirely dismissing my concerns, he never once returns to them in any way, which looks pretty much like dismissal to me. Next, I note how Hugo says what’s on offer “isn’t just an opportunity to snort derisively at the socially awkward” – my emphasis because he isn’t denying that the site is, at least in part, precisely that. However because Hugo wants to have a chat about male sexual entitlement, he is quite prepared to accept this bullying as a means to an end, and write off the victims as collateral damage. I can only try to imagine how these men must feel, what the psychological consequences might be for a dejected, lonely young man with minimal self-esteem who suddenly finds himself subjected to public ridicule by millions and branded a douche, a misogynist and a creep by association. But take it on the chin guys, because Hugo wants to talk about stuff.
I should say at this point that I’m not one of the world’s countless Hugo-haters. Although we have many profound political disagreements, we have an amicable relationship online. That said, he does have some habits in his writing that drive me up the wall and half way across the ceiling. Foremost among them is his belief that he knows exactly what all men are thinking and their primal motivations, even if he’s never met them and knows nothing about them. Rather than accepting that the men featured in the Tumblr might be socially and personally diverse and psychologically complex, either individually and as group, Hugo has them all pegged. Borrowing a line from Laurie Penny in the New Statesman (in a much more nuanced but still problematic piece), he writes:
The great unifying theme of the curated profiles is indignation. These are young men who were told that if they were nice, then, as Laurie Penny puts it, they feel that women “must be obliged to have sex with them.”
—Raised to believe in a perverse social/sexual contract that promised access to women’s bodies in exchange for rote expressions of kindness, these boys have at least begun to learn that there is no Magic Sex Fairy.
—
While only a small percentage of these guys may be prone to imminent violence, virtually all of them insist, in one way or another, that women owe them.
—
Besides the near-universal sense that they’ve been unjustly defrauded, the great commonality among these Nice Guys is their contempt for women’s non-sexual friendship.
—
Their anger, in other words, is that their own deception didn’t work as they had hoped. It’s a monumental overask to expect women to be gentle with the egos of men who only feigned friendship in order to get laid.
I fully accept that may well be some men featured on NGOOKC who meet those descriptions perfectly. I strongly suspect there are many who do not. I cannot be sure that there are some genuinely “nice”, gentle, loving, humble men on there whose only problems are lack of confidence, self-esteem and chronic loneliness, because I haven’t met any of them. But nor, I presume, have the people behind the Tumblr, nor have the endless thousands of online surfers who have gleefully shared their humiliation on social media, and nor has Hugo Schwyzer.
My sense is that this doesn’t matter to them, because what is being mocked here is not the individuals, it is the archetype. The political target is The Nice Guy ™ who represents a certain strain of male privilege and entitlement, and the extent to which any of the specific targets match the profile, the extent to which they deserve to be personally humiliated is irrelevant to Hugo and the site’s creators and fans.
I happen to agree that the archetype deserves mockery and vilification, but that is beside the point. Archetypes don’t have to pluck up the courage to join a dating site and then go through the awkward steps of creating a clumsy profile. People do. Archetypes don’t cry themselves to sleep into their pillows. People do. Archetypes don’t suffer if their fragile self-esteem is kicked into the dirt and trampled on. People do. Archetypes don’t self-harm and drink or drug themselves into numb oblivion. People do.
The Internet is awash with nastiness of all sorts. It can be legitimate and proportionate to name and shame misogynists, rape apologists and hatemongers of all sorts. Indeed it is necessary. It can also be legitimate and proportionate to name and shame cruel bullies and their apologists, and no less necessary.
I don’t see how anyone who’s not a misogynist can think in terms of the “friendzone”. The concept that friendship with women is undesirable unless it’s a gateway to sex is deeply and irredeemably misogynist.
There was an interesting blog on that by linkshund here.
But that’s not what the friendzone is about, or least not how I’ve seen it.
“The concept that friendship with women is undesirable unless it’s a gateway to sex is deeply and irredeemably misogynist.”
How so? It’s ‘misogynist’ to find someone attractive if they don’t find you attractive back? Or is it only misogynist if you feel unhappy about that?
I just wish the Left would stay out of personal relationships. The Left has shown itself to be incapable of macro-politics, why would they think they can handle micro-politics? Examining your relationships in terms of the latest whacko social theory is just an invitation to bring genocide into the bedroom, and not in a fun way.
Blames the Left for staying in personal relationships, unironically supports the Right while they try to legislate homosexuality away.
Shut the fuck up moron.
Absolutely.
How is it anything other than misogynist to do as one commenter put it: “to keep putting friendship coins into the woman until the sex falls out.”. And when unsurprisingly the sex doesn’t fall out, to get all bitter and twisted about it?
It’s manipulative and entitled.
Living things are vehicles for genes. If you, or any man or woman, perchance, found yourself on the losing end of the mating game; where all you managed to make for yourself was a myriad of “let’s be friends,” it might make you somewhat bitter. I think one can’t help but feel entitled to getting their desires met even if they are fooling themselves. People can call it misogyny or misandry but I suspect anyone who feels they need something badly from the opposite sex, and doesn’t get it will have resentment.
…and when did the “nice guys” actually say that. Oh yeah, I forgot, the never said it. We somehow know that it is what they are thinking, even though we have no evidence!
Ok, I’m gay and if I went on a DATING website and always got the offer of ‘just friends’ I would also be pissed off. That doesn’t mean I expect sex from all men or that that friendship with men is undesirable unless it’s a gateway to sex.
The idea that a man is a misogynist if he is disappointed with the fact that no woman wants to be more than ‘just friends’, or that he isn’t willing to settle for a load of new friends when he was actually looking for a girlfriend is stupid.
I’m pretty sure most of the guys wouldn’t be interested if another guy messaged them from the website saying they seemed cool and would they like to be friends… it’s a DATING site, that doesn’t mean that they find friendship with men undesirable.
Maybe it’s got nothing to do with women, since I feel the same way about men. Homophobe.*
*See, 2 can play at the over the top name calling game.
Well if that is what the person actually thinks when they are saying “friendzone” then yes that would be misogynistic.
However that is not the only interpretation. For me (seeing as I have not met any of these men), it is possible that they would just adore the idea of having women as friends, provided there was at least one woman who was romantically interested in them. In this latter scenario, the use of “friendzone” would not be about devaluing the friendship of women, but rather a clumsy expression of frustration and loneliness from a man who sees his own value to women as being less than what he would desire.
Plus there is a more basic idea that: people are social beings, and social beings find rejection painful, therefore when rejection is perceived, the individual perceiving rejection will find the experience unpleasant and describe it as such.
I suspect there is a great amount of nuance that could be negotiated there.
I am a straight male. I have mostly male friends, but I keep a few female friends. Some of them are single, most of them are not. I am not smooth, and I’m not a pickup artist, but when I want to date, I can find a date. I am currently in long term, committed relationship.
The thing is, when I was single, I really did understand the friendzone thing. In my experience, women seem to think and act fairly differently from men. Is that a contentious or misogynistic comment? I hope not. I’m not saying better or worse, I’m saying women are *different* from me, and understanding those differences takes effort. Honestly, I have enough friends. I don’t have enough time for the ones I’ve got, and there’s a certain economy of effort that applies to having female friends.
So yeah, if I was single, and a woman made it clear we were just friends, I might decide we’re not even that. I don’t think for a minute she owes me sexual gratification, any more than I owe her my friendship. Getting to be good friends with someone takes a great deal of time and effort, doubly so if they are of the opposite sex. If I’m looking for romance, and there is no potential there, I might choose to invest my time elsewhere. Shaming me for that is as ridiculous as shaming a woman for not putting out to her guy friends.
“The concept that friendship with women is undesirable unless it’s a gateway to sex is deeply and irredeemably misogynist.”
Hello? Jordan Catalano called. He just wants to be friends. And he said you need to stop visiting McFeminist sites like Jezebel.
Of course being disappointed that someone you’re attracted to told you “let’s just be friends” is not misogynistic. It’s not “entitlement” to think “you’re always that girl/guy no one wants”. It’s low self esteem and an internalized sense of defeat to label yourself nice-anything as a euphemism for “noble loser”, perhaps with passive-agressive rationales, but “hatred” of women? Hatred of men? The result of thinking that the other gender “automatically owes you sex”? That’s an incredible and conspicuously biased assumption to make… and sounds more like a rationale for bullying such people than an actual Feminist insight.
A woman complaining “why am I always treated like ‘just one of the guys’ but every guy I know never picks me to hook up with? Guys only want girls that look like models/porn stars/blondes/girly-girls, I’m just too [fill in the blank].” This is no more “hateful” or “entitled” than a guy asking “why do girls always want me to be their friend, but then they always sleep with guys like that? Maybe I’m too nice, because women are only sexually attracted to bad boys…”
It’s not an insane thought. In fact, many women are. I am too (sometimes). Some men are only attracted to “bad girls”. It’s really a thing. No, really. And some women feel contempt for guys because they fail to be objectified sexually enough to have as much sex as they desire. Yes, that really is a thing too.
Let’s do an experiment:
You’ve broken up with him and now he’s dating someone else and they look so happy together… “I must be deficient because she’s so hot… and f**k him because he doesn’t like nice women”
— Hate speech and entitlement, or self-pity and denial?
