Nice guys finish last... a rant

I was listening earlier today to Green Day's song "Nice Guys Finish Last". It's not really about the "nice guy" as I think about it, but it did get me thinking.

I am the classic "nice guy". Fu-Zu Jen wrote an interesting "tribute" to nice guys for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal that accurately characterizes nice guys. You should read it. It's not terribly long. It's some stuff I've not thought about.

She says, in part:

The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.
...
This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

I've quoted far too much of her writing, but it's dead-on. Nice guys get screwed -- and not in the good way. Nice guys end up with women who use and abuse them, who leave them standing on the side of the road wondering what the hell ever happened.

The problem with nice guys, according to the heartless bitches at Heartless Bitches International is, "... that Nice Guys don't like themselves." I don't think that's true, at least for all the nice guys I know. I like myself just fine; I'm caring, passionate, confident (most of the time), successful.

I'm sick and tired of being the perfect man, of being the person that women compare their exes too when they're explaining why it doesn't work out ("Yeah, Nathan, he's not like you... You never treat me like that... Bubba and I didn't communicate like you and I do, Nathan.") I'm sick and tired of it, but I don't know what to do about it.

I make the mistake of trying to be friends. Excuse the f'ing sh*t out of me, but doesn't it make sense to see if you can tolerate or stand a person before you try to jump into some relationship with them? Except it rarely works that way: When a woman finds out who you are (this wonderful person), they end up wanting to STAY friends. I understand that I am not attracted to every woman I befriend; I understand that every woman isn't attracted to me, but DAMN, it seems like once you become a FRIEND, the freaking door is slammed shut and the key is melted down. Why does it have to be that way? Why don't nice guys ever get a chance?

Women SAY they want a nice guy, but NICE GUYS are like Amos Hart from the musical Chicago:

Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there...

Yeah, Nice Guys are like Amos -- Mr. Cellophane -- you look right through us, walk right past us all the while saying you're looking for someone just like us... But that's not what women want -- at least not until they've grown and learned... and still maybe never.

There's little to be done about, it seems. The world needs nice guys and we're a happy lot, for the most part. Nice guys make the world go 'round. You need us to cry on, to call on, to support you when you're not sure of yourself. We'll just keep being nice and taking the small slights and bearing the little pains silently.

Now, before I get a torrent of flaming hate-mail scented with womens perfume, I know that I have been the "nice guy" to some of you reading this. Yeah, I know you read my blog -- you've told me. You've even told me how sweet it is sometimes, the stuff I write about you and other women. I'm not gonna stop being your nice guy; it's who I am and you know I can't change. I just thought I needed to get this off my chest... I don't mean to offend, but LISTEN, for whatever good it will do.

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