Don't Be A 'Nice Guy', Be A 'Polite Guy'

Growing up without my father, there were many things that took me decades to figure out as a man. Now that my son is a teenager, I'm passing on a crucial lesson to approach life & relationships:

Don't be a nice guy, be a polite guy. There is a difference.

If there was a phrase that stung the most as a teenager, it was when girls would call me a "nice guy". I used to believe the objective was to be a nice guy and I couldn't comprehend why my nice guy status was a detriment.

I remember one girl looked at me with a semi-revolting look on her face as she told me "you're too nice...", which as a young man was one of the most confusing moments to endure. I was raised to respect women through action & rhetoric. So, why was I being punished for it?

On the other end, I couldn't understand how the guys who were completely indifferent towards women were getting all of them to trip over themselves to get a date with them. I was friends with one of these guys & he gave me a tip: "Act like you don't care".

My younger brain couldn't understand this concept of wanting to date a woman but acting like you don't care. I thought the whole point was to show that you care, so his advice didn't seem applicable to someone like myself who couldn't help but care.

After many failed relationships throughout my 20s and into my early 30s, I would always try to find what I'm doing wrong so I won't repeat it with my next partner. But the one area that I didn't fully change was my nice guy behavior.

So what was my nice guy behavior? Buying flowers for a first or second date. Communicating too much with them too early on. Overextending myself to please them. Providing them unearned praise as an attempt to make them feel better. Avoiding taking the lead in decision-making.

It wasn't until my mid 30s when I fully grasped what I was doing wrong and understood why it was wrong. My nice guy behavior sent all the wrong signals about myself and I completely understand why women were rejecting me now: I appeared desperate.

Women don't want a desperate guy because a desperate man signals that he's low value. Why would a woman want a guy that other women don't want? Women want a man who is confident enough to take the lead. She wants you to plan the date, not hold a conference.

Actions like flowers on a 1st or 2nd date could give a signal of manipulation because she's getting unearned rewards and that's off-putting for them. In her head, this guy is trying too hard to get her to like him, and then she's asking the question "Why?".

The YouTube manosphere talks a lot about male-to-female dynamics but they don't talk enough about the female perception of men's behavior & the social signaling men give off to women.

You can get all the money & lift weights but if your interactions or mannerisms are off-putting to quality women, it won't matter for long-term relationship success. You attract what you put out, so if you put out low-value signal waves, you'll tend to get low-value partners.

Was I desperate? Probably, sometimes. Did I need to work on my confidence? Yes. When my friend said "Don't care", he meant don't pedestalize them and focus on yourself. Focusing on them means you're attempting to trick them when you actually want them to be attracted to you.

So I stopped being a 'nice guy' and became a 'polite guy'. I focused on building myself up, becoming a better man than I was the day before and that attracted my now wife, a quality woman.

Hopefully, my son applies this lesson so won't struggle as I did.