He said he didn’t want to be in a relationship and now he’s flaunting that bimbo… “I must be deficient because she’s so hot… and f**k him because he doesn’t like nice women”
— Hate speech and entitlement, or self-pity and denial?
He said he wasn’t going to choose you over his wife/girlfriend and now he’s got a replacement Other Woman. “I must be deficient because she’s so hot… and f**k him because he doesn’t like nice women”
— Hate speech and entitlement, or self-pity and denial?
He said he didn’t want to get married and now he’s engaged or married. “I must be deficient because she’s so hot… and f**k him because he doesn’t like nice women”
— Hate speech and entitlement, or self-pity and denial?
He said he wouldn’t leave his wife and now he has…for a different girl. “I must be deficient because she’s so hot… and f**k him because he doesn’t like nice women”
— Hate speech and entitlement, or self-pity and denial?
How come he’s so happy with her? It must be my fault the relationship didn’t work. Why her and not me? Why, why, why, why, WHY?
Hate! Gendered entitlement!
Seriously, Jezebel does not exist to do anything except cultivate outrage for the sake of page views and advertising revenue. Everything on that site is highly suspect, especially in light of how the author mentioned above chose to obliquely deal with a fellow blogger. Jezebel does not exist to further Feminist causes or concerns at the expensive of their bottom line; neither do the people who generate content for them.
p.s. I guess I assumed this was obvious, but being explicit is import when leaving comments — I write the above comment assuming that it’s obvious to everyone that the concept of “nice guy misogyny” is an attempt to paint anyone identifying as a “nice guy” as 1.) a covert misogynist, 2.) disingenuously identifying as “nice” as a ploy to get sex. Obviously, many nice men AND women identify as “too nice to be attractive in this ruthless world where only aggressive badasses are desired”. Yes, it’s actually a thing. Cheers.
That’s not what the friend zone is. It is when you ask out someone you are friends with and get rejected.
The concept is that they’ve never had a romantic relationship, and can never be seen as ‘worthwhile’ to women they know, who will turn around and talk shit about how worthless and crap men are, why can’t they find any nice guys who care about them and just like them for who they are? Well, that guy is sitting right across from you. Do you see how fucking far from misogynist it is?
The friendzone has less to do with “entitlement” to women and more to do with people – usually men – who are desperate to find romantic attachment that negates the sense of loneliness and/or depression that they are stuck in.
Everyone wants to love and be loved in the romantic sense. The friendzone is often for the people who love but don’t experience the “being loved” part.
I’m probably one of those people who would be on there if I had a profile at OK cupid. But I don’t think that being the best person I can be entitles me to anything from anyone else, sexually, romantically or anything else.
I’m painfully shy at times and just don’t want to be a bragging, boring arsehole who thinks the whole world revolves around them. I’m “nice” because why wouldn’t I want to be? It seems unfair to other people I encounter in my life if I were to be anything else.
I’m a white 27-year old male with an undergraduate degree, so I understand I have huge amounts of privelige (sorry about the spelling BTW, it’s late and I’m shattered) that I’m aware of, so why would I want to think people are obliged to sleep with me if I treat women whom I’m attracted to as people with feelings as important (probably more important, actually) than my own?
Schwyzer seems to be having an empathy failure here, ironic given what he’s lambasting to subjects of NGOOKC for.
Yeah, I think the empathy blindspot is key to this, thanks.
Ha Ha – so you discover how odd it is to have to deal with Hugo Land. He does love to play with words and ideas – and he is as slippery as an eel covered in vegetable oil ! he does love making himself look supposedly rational and intelligent, but he always falls short. So predictable.
Hugo will take anything and turn it into his favourites scheme of making it clear how all other humans are getting it wrong, but good old Uncle Hugo will always get it right! I’d love to see one of his lectures to check out just how bizzare his body Language is in reality. .
If you are chatting with him, do ask him when he’s going to address the small issue of him throwing sexual abused kids under the bus to protect his ego – and then the big dramatic run away attempt.
Of course that failed as his little history issues with some rapin and drugin and attempted murderin came out of the closet .. or rather some people actually read his blogs and realised he had more issues than the National Geographic. But he’s been very cleaver so far at glossing over the whole lot – but he still has not addressed that Throwing Kids Under Bus for the sake of ego issue! If you can ask him for his intentions it will no doubt be a hoot to see how he doesn’t react and runs in any direction possible to get away from himself! Enjoy!
The point, DJW, is not that friendship to women is pointless. It is that many guys think that by being nice to girls that they have a crush on, they can impress them and win favor with them. Instead, these girls dismiss them as merely “nice” and not worthy of their romantic interest. Would you prefer that men NOT be nice to girls they have a crush on?
Don’t be deliberately misrepresenting the motivations of these guys.
What about being nice just because you are innately nice? ‘Being nice to girls [women?] that they have a crush on’ reeks of insincerity, and is the behaviour of someone I would run away from, very fast.
Also, I feel very confident that there is no person on this planet that will dismiss someone for being ‘merely nice’. “Sorry, I’m not interested because you’re nice”. Really? Or else she just isn’t interested. And perhaps ‘nice guy who was trying to be nice’ decided that to be really nice, he would not ever admit his desire for sexual relations with her, instead being her ‘friend’, biding his time. Then getting all mad because he eventually makes a move, and she says no because she sees him as a friend. The bitch! She should have seen through the nice fake friendship.
Look, I don’t believe that the OKC guys deserve public derision like this at all. Ok, some of them may be shitty people who say shitty things, and juxtapose those things hilariously with a ‘Nice Guy’ proclamation – in which case, don’t date ’em! Just don’t publicly shame them either.
“What about being nice just because you are innately nice? ‘Being nice to girls [women?] that they have a crush on’ reeks of insincerity, and is the behaviour of someone I would run away from, very fast. ”
Being nice is how they demonstrate interest in it getting farther, but not necessarily sexual. And it’s a way to gauge the other, in a way a date seems to forceful. Gauging someone’s suitability/compatibility with you as a long term relationship mate takes time – something a date can hardly tell you. Being friendly lets you have time to show your qualities, see the qualities of the other, see if you click – without needing that oh-so-important “do I want to fuck them” chemistry 5 seconds after meeting them.
I met my boyfriend at work, we hanged out, had pauses and lunches together, and only started dating after 10 months there. I prefer it that way to “meet unknown person, awkward silence at date, go home, no call from person you don’t know how you feel about (why would I call them either – I can’t know how I feel about them yet?)”
“Also, I feel very confident that there is no person on this planet that will dismiss someone for being ‘merely nice’.”
Yes, women who are after the “mysterious guy”, the charming guy, the smooth talker, or just after drama, will dismiss the merely nice guy as “just boring”. He doesn’t bungee jump or ride helicopters on weekends, he must be so boring and vanilla. Some people actually like routine and have enough grey matter to be risk-averse for stuff like peacocking involving stupid stunts (ie being a Jackass stunt person re-enacter, just to impress them). They want to impress the other with their own “I’m Me” qualities, not fake airbrushed qualities they put on just for show.
“Being nice to girls [women?] that they have a crush on’ reeks of insincerity, and is the behaviour of someone I would run away from, very fast.”
Do you hold heterosexual women in that sort of contempt, too? That is their typical romantic/sexual strategy in the culture these men come from, after all- position herself in the vicinity of the object of her desire, be pleasant towards him, bide her time without overtly stating the actual nature of her interest, feel bad about it if a guy she likes spurns her in favor of somebody else.. It’s just that that sort of behavior isn’t considered creepy or dishonest or sinister when it’s done by people who are following their traditional gender role rather than violating it.
How on earth is it ‘utterly contemptuous’ to not want to be around someone who is pretending to be ‘nice’ to get something beyond friendship from me? Isn’t that just common sense? You’re projecting.
Yes if a heterosexual woman was pretending to be nice to me for ulterior motives, I would run away from her too. Is that ok now? And sorry no, I don’t think that being pleasant to someone and selling yourself as a ‘nice guy’ is the same thing.
Also @schala – yes my boyfriend and I got together after a close 3 year friendship. We were nice to each other the entire time. It doesn’t change my opinion on a self-proclaimed NiceGuy
“Also @schala – yes my boyfriend and I got together after a close 3 year friendship. We were nice to each other the entire time. It doesn’t change my opinion on a self-proclaimed NiceGuy”
I’m a trans woman, probably asperger, socially disastrous, shy, and introverted.
Pre-transition I would have qualified as a nice guy. At least before adulthood (where I was just deeply depressed and with no interest in romance of any kind). I was friendly, didn’t express sexual or romantic interest outright. Didn’t know how to do so without being an asshole. And frankly, I have no sexual interest outright in people (I won’t know by looks), as I’m demi-sexual.
But something magical like social transition…has made those problems vanish. Still the same me, now perceived as female. And guess what? My strategy became viable. Still just as socially disastrous and aspie as before. But now that I don’t have to initiate, lead and “be confident even in the absence of reason to be so”, some other people initiate, and don’t consider me a loser/misogynist/stupid/profiteering for not doing so myself.
I was always “sex doesn’t matter” orientation (pansexual), but extremely uncomfortable sexually pretransition (was a virgin mostly by choice). I transitioned at 24. And met my boyfriend at 26. I’m 30 now.
I guess firstly I have a problem with the ‘needing to initiate’ because you are male.
Also, a lot of the NiceGuy problem is post-rejection attitude. Or saying ‘I’m a Nice Guy’ while not actually being a nice guy. Shyness and awkwardness is not the same thing.
Which is why I think you can be the ‘nice guy’, proclaim it, and hope to get laid, then blame it if your advances do not work (as is typical of the particular stereotype we are discussing). Or you can just be a good person, and not blame any of your sexual shortcomings on women liking assholes and thugs and disliking nice people. Because that is where a misogynist attitude creeps in. If this wasn’t you, then I guess this isn’t about you!
Yes – Red Flags hey Deezers 🙂
Being nice in the hopes of changing someone’s opinion of you is immature and controlling behaviour. Trying to control an outcome that one has no control over, and wondering why it never works.
This type of behaviour does not attract, rather it repels. Being “too nice” is not attractive, because it’s false. People pleasers are a good example – trying to control what others think of them, e.g. ‘if I do X then it will make so-and-so Y’; or ‘if I do X then I will get Y’.
It’s seriously screwed up thinking/behaviour that MANY people learn as acceptable, it’s normalised, often by their parents or other caregivers and society at large.
Being nice to someone in the hopes of receiving X, Y or Z is not what being nice is meant to be about. Being nice, like relationships, love etc, is not meant to be transactional or conditional. Thinking that they are, behaving in ways that suggest that is part of your belief system, will likely always result in friendzoning by people who have learnt healthier ways of interacting.
The two examples used in the article write in ways that indicate they view relationships in unhealthy ways. It’s insidious, and I posture no less offensive than the overt examples elsewhere – just clothed differently.
Hi naut!
Loved your comment, very eloquently put, and perfectly illustrates the difference between ‘good person’ and ‘Nice Guy’
🙂
Popping in at this stage, because Naut just said something that gets to the heart of the disagreements here, perhaps.
I think there is an enormous difference between:
1./ being nice to someone because you genuinely like them and are attracted to them and you ALSO hope that they will begin to reciprocate the attraction you have for them.
and
2./ Pretending to be nice and friendly to someone when you don’t really like them as people and your only wish is to get into their pants.
I think a lot of this debate is dividing between those who assume (some of) the guys featured on NGOKC fall into the former category and those who believe they all fall into the latter.
In that sense it becomes a simple question of whether we want to assume the worst or the best of a complete stranger, about whom all we know is a photo and a few words from a dating profile. Personally I can’t see any reason to assume that just using the word ‘Friend Zone’ means a guy is cynically feigning friendship rather than genuinely experiencing it.
Hi Ally, your comment gets it in the perfect nutshell.
Sadly, people will probably assume the worst on the internet, because people can often be at their worst on the internet! It is easy to vilify a guy in a fedora who says something a it daft. I personally would skip right past his dating page, which everyone else can choose to do or not do. I don’t really get the ‘judge, jury, and executioner’ attitude some people adopt online. These guys are not convicted serial rapists. At worst, they are manipulative and sexist idiots – but that doesn’t mean they deserve worldwide derision.
In real life, having previously assumed the best about people and suffered for it, I now hope for the best but prepare for the worst until I’m very sure. A bit sad, but such is life.
I’d add a couple of things to what Ally said. One, it assumes that male sexual interest is innately selfish and hostile, i.e. that wanting to have a romantic/sexual relationship with someone is incompatible with liking them. It also comes from a position of female privilege where, not having to make the approaches, you can believe that relationships “just happen”. They don’t. Men, as the designated approachers, have to make them happen, while pretending we aren’t so as not to disturb women’s said privilege. This is a double bind that men find themselves in, that “nice guys” can’t cope with, and that women are apparently oblivious to.
“It also comes from a position of female privilege where, not having to make the approaches, you can believe that relationships ‘just happen’.” – Ok I can see the damage caused by social norms where men are expected to do the ‘chasing’, but I disagree with most everything else you said. Firstly, you are probably a very decent person, as are many men that approach women – but trust me, many more are often quite happy to ‘disturb our privilege’ (actually, I don’t even really know what that is supposed to mean, to be honest!).
Again, as Ally as pointed out, there are Nice Guys (TM) and actual nice good people. And the Nice Guy ™ label does not apply to the latter. Now, the Nice Guy (TM) is the one that resents a woman for not being interested in him, even when he has gone to all the trouble of listening to her, and talking to her, and being nice etc. And then says ‘women just want assholes’ – thereby lumping many men into the ‘asshole’ category and keeping his flag flying in the Nice Guy category, while referring to women as some kind of homogenous blob who enjoy being treated badly (all more signs of NOT being nice).
This behaviour, far from being indicative of the ‘privilege’ women enjoy of being approached by and having to reject many men they do not want to have sex or a relationship with, is indicative of an immature, derisive view of women who won’t fuck Nice Guy, and the men those women date. NOT nice.
Again, however, this site fails because in many cases, the guy may just be a little clueless or immature, but not the manipulative or an actual Nice Guy (TM) stereotype. I think at the very least the faces could at least have been blurred.
As far as ‘disturbing privilege’ – I’m sorry but I don’t buy this. First of all, I think you (like many) say this as though ANY woman can easily get sex/relationships, which is grossly untrue and makes me think you are only remembering attractive, skinny women without disabilities. Well attractive, fit men generally don’t have to work too hard either.
If you are interested in someone in that way then by all means be friendly, but be honest about it – with yourself and the object of your affection, try to read social cues (if possible), do not assume they can read your mind, and if you do declare intentions and they are not reciprocated – don’t be an ass about it!
Pure Marie-Antoinetting, ironically enough from someone denying being privileged.
1. It’s ‘Marie-Antoinetting’ to say don’t be as ass to someone who doesn’t want to sleep with you???
2. You’re assuming I don’t take/haven’t taken my own advice! Or I have just always looked at whoever I wanted and then BOOM, in my bed. No! My boyfriend and I were (genuine) friends for years before we got together, and trust me, I was terrified when navigating the beginnings of our relationship. Completely unsure, totally insecure. Your assumptions are damaging to both men and women, and you are perpetuating a ‘gatekeeper’ mentality.
I am sorry, but you are completely incorrect in your assumption that women have a privilege where ‘relationships just happen’. Again I think you are thinking of conventionally attractive women and forgetting the rest.
@Ally – I don’t have a problem with men or women trying to better themselves with an end-view of attracting a partner. I think it is actually creepy for either a man or a woman to hang around and feign friendship with the goal of getting sex or a relationship. I also note that it is not just men that do this. I guess the ‘Nice Guy’ thing has its ‘Clingy Girl’ equivalent.
“about whom all we know is a photo and a few words from a dating profile.”
True.
Except one can tell a lot about someone from the words they use.
“In that sense it becomes a simple question of whether we want to assume the worst or the best of a complete stranger”
I think a lot of people are unaware of red flags, because it’s simply not something that is necessarily learnt. Some might act in ways that don’t feel right, yet don’t know why. Likewise, people on the receiving end might ignore that something doesn’t feel right (i.e. a hunch), choosing instead to presume the best of someone.
Whether or not someone is aware of what they’re doing doesn’t make something any less toxic. Good intentions are great, however self-analysis and self-awareness is more likely to ensure the desired outcome.
“it assumes that male sexual interest is innately selfish and hostile, i.e. that wanting to have a romantic/sexual relationship with someone is incompatible with liking them”
Any perception that was Ally’s point is perhaps the extreme black and white view of ‘how things work’, based on the experiences of someone who perpetuates and projects that view.
I don’t think that was Ally’s point – I think it’s something that underlies the typical view of “nice guys”.
@naut & @deezers
I have no problem with people using their own red flags in deciding whether to relate to someone. I would never condemn anyone who used a personal hunch based on a red flag (such as “Friend Zone” or “nice guy”) to decide not to accept a friend request or a date invitation. May or may not be justified, but it is entirely someone’s right and personal choice.
I do have a big problem with using those kind of red flags as judge, jury and executioner to name, shame and humiliate people as misogynists and creeps, and that is the point here I think.
@paddybrown
It also comes from a position of female privilege where, not having to make the approaches, you can believe that relationships “just happen”. They don’t. Men, as the designated approachers, have to make them happen
I don’t believe for a moment that any women believe relationships ‘just happen.’ I think these kinds of initiation rituals are very subtle dances, and when a woman is interested in a guy, she goes through all sorts of canny manoeuvres (consciously or not) to try to get herself noticed, to signal her availability and interest etc etc. it doesn’t always work, of course, because we blokes can be pretty dumb at picking up on the signals at times (I know I can) or we just don’t fancy them.
if you think about it, women’s magazines are filled with advice pages on ‘how to bag the man of your dreams’
One interesting question though, is why those magazine features are considered entirely natural and normal rather than manipulative and coercive – which they would be if the genders were reversed.
Which is ironically enough what “nice guys” are condemned for.
That’s a fair point. I was trying to be generous and attribute the problem to ignorance rather than hypocrisy.
@deezers
@Ally – I don’t have a problem with men or women trying to better themselves with an end-view of attracting a partner. I think it is actually creepy for either a man or a woman to hang around and feign friendship with the goal of getting sex or a relationship. I also note that it is not just men that do this. I guess the ‘Nice Guy’ thing has its ‘Clingy Girl’ equivalent.
I have a big problem with this thing of ‘feigning friendship.’ When you fancy someone, it is usually a complex mix of physical attraction, personal attraction, shared interests & humour etc etc. It’s rarely just pure objectified lust.
I think people can feign friendliness for a few hours, but not in the long term. So the people we are talking about (whether male or female) are not feigning the friendship, although they are perhaps feigning a lack of sexual interest, out of emotional self-preservation or (just to be controversial) perhaps out of an excessive concern with or respect for the other person’s feelings and, ironically, a wish to protect the friendship without sex mucking things up.
I think it is a bit harsh or even cruel to condemn people for sexual passivity or lack of initiative. Sure, it can be annoying to have a ‘nice guy’ or ‘clingy girl’ hanging around, but I don’t think it makes them bad people.
Ok yes I see your point and even agree that these people are not necessarily wrong ‘uns – hence my dislike of the NGOOKC site. However as you will see in an earlier comment of mine, I have had two experiences with men who I thought were very good friends of mine. These people feigned ‘lack of sexual interest’ for a long long time, and I ended up harmed once they told me how they felt and I did not reciprocate. So actually I disagree that these were ever genuine friendships, despite them lasting years. As soon as sex was out of the question (despite a very gentle rebuff on my part, and an assurance of a continued friendship without weirdness), I got stalked and raped, and friendship went out the window. My conclusion is that it was a feigned friendship that lasted until the prospect of sex/relationship was off the table. So I would respectfully disagree the feigned friendship is impossible Ally, because my experience has taught me differently.
I don’t know if you are insinuating that I am condemning sexually passive people, or if the NGOOKC is. If you meant me, I am a little offended. I am very good friends with some men that have made a move on me and remained my good, genuine, friend after being turned down. I am also friends with men I have told I like, and who have not been interested. All of those men, therefore, do NOT fit the ‘Nice Guy’ stereotype because they were not ONLY after sex (nor was I).
What I will condemn is someone telling me for the first time, after 7 years of friendship, that they have always wanted me, and they don’t understand why I go out with these guys that don’t deserve me, and then making my life utter hell when I do not reciprocate their feelings to the point that I don’t feel safe in my own home.
Or my ‘best friend’ declaring his undying love one evening after two years of friendship. Me spending the next evening at a party with him, explaining that I love him but it will not happen, and can we please not be weird with each other because our friendship matters. Him saying ‘sure!’, and then raping me anyway while I was passed out not three hours later. Before calling me a liar to all our other mutual friends, cos he’s just such a nice guy and he doesn’t know why I’m saying these things…
The sexually passive bit is NOT the bit I condemn.
Oh I’m so sorry deezers, that’s awful, and I can see why this is a difficult issue for you.
Obviously it would be entirely wrong for me to speculate on the specific men who attacked or abused you, but I would suggest that this probably isn’t typical of guys who get the ‘lets just be friends’ rebuff.
I’d suggest it is much more common that they just suddenly go cold, which obviously can be hurtful to the women involved, but I think is quite an understandable emotional reaction under the circumstances
And no, didn’t mean to imply you were condemning the passive, apologies, it was just a comment on the whole debate.
Uh huh. So let me see if I’ve got this straight Guy A: Admits attraction for woman right away- Society says he’s just an asshole who is objectifying and is only really after one thing
Guy B: Plays the long game, perhaps doesn’t really know how to admit feelings for the object of his affections because he doesn’t want to come off as awkward or creepy, or perhaps doesn’t want to “make things weird” Society tells *this* guy that he’s “being fake” or manipluative.
Newflash women: No guy, ever, in the history of the world, has pretended to be your friend first if all he wants is sex. Ever. That’s a complete waste of time. Plus YOU ALL are the ones who keep telling men you want to “get to know” men first before a relationship comes along.
It reeks of, like a lot of human beings irrespective of gender, they want a close, intimate relationship that probably does involve sex (because why shouldn’t it?) with someone they care about, someone they can grow to really, really love and adore.
But they just get swept aside (as previously mentioned) as nice guys, not interesting or manly enough, not good enough. It’s inherently misandrist, if anything.
BTW, most people are nice because they want something. That goes as much for women.
Then they’re not being nice are they. They’re pretending to be nice. And this Nice Guys of OKCupid is a sideways look at men who pretend to be nice.
Presumably they’re not nice to girls they don’t want to sleep with? And the ones who’ve seen through the pretence or turned them down?
They aren’t ‘pretending’. They are genuinely nice guys, who don’t know what is wrong with them that the girls they like will pick a genuine fucking arsehole, then cry, bitch and complain at them when it all goes wrong, when they know they would’ve treated them a lot better. And not because they just wanted something irrespective of the other person’s emotions. The other person’s feelings and emotions are very much part of what they want, i.e. to make someone else happy.
Because they are normal, nice people.
Foremost among them is his belief that he knows exactly what all men are thinking and their primal motivations, even if he’s never met them and knows nothing about them.
Sounds like a stereotypical know-it-all bloke.
On a serious note i think it’s understandable that some men are confused as to what women want from them and i don’t think lack of confidence is necessarily always responsible for that confusion.
A female commentator on the Guardian recently wrote that when nice guys complain that women are only seemingly interested in the bad boys they’re guilty of what she termed a ”misogynistic lament”. So what are we to make of that ? That all nice guys aren’t really nice at all and have an agenda which justifies women rejecting them And that men who think that some women are only interested in the bad boys and need to be”treated mean in order to keep them keen” must be raving misogynsts because there couldn’t possibly be any truth in it ?
Lack of confidence perhaps fuelled by an abusive childhood surely goes some way in explaining why some men and women have particular trouble sustaining healthy relationships. .And may try too hard to please a prospective partner and therefore come across as being needy.Yet it does appear to be the case that women in that position are seen as being more deserving of understanding whereas the men either get demonised,stitched up by the likes of Tumblr or both.And if they complain their very manhood is questioned- by members of both sexes- because we live in a society that still too often promotes the double-standard that ”only girls and cissies cry”.
And may try too hard to please a prospective partner and therefore come across as being needy.
Meant to say ” And may either try too hard to please a prospective partner and therefore come across as being needy or may be habitually attracted to abusive/abused partners”
“or may be habitually attracted to abusive/abused partners”
Or may be rejected by those who recognise the behaviour for what it is.
Seems to be a recurring theme for many to look at or blame everything but their own thoughts/behaviour. Is one doing something to perpetuate the problem? If one is always being treated in a way that is not to ones liking, what can one do differently? Etc.
“fuelled by an abusive childhood surely goes some way in explaining why some men and women have particular trouble sustaining healthy relationships.”
Covert abuse as well. Some people might think they had the nicest of childhoods, yet their parents or others were abusive in less obvious ways that then become normalised.
“some women are only interested in the bad boys and need to be”treated mean in order to keep them keen””
Some, yes. Not all. Sometimes just a different representation of the same problem. Gender does not stop anyone from being misinformed and behaving in unhealthy ways.
djw,
It implies no such thing about friendship with women being undesirable. Exchanging polite greetings with a casual acquaintance as you pass in the street is something many people like and value, but they usually like having actual friend who spend time with them and care about them more. If a person doesn’t have any actual friends but wishes they did, they may well lament the fact that they have no friends and are limited to polite greetings with near-strangers for human contact.. That doesn’t mean such a person holds everyone around him in contempt, it means that, like most people, he has social and emotional needs that cannot be satisfied by a single type of human relationship. This doesn’t change if you replace “casual acquaintance and friendship” with “friendship and romantic relationship.”
Speaking of which, it’s dishonest to describe what most of these guys are lamenting not having as “gateway to sex.” Most of them are unhappy about not having GIRLFRIENDS, and often about rejection by a specific woman or women they had feelings for, which is not the same thing unless one presumes that males are emotionless sexual brutes. (Which is precisely what most feminist discourse on this subject does presume, pretensions of being the opponents of traditional assumptions about the sexes notwithstanding.)
By its very nature, the “friendzone” is a place only a specific person with whom you already have a friendly relationship can put you. The problem is aggravated by the fact that it often takes a long time for the sort of man or boy we’re talking about here- who are typically socially awkward, shy, feminine, nonneurotypical, or some combination- to actually broach the subject, so they spend more time becoming attached to the person they end up being rejected by. Being rejected by someone you like can hurt, if you’re actually capable of the full range of human emotions. Having strong feelings that you know aren’t reciprocated can hurt. If guys like this really did see friendship with women as merely a “gateway to sex,” that would actually solve much of the problem.
paulframe85,
“Failure” isn’t really the right word, I think. Stomping on men and boys weaker, lower-status, or less masculine than himself is just Hugo Schwyzer doing what Hugo Schwyzer does best. He’s fulfilling his nature.
And may try too hard to please a prospective partner and therefore come across as being needy.
Meant to say ” And may either try too hard to please a prospective partner and therefore come across as being needy or may be habitually attracted to abusive/abused partners”
I like the post Ally, and I do agree that the ngookc is just needless cruelty that will further embitter and embarrass people that already have a low opinion of themselves. It may even inspire some MGTOWs, which is always upsetting. That being said, the term ‘friendzone’ is borderline misogynistic to me. Like friendship without pussy is just sooooo annoying, and they’re so sick of all these ‘friends’ who have vaginas that they won’t let them penetrate!
It may seem oversensitive or ‘misrepresentation-al’ to some, but having been on the receiving end of the attentions (and one rape, and one rather horrible stalking incident) of a few self-proclaimed ‘nice guys’, as well as having been shamed and judged for putting some of them in the ‘friendzone’ (I led them on by being a friend, then broke their hearts), I have not so much sympathy/empathy as you!
(Just to clarify – rape nice guy had been my ‘best friend’ fro two years before declaring his love, taking the gentle rejection gracefully, and then waiting til I was unconscious to just have at it anyway. Stalk-ey nice guy was my friend for about 7 years before making his move, then bombarding me for almost a year with texts, calls and emails ranging from desperate to furious)
I’m not saying they’re all like that. But it is a big old flag for lots of women, and for good reason. Aside from the potential creepiness or even danger of this insincere/conditional niceness, women in these situations sometimes lose someone that we thought was a genuine friend and that we really cared about, which hurts very much. Nothing like your best friend raping your unconscious body to dispel the ole Nice Guy cry and make you feel like a walking vagina.
Anyway, good post, and happy new year!
Maybe you’re just quite sheltered, but friend zones can apply as much the other way around.
You know, I just can’t find it in myself to feel bad for these guys, no matter how much courage it takes to set up an OKCupid profile or how often their feelings get hurt when they answer those survey questions with things like “a woman should be required to shave her legs” and “No is just a yes that needs coercion” or whatever. These attitudes are harmful. So yeah, let’s hope these guys are in their beds sobbing instead of out there pushing their misogyny on women or, worse, raping them.
I doubt that. Liking shaved legs is a preference, not a rule. I’m surprised by the amount of women in this thread who have such narrow minded, unsympathetic brains in their tiny fucking heads.
I thought we were supposed to be the (snorts) fairer sex, made of sugar and spice and all things nice. I’m glad my life has proven that substantively bollocks and I can remain enlightened.
[…] I got a strong response from Ally Fogg, an English writer on masculinity, and his take is worth a read. Here’s The Self-Righteous Bullies of Tumblr and Their Feminist Apologists. […]
The “women should be required to shave their legs” strikes me as an awful question – it’s in the class I refuse to answer, especially on dating sites. I don’t like them because they explicitly rely on a non-consensual relationship. Without that, the question is meaningless.
If instead the question was “do you prefer your partner to shave her legs” or even “would you date a woman who didn’t shave her legs” the answers would be more meaningful, and the question less objectionable.
But then, part of dealing with sites like OKC is learning to reject the awful.
On the main topic, there’s a world of difference between “I like her as a friend and want to have a romantic relationship with her” and “because I didn’t rape her she is required to have sex with me”. And if you view the world through the latter goggles, it’s very hard for men to talk about friendships that didn’t develop as they’d hoped. But from a female perspective, that bias is the safer perspective.
Which is why it’s essential to get a female friend to vet your online dating profile.
It’s unfortunate but you will only ever preach to to the converted on this subject. There is no gateway into the netherlands of hatred. All men are bastards, and nothing short of a nuclear reaction will change that perception. I think it’s a pathology that has fixed itself onto experience at some point in the life, kind of like Pavlov’s salivating dogs.
Frankly AllyF, you’re ten times the writer and a hundred times the thinker someone like Laurie Penny is. I can’t imagine why you bother with this kind of up-one’s-own-backsidery like this. Your original point that tarring all men with the same brush is unpleasant and counterproductive is enough.
I think the division between “nice guy” and interesting guy must be part of American culture. Are people passively consuming a bit of this and a bit of the other? There is surely a partner out there for most people, if they learn to communicate what is actually inside them, rather than representing themselves as a particular item for sale.
Beautifully put.
I know this is a commonly used argument, and one that some will say is false equivalence, but had women on dating sites been the subject of this Tumblr then I believe that Laurie Penny, Jezebel et al would be mortified and would criticise those who started and support it as being misogynists.
There’s a place for ridiculing misogyny but some of the NGoOKC posts are barely anything of the sort. A lot of the ridiculing seems to be based on attitudes that are predominantly held by those of a particular religious or political belief rather than their opinion of women. Are some women not pro-life too? Don’t a lot of women (usually of a religious background) have an issue with a prospective partner having had many sexual partners? I wouldn’t want to date those women but, heck, I wouldn’t wish them any harm either.
One poor guy seems to have gained a place on NGoOKC for not being comfortable with his prospective partner going on a dinner date with her ex!
I used a dating site in the past and some of the women’s self-written bios (not simply a one word answer to a dumb question) explicitly stated that guys with “waists thinner than mine” or “guys who are shorter than me” need not apply.
However, I hope no one makes a Tumblr ridiculing these women.
Clearly what NGoOKC is about and what it is symptomatic of is the ongoing attempt to genderise undesirable behaviour that is exhibited by all people. Laurie Penny and others have already pretty much successfully redefined ‘troll’ to mean “online male misogynist”.
Quite frankly this Tumblr is only slightly less insidious than those creepshot sub-reddits but significantly more disingenuous. And ‘Nice guy’ is just another product in identity politics that facilitates a bullyish behaviour that can be justified as sticking it to the establishment.
“Waists thinner than mine” and “shorter than I” are not comparable to “women have an obligation to do x”. A physical preference is not the same as demanding one’s partner fulfills certain social protocols such as shaving legs. I”m not saying that women are not engaging in similar behaviour on dating sites, but that women aren’t coming from the same place of privilege and entitlement. The nice guy phenomenon is rooted in subtle misogyny, where supposedly nice guys insert kindness coins into a machine that will eventually allow them to insert their penises.
There wouldn’t be a Tumblr featuring clueless women (whom exist, obviously) because women wouldn’t be advocating coercion or “taking advantage” of situations. I can’t possibly imagine how anyone could claim these nice guys aren’t misogynist when they openly approve of such things.
Actually I think my examples are worse than the ‘shaved legs’ example because they were authored by the individual themselves rather than being a response to a template question with possibly no actual conviction behind it. Ultimately, however, all three examples are rather silly and betray the person’s shallowness more than anything. All of the examples are statements of physical preference and besides I don’t see anyone demanding anything.
The examples I’m more concerned with are the ones that reveal a homophobia, racism, misogyny or any other bigotry (examples of which I have also seen in my experiences on the dating site I mentioned earlier).
I fail to see how “inserting kindness coins into a machine that will eventually allow them to insert their penises” is subtle misogyny. It’s just a rather crude definition of many people’s idea of flirting (men or women).
Again, this behavior is exhibited by a lot of people regardless of gender. Trying to justify it or condemn it in equal measure based on where an individual is coming from strikes me as being a little logically contortive.
I have to say your last paragraph leaves me feeling a little cold as generally it makes me feel awkward when people try to say what women will or won’t do.
Yes it it. It’s saying they’re obliged to change a part of themselves or they are barred from any possibility of a romantic relationship. There are plenty of women who think a man should be working out five times a week and have a perfect set of abs.
[…] Ally Fogg Defends the sensitive menz against the self-righteous bullies of Tumblr and their feminist… […]
Thanks for this. I became increasingly uncomfortable reading NGOOKC and worried about the effect the site would have on people who already probably had issues with self-esteem. The posts with the words “bitch” and “slut” are ripe for calling out, but the others… most seem just awkward and some rather sweet. I suspect that many of the posters use the terms “friend zone” and “nice guy” because of their use in other profiles rather than because of some ulterior motive. People mimic what others do before them, particularly those with a shaky sense of social worth.
In the US, especially, there are sets of inculcated views depending on one’s geographic origin and the political and religious scene therein, and while it is true that I would never want to date somebody who thought I was obliged to shave my legs or worried how many sexual partners I’d had, I suspect these views are more a matter of geography and background than innate misogyny. Yes, it would be nice for this to change, but I’m not sure that calling out socially-entrenched misogyny on a blog that mocks people is very helpful.
Fogg:
Rather than accepting that the men featured in the Tumblr might be socially and personally diverse and psychologically complex, either individually and as group, Hugo has them all pegged.
Given the alternative meaning of ‘pegged’ and its possible (and contentious) connotations, I think this comment is even truer than you realise. Your comment that ‘The blog struck me less as a blow against privilege, and more as ugly bullying of people who already feel like losers’ overlooks the idea that these men are effectively being told to just shut up and ‘take it like a man’.
Exactly . It is precisely a “take it like a man” site.
[…] to see them mocked like this. As Ally Fogg points out in his recent reaction to the Jezebel piece, The Self-Righteous Bullies of Tumblr and Their Feminist Apologists, there are more than a few guys’ photos on NGOKC that feature nothing aggressive, harassing […]
“Nice guys” are basically approval seekers. Approval-seekers are very easy to bully because they don’t stand up to bullies, but instead try to placate and please them. “Nice guys” seek approval in particular from women. Feminist bullies call such men misogynists who think they’re entitled to sex, not because it’s true, but because they know it hurts, and they know the “nice guy” will respond by trying ever harder to earn their approval, by doing what women say they want and ever more effacing his sexual desire, and thus leave himself open to more accusations of misogyny and entitlement to sex. And the cycle continues until the nice guy finally gets fed up with this treatment, at which point the bully says this shows he was never nice in the first place.
Bullies, of course, feel the need to believe the people they pick on deserve it. Hence the inordinate attention feminists give to justifying hating “nice guys”. We need to find ways of training men out of approval-seeking behaviour, for the sake of their own happiness. But feminists who weigh in on the issue are simply bullies and they can fuck off.
Yes, because calling out homophobia and racism makes one a bully. I don’t know how many times I have to say “no, I’m not interested in sex” before a guy gets it. I’ll give you a hint: It’s always the “nice guys” who don’t stop trying after the first time.
obviously you’ve never turned a woman down for sex. A more gratuitous use of the word “f****t” I have not heard since the time I happened to witness a Westboro Baptist Church protest.
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or spurned, in this case.
I must have missed something, what does turning a man down for sex have to do with calling ourt homophobia or racism, or is that just one big indistinguishable ball of moral high ground? This gay man will thank you not to appropriate our experiences to decorate your persona.
I have to thank you Ally for introducing me to Two writers I have never heard of. Quite apart from the obviously bullying nature of the blog concerned. I’m amazed that the juvenile nonsense written by the two mentioned here is read at all. Maybe Rose tinted memory distorts my memory of the literature of the 70’s. Seriously are Penny and Schwyser taken considered important today?
Hugo Schwyzer is really only significant in the online feminist community. Laurie Penny, on the other hand, writes in the mainstream media (and is a figure of fun among the online right). Of the two, I’d say Schwyzer is the more ideologically coherent, but also the more odious.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea that (some) feminists had so much hate for shy and lonely men. I guess they find people unable to conform to gender roles just as detestable as reactionary conservatives (although only some of the time). It seems to me that the extreme lack of empathy might stem from the way these men provide an example that undermines some of the central tenets of what I’ve seen labelled as “tumblr feminism”. I don’t have time to expand on that now but I did have a couple of thoughts about this incident:
First, even if we are to accept that these men feel “entitled” to affection/sex/love then I think that there are two very different ways we can view this (this is very closely related to the distinction Ally makes in the comments above but I feel it’s different enough to be worth stating this way as well):
1) They feel that as someone who tries to be nice and please people, to conform to their own idea (and what they perceive to be others’ ideas) of goodness, that they, as human beings, deserve to be loved by someone. They feel entitled to affection. Here the logic behind it is that EVERYONE deserves love and that they are no different (they merely want to be included in what everyone else has)
2) These men feel that because they have been nice to an individual woman she is now obligated to reciprocate with romantic interest. That they have earned romance with kindness. They feel entitled to her affection. Here the logic is that THEY specifically deserve love, and they deserve it from one specific person (they have the right to demand someone else’s affection).
Second, I find it strange that people admonish these men for not thinking about looking at their own behaviour and adopting an approach that will help them succeed with women (less needy, “creepy”, stop thinking that women should shave their legs etc.), whilst at the same time admonishing them as misogynist for adopting an approach that (they mistakenly hope) will help them succeed with women (supplicating, neediness etc.)
Either changing your behaviour in an attempt to attract someone is wrong or it isn’t. You can’t maintain it is wrong whilst also criticising someone for not doing it.
As a woman, I will never support any male entitlement to sex or accept an excuse of social ackwardness as a rationale. Given that women are judged soley on their appearance and reduced to the status of mate meat, it is about time men suffered the same social stigma. All I can say is man up, get over it, and move on to a woman you actually have a chance with. If you want acceptance from women, you must first give it.
Yet the site is a classic of throw rocks at “frogs” . Find the ugly nerdy ones who aren’t princes, and bully them. Princesses feel great as it confirms how really special they are. And get an explanation for why there are so very few princes who recognise their princessness. Nothing more than a new medium for bullying the less than perfect. With the usual implication that to get to be a prince the frogs have to “man up” and get with the prince role. New medium for a very old mating messaged spiced with malice. Melissa sometimes even princesses can temper their lofty ideas of self worth with the idea that acceptance goes both ways.
I must disagree with a few things, Melissa. I don’t think you must first give acceptance to get it – it should ideally be mutual and simultaneous! And as far as ‘it’s about time…’ – well, things being crappy for men does not make me feel better about things being crappy for women.
But I do despise the sense of entitlement that some people have towards other people’s bodies (‘Nice Guys’ like the one from the infamous GMP article). I also agree that if someone finds they are not having as much sex as they like, or getting the women/men they want, perhaps it would help to aim for someone/something else, and not resent the people who do not want to fuck you.
As a woman, I will never support any male entitlement to sex or accept an excuse of social ackwardness as a rationale.
Absolutely right,couldn’t agree with you more. .
Given that women are judged soley on their appearance and reduced to the status of mate meat, it is about time men suffered the same social stigma.
Are they ? Certainly here in the UK i think you’ll find the inter-dependence between the majority of men and women means that most men can’t afford to judge women solely on their appearance just as most women can’t afford to judge men solely on their ability to fulfil their traditional role as hunter/provider.Most loving relationships between men and women thankfully have more depth.
All I can say is man up, get over it, and move on to a woman you actually have a chance with. If you want acceptance from women, you must first give it.
And hopefully you’ll accept that women should also ”woman up” and move on to men they actually have a chance with.And that acceptance between the sexes cuts both ways .Woman aren’t entitled to any special concessions if they’re serious about gender equality.
.
Concessions from whom?
What’s a concession?
Concessions from whom?
What’s a concession? ,
Women don’t get to set and reset the goal posts with regard to what gender equality means.In my opinion a significant number of women in this country don’t want equality with men they want the best of both worlds as and when it suits them which is not gender equality at all.There are advantages as well as disadvantages to being female-although they’re not evenly spread- and it sems to me that many women want to hang on to the advantages they have over men and concentrate solely on eradicating the disadvantages they can also suffer.
I believe that on balance the majority of men and women are either as good,bad or mediocre as each other.And that the myth promoted by some feminists that all men are demons and all women are either victims of patriachy or paragons of virtue helps no-one.
I think this blog is terrific. If guys don’t want to be named and shamed then don’t behave in shameful ways. Simple.
Apparently women’s biggest fear of men is that men will kill them, men’s is that women will mock them. So this blogger has harnessed men’s greatest fear to offset women’s.
Women have been altogether too patient and polite about sexism and misogyny. These men who call women sluts and bitches, and have abuser and rapey tendencies and who think women owe them sex (which is what this friendzone thing is all about) are a social phenomenon, so use social media to combat it. The internet which held out the promise of democratic communcation, has provided yet another platform for men to talk about women and bully them into silence. This is the fight back, it’s a great start.
You seem to be pursuing a rad fem agenda which in my opinion does more harm than good to gender relations .
I think Ally’s comment about the plethora of advice to young women to bag a man in the media is pertinent. Although I’m at a bit of a loss with the jargon it does seem the dating game is much the same as always. Both sexes being hopelessly self obsessed and convinced that they need to learn some secret knowledge in order to navigate their relationships. Whilst simultaneously believing their feelings are both entirely special and novel in human history. This debate appears to confirm that men need to man up and at least appear to make first moves and swallow the inevitable rebuffs and embarrassments. Young women somewhat trammelled by a convention of virtue both manoeuvring to appear not to be the pursuer and quickly apportioning blame to avoid embarrassment should stratagems fail. The fevered urgency of that time in life comes through in the debate here. With all the certainty and dearth of empathy that so energises the young to make leaps. All from a discussion of a tawdry “blog”. Frankfisher I think rather than the “left” leaving relationships alone I’d suggest it’s the under 50s would be best . Of course I realise that’s quite unlikely!
So, you admit that this “Nice Guy TM” business is an attempt to shame guys into silence?
Quite a lot of this has already been covered by other commenters, but I’m pretty dubious about the use of the Nice Guy(TM) label. For all the caveats its users give it, it doesn’t seem terribly well-defined, and the distinction between the usual and trademarked version seems tied up with motivations that those not blessed with Hugo’s psychic powers (“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Schwyzer knows!”) are often just guessing at.
I think this is particularly true of the “fake friendship” idea. A few saintly, help-all-strangers-equally types aside, “niceness” is generally somewhat dependent on how people feel about each other, and I really don’t think there’s a clean binary between the purely-platonic “I like this person and, partly because of that, will do nice things for them” and the romantic version of same. The development of a relationship is often a messy mixture of both, and while perhaps a small number of people will explicitly say that they did it all to get the sex they thought they deserved in return, I suspect that’s a tiny subset of those who get slapped with the (TM) label.
Certainly I don’t think it’s a motivation that should be inferred from someone who gets their romantic interests rebuffed and cools on the friendship as a result. Such things can be awkward and embarrassing and involve hurt feelings even when everyone accepts that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, all of which can make sustaining a friendship difficult (the internet has no shortage of “Will saying how I feel ruin the friendship?” queries from both sexes, after all). But that hardly seems equivalent to the prior “niceness” being a calculated sham.
What a great comment! And I’m not just saying that in the hope that you’ll have sex with me. You’ve put really elegantly what I was managing to butcher up in an earlier comment. The ‘nice guy phenomenon’ appears to me to be a phrase that only really exists in feminist discourse and trying to practically apply it forces one to become so reductive that, as Ally describes, the complexity and diversity of these behaviours are totally eradicated. The cynic in me wants to write this whole episode off as yet another example of male sexuality being depicted as inherently negative.
Very wise Missile Smile. I’m sure the Anglo Phone world will continue with it’s constant struggles with lust. It is vaguely reassuring that such notions as “cad” still exist if re-named and given a trade mark! New wines in old bottles indeed. Lots of sophistry to cover some very old attitudes indeed. Ladies it seems have to dodge the cads to land their Mr. Darcy’s . Not at all a new notion. Mercifully those feminist ladies and their gents are really Clever at sniffing out real men (apparently paragons) from cads and bounders . Into the stocks with them! Pleased to see these particular stocks have Ben closed in the cyber Cranford.
(“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Schwyzer knows!”)
[Laughs]
A brilliant summary. Thank you.
Ally confirmed for Nice Guy.
[…] seek anyone out. They simply complained about their lot in life. Ally Fogg calls this bullying, stating, “I think it is not only immoral, but potentially dangerous to place them in the 21st Century […]
[…] As Ally Fogg notes in a recent post: […]
“I should say at this point that I’m not one of the world’s countless Hugo-haters. Although we have many profound political disagreements, we have an amicable relationship online.”
I’m delighted that you have an amicable relationship with an attempted murderer.
Regarding your OP: Cry me a river. Glad to see these douchenozzles getting called out.
“Glad to see these douchenozzles getting called out.”
Me too. They are cowardly bullies. And look, it looks like the site has been taken down!
Most of the ‘friendship token’ crap is pulled off by young or inexperienced men who had the temerity to think that being an admirable person was all it took to make someone interested in you. That’s the price of the ‘gets the girl’ morality fiction we all watch I guess, you tend to realise that women are just as in to looks as men as you gain more life experience (despite the rather prevalent opinion that that’s shallow and women go after beautiful souls). The other thing is that since by and large men are the proactive sex when it comes to pairing off you have to expect some idiocy whilst the young ones hone their technique.
I stumbled across NGOKC somewhere recently, and here’s something I’ve thought about that I haven’t seen mention elsewhere – the site quite often draws attention to the fact that a “nice guy” has answered “YES” to the question “Do women have an obligation to shave their legs?”
At the simplest level, I can see why a “YES” answer is undesirable – it’s pretty unpleasant (or at least uncouth) to claim that any one has an obligation to shave their legs, style their hair, wear nice clothes, work-out, etc, etc. So if someone randomly asked me that question in conversation, I would say “NO”.
However, given the context that it is being asked on a dating website, I imagine that many people — both those answering the question and those reading the answers — would misconstrue a “NO” answer (“No, women are not obliged to shave their legs“) as meaning “I would be romantically interested in women who do not shave their legs“.
So if I had to answer that question on OKC, I’d probably say “YES”, just because I would be worried that answering “NO” would pair me up with hairy-legged women to whom I am not actually attracted*, which would be a waste of everyone’s time.
So much as I might have laughed at some of the saddos on NGOKC**, I think it’s a bit harsh to vilify them for answering “YES” to the leg-shaving question.
I had the same reaction and am equally clueless about OkC. I have since been told that not only is there a “I don’t view this question as relevant” option to each question, but there is also the option to skip as many questions as one wishes. Apparently there are k’s of questions and you are not expected to answer any more than you want to use as a filter to appear or not appear on other people’s radar. So answering this question in the +ve is indeed an indication that it is something the answerer feels strongly about. For me this leaves only the guys who are a bit odd but don’t have any dodgy question answers as deserving of sympathy. I still don’t agree with posting the pictures, though. Unpleasant people abound, but no need to join one’s tribe in a mocking frenzy.
Ah OK….like I said, I’ve never been on OK Cupid, so I seem to have written an entirely pointless theory based on a wrong assumption about the “leg shaving” question. If they question CAN be dodged, then I think anyone who answers YES is fair game for mockery.
Footnotes to my last post:
*Of course, this raises the question as to whether I’m mysognist, sexist, bigoted or whatever for declaring that I’m not romantically interested in hairy-legged women. Personally I don’t think so – I think romantic/sexual preferences are what they are (whether that be for age-ranges, height-ranges, body types, ethnicities, personalities, attitudes, etc etc), I don’t think they’re a matter of “prejudice” of any kind.
**Despite laughing at them, I acknowledge that it’s not nice to laugh at people on the internet. (Corrolary – does this mean I’m definitely not a “nice guy”?)
Also, I think it’s worth pointing out that I imagine that mocking these “nice guys” isn’t purely a male vs female kind of thing. While most of the mocking is presumably from feminist/vagenda/Jezebel types, I imagine the “nice guys” would be mocked equally mercilessly by “PUA/Heartiste/Game” types for being so “beta”.
Also, it should go without saying that – male or female – using a dating website profile as a place to gripe about your observations of “most women/men”, or your own history of romantic failure isn’t a good look.
Oh, one other thing I should add…all of my above thesis on the “leg shaving” question is based on the assumption that it’s a straight YES/NO multiple choice question (I’ve never been on OKC so I’m not sure if this is the case).
If my assumption is wrong, and the website users to submit a more nuanced answer (such as “I don’t think there should be any kind of obligation on women to shave their legs, but personally I have a strong personal romantic/sexual preference for shaven-legged women“), then ignore everything I’ve said. If that’s the case, it’s perfectly OK to mock anyone who gives a simple “YES” answer.
There is a text field to allow you to explain your answer. It’s perfectly possible to answer “No,” and communicate that your preference is for shaved legs.
as far as the leg shaving thing, feminist Amanda Marcotte stated her preference that men be clean shaven….
Granted-there is a difference between a preference and saying one is obligated, however as far as a yes/no answer, I don’t suppose those guys put a ton of thought into it….
Pssssst – Stoner with a boner – Amanda Marcotte does not speak for all feminists! Also there IS a big difference between a preference and believing in a person’s obligation. Truthfully I’m unsure what your point is there or how Amanda Marcotte relates to a completely different person doing.
Futrelle wrote about the NGOOKC but blurred faces and made a point of saying he does not agree with out and out shaming. I don’t see how he is bigoted at all.
I dropped a few links, looks like they are in mod, here’s another:
“Futrelle wrote about the NGOOKC but blurred faces and made a point of saying he does not agree with out and out shaming. I don’t see how he is bigoted at all.”
He has in times previous, taken part of something I’ve said out of context, then put his own words behind it to alter the meaning, then put a flashing sarcasm button for plausible deniability…
“Pssssst – Stoner with a boner – Amanda Marcotte does not speak for all feminists!”
How come people like Marcotte/Schyzer/Futrelle paint anyone with an interest in men’s rights as hateful misogynists but we are told feminism is not a monolith. I am not being given the benefit of the doubt you expect me to grant to others, why is that?
also, it really feels like bigots like Schwyzer and Futrelle won’t be happy until they hear that one of these guys killed themselves. It’s pretty f*cked up….
They claim they are a social justice movement but it looks allot more like hatred to me…
Excellent take on the whole thing – if this Tumblr had been interested in making a point about entitlement, misogyny etc, it could have done this without cruelly ‘outing’ individuals in this way – it is just bullying.
Although I’m afraid cynicism does lead me to take a slightly less sympathetic view on the probabilty that average NGOOKC guy is just insecure and socially awkward vs the probability that average NGOOKC guy is insecure and socially awkward and therefore ANGRY and bitter and full of misdirected hatred at the women he percieves as the gatekeepers of his frustrated sexuality. All misogyny (all hatred, really) come from fear and insecurity; which is not to say all frightened, insecure people are full of hate; but it is not a one or the other equation. Anyway…
I really don’t understand why so many chaps (on this comment thread, on OK Cupid, and on countless other forums) seem to find ‘what women want’ in this regard so confusing, when it’s so simple! No-one’s saying if you fancy your friend, you have to instantly tell her or you’re a creep. No-one’s saying if you fancy your friend and tell her so and she isn’t interested, you’re a creep. No-one’s saying that if this happens and you no longer want to be her friend because of this rejection, you’re a creep – you have a right to look to your own emotional welbeing first, as do we all.
Just accept the fact that romantic love and sex are not owed to anybody; and ultimately, they can’t be earned – the forces that govern them are intensely capricious, and even if you strive in all sincerity to be the nicest person in the world, you cannot guarantee they’ll come your way – this is just as true for women as for men.
I agree with what Ally says, that it’s not so simple as ‘really’ wanting sex or friendship as a binary distinction; but while friendship can be worked at, earned, while a friend ‘owes you’ certain standards of behaviour in terms of that friendship, there is nothing you can do within the context of that friendship which ‘earns’ you an upgrade to lover/fuckbuddy, and if they never come to see you that way, you have quite literally nothing to get angry about – feel sorry for yourself, sure, go cry on your friend’s shoulder (a DIFFERENT friend’s, it goes without saying) – God knows, we’ve all felt the pain of rejection,and it sucks. If you find it too painful then leave (or take a break from) the friendship; but do this to protect yourself, not to ‘punish’ the recalcitrant object of your desire – they have done nothing wrong.
Bear all this in mind, and act with sincerity (not soul-scouring total honesty, note, just sincerity), and you will be just a straightforwardly nice guy, not a poisonous, passive aggressive Nice Guy (TM) – the kind of guy most women actually dream of ending up with.
That is very true, as far as it goes. But there is a little more.
The average NGOOKC guy probably is angry. His anger is useless and harmful, but why is it misdirected? It has been judged that whatever his good qualities he is not worthy of love, or sex. Who should he blame if not women? Himself? His parents? God?
I think many guys find it so hard to work out ‘what women want’ because they deny the obvious answer: “not me!”. Accepting that sex and love cannot be earned and are just capricious is of course excellent advice – I am even trying to follow it. Once you can accept with serenity that you don’t deserve it (nobody does), you cannot earn it, and like as not you will never get it, your chances of getting somewhere actually go up. Meanwhile you can spend your energy on playing video games and enjoying life. The thing is that being nice and hoping for a reward gives you the illusion that there is something you can do and lets you hope that someday someone will appreciate your qualities. That is not easy to give up.
Anyway, love may not be under conscious control, but sex is. We know that from the huge prostitution industry. We also know it from personal experience. Do you think sex is something that happens when you feel particularly excited and enthusiastic? Or do you think it happens when there is a chance and you grab it – whatever your current mood happens to be – because those chances come maybe a few times a year and you cannot afford to let them go? It is an observational fact that niceness will not get you sex. But our guy understands that there is nothing impossible about the concept. It is just that nobody cares enough for either him or what he has to offer to give him what he wants in return.
You end by hinting that if our guy accepts reality and acts with sincerity, he is quite likely to accomplish his dreams. It will help, but are you not exaggerating a bit? Attraction may be capricious, but it is not random. Our guy has noticed that some men get lots of offers, where others – like him – get very few. He has also noticed that some of the lucky ones do not seem particularly accepting, or sincere. Our guy is pretty sure that whatever attitude he can muster, the odds will still be against him. Can you honestly tell him that he is wrong?
Gjenanger, we’ve had this debate before on CIF so there’s very little point rehashing it here. Your default position seems to be that it is totally impossible for men to accept a lack of sex/romance in their lives (or possibly people in general, but more so for men, due to your frequently made assertions that women in the first case find it easier to get sex, and in the second case just aren’t as fussed if they can’t get it). Despite your agreement with my basic premise that no-one is entitled to these things and that sadly that means some people may not get them, this leaves us with the practical problem of a lot of romantically/sexually thwarted guys who just cannot ever get over it, but can only temper their unavoidable rage by fuelling the prostitution industry, and that the mere inescapable fact of this justifies that anger and abuse in some way. I disagree.
Who should a guy blame for his lack of love or sex? The same person a woman should blame in that situation; the same person I blamed in the long, arrid wilderness of my chubby, bookish, socially maladroit teenage years and young adulthood: NO-ONE. BECAUSE IT’S NOBODY’S FAULT. The most sensible target to focus on, if they wish to be proactive on this issue, is the social environment which makes a ridiculous idea of romance so central to our conception of happiness, which propogates the idea that not to be at it like a rabbit every hour of the day and night implies some deep personal inadequacy. But blame doesn’t really come into it.
As for the hope that someone will appreciate your qualities, then excellent – we all hope that. But they have to be YOUR qualities, not just a persona you are slapping on with the intention of kidding someone into being attracted to you – this is the same nonsense advice women are given in crappy magazines, and it simply doesn’t work because it isn’t sustainable. By all means people should work on improving themselves if there is something they would like to be more – more intelligent, more thoughtful, kinder, more outgoing. But the quality you are seeking to enhance in yourself is the element you can control, and therefore must be the objective in itself, not just a step along the way to achieving the quality of ‘successful with the laydeez’, which is not a personal quality but a state which can only be entered into via the participation of another who you have no power over, and therefore must be relinquished unto fate.
I guess what we agree on is that men like those featured in OKCupid feel powerless; well, true enough, they are. But so are we all in terms of whether or not people like us, and this is as true for people continuously fending off unwanted advances as it is for those who spend a lot of Friday nights alone watching box-sets (and from the perspective of someone who has friends of both persuasions, there are pluses and minuses on both sides!) Coming to terms with what we cannot change is a part of being human; it is how we cope with bereavement, with catastrophe, with change. It is not beyond the capacity of the sex and/or love-starved male (or female!).
But I have a feeling you will disagree…
Actually, I do agree. It is both possible and desirable. I just do not think it is easy, so I feel some sympathy with those who find it hard to come to terms, be it with their persistent lack of sex, employment, money, … But you are right. We had better keep this debate for a case where it actually makes some difference to what you can do.
I think the main thing this thread demonstrates is the female presumption of judging men. Women, after however many decades of feminist propaganda, feel it is their prerogative and their right to assume the worst of any given man, to take the worst possible motivation they can think of, and have us accept that as a binding judgement. It’s a combination of prejudice and privilege. We should stop trying to convince such women that they’re being unecessarily uncharitable and that there are other, less harsh possibilities. We should just call them out on their prejudice and privilege, and refuse to accept their right to judge us at all. Turnabout is fair play.
“I think the main thing this thread demonstrates is the female presumption of judging men.”
Paddy, this particualr moral authority, which is probably a reflex of the socialization process in childhood, is one of the main components of female privilege. So….
“Women, after however many decades of feminist propaganda, feel it is their prerogative and their right to assume the worst of any given man,…”
…. goes back a lot further than feminism and the last few decades. Thinking the worst of men is a bedrock premise of Victorianism. Feminisim is not to blame, or if it is, only for failng to root this piece of traditionalism out. Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Patriarchy and all that.
As one other commenter suggested, it would be interesting to see the reaction if the same exercise was carried out on dating profiles of women… any takers ?
Symmetry is a grand thing.
[…] is a sin. (Full disclosure: I used to read Nice Guys of OKC, but then I read Ally Fogg’s blog post about it and started feeling guilty. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima […]
[…] Maybe, you missed the Nice Guys of Okay Cupid debackle, well, even a moderate in the gender debate, Ally Fogg is starting to call out some of the […]
[…] as Ally Fogg wrote in response to Hugo, as detestable as the “archetype” of the Nice Guy misogynist is, […]
I think the basic problem is that “nice guy” as a phrase means different things to different people. To some, such as the author of Hugo, “nice guy” reflects are inherently sexist and misogynist attitude of entitlement; to others, many of whom rely on their own experiences, it refers ultimately to a lack of understanding of how women choose their partners – I don’t know how to flirt, but I know how to be an understanding, supportive, kind, and faithful person, and (hopefully) women will notice that about me and realize that I would be a good person to be in a relationship with. That doesn’t usually work, obviously, but rather than trying to educated these guys about what they’re doing wrong, the consensus appears to be that they should be ridiculed, instead. Note that this ultimately correlates with the increasing numbers of douchebag “pickup-artists” that really do try and manipulate women into sleeping with them. In a way, the negative stereotype of the “nice guy” as a manipulative asshole actually helps to create the kind of people it ostensibly warns the world about.
If I had the time, I think it would be an interesting social experiment to try a gender-reversed version of these kinds of sites – ones where women claim to be “nice girls” and say that men should be obligated to shave their faces.
Well said and there needs to be dating classes in schools
When feminists started behaving like the thugs that terrorized me throughout Jr. High, High School and beyond, they lost the last amount of support I could lend to their ideologies. This behavior is scapegoating, pure and simple. It’s selecting the people with the lowest amount of power over women and suggesting they, rather than the people on the top, are actually responsible for women’s oppression.
I was stupid to continue to try with a female friend whom I loved dearly for many years. But to pretend that I felt entitled to her is utter nonsense. I had, foolishly, hoped to earn reciprocal affection. It was an error, but to suddenly encounter a large group of women who felt entitled to harass me for having spent a fair amount of time with unrequited love was just such an egregious insult to the very real fact that many men have emotions, and ought to be permitted to have them.
I’m somewhat shocked that a large group of the population who were stereotyped and mocked and harassed by men for having emotions would feel comfortable turning that around onto the male group in society who is comfortable having them.
What kind of idea is that “oh, yes, we must assume they all have privileged, because they are men, as such, they are guilty and must be punished.”
That’s a hate group – not a rights or civil rights organization.
I don’t like nice guy entitlement bc the notion that I have to give a guy a chance bc he is nice is ridiculous. To have someone constantly demanding dates from me is harassment. I shouldn’t have to constantly every time I see that nice guy reject him and be called stupid. I’m sick to death of I’m nice guys saying your to stupid to date me but I’m going to wear you down until you date me.
[…] https://hetpat.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/the-self-righteous-bullies-of-tumblr-and-their-feminist-apol… […]
I agree that nice guys have low self esteem but they are also entitled bullies. They call me stupid for not wanting to give them a chance and accuse me of only liking jerks. I’ll be happy with my bf and say you don’t even know me. They never want to get to know me either bc I’ll ask them questions about themselves and no reply and aren’t interested in getting to know me so obviously they only like my looks. They will pursue endlessly with crying or others will ramble on about how I’m to stupid to give them a chance for hours. All they do is ruin everyone’s night and say that I can enjoy group of friends once I agree to date them. No thanks Mr control freak nice guy