sigelphoenix

Been seeing the topic of Nice Guys being brought up a lot lately (if not that exact term, the general subject of how [straight] guys are at just such a disadvantage with women, and it's really not their fault for whatever skeevy options they end up turning to, honest). For instance, see this Salon article.

Been wanting to write about it, while also being paranoid about my writing and/or the potential public response to my writing to put a concerted effort into it. But. I don't want to go completely silent, so here we go.

One of the premises that I've seen bandied about is that a Nice Guy isn't creepy for hanging around in hopes that a woman who has never expressed romantic interest in him will suddenly admit that, yes, she has wanted this man all along ... It's the fault of the woman for never telling him that she isn't interested in him, and "stringing him along."

"If only she would be honest and say 'no' immediately, the guy wouldn't get his hopes up and be hurt when she led him on! If only she would say what she wants!"

And when you put it that way, well, yeah. Who doesn't want their (potential) dating partner to be honest about their feelings? Why don't women say no? Yes, we fear angry and/or violent reprisal sometimes, but for your everyday decent guy, that's not typically an immediate concern. It sounds like we're just chickening out of telling the truth.

Except that this is a specific scenario, in which the woman's (lack of) interest is a given fact, and the only question is whether or not she'll be honest about it.

And a woman's level of interest isn't always trusted as if it were a given fact. We're questioned and mistrusted and undermined all the time. In the case of Nice Guys who we're not interested in, this comes in the form of questions like, "Why don't you like him/me? He's/I'm such a nice guy!" "What do you mean he's creepy? He's just attentive. Isn't that what women want?" "Why don't you just give him a chance [or, if they've already tried dating, one more date]?" The woman only thinks she isn't interested, but really she isn't being charitable enough. She just needs to be less picky, less bitchy. The implication is that the woman's taste, intelligence, emotional maturity, or expectations are at fault. This criticism can be belittling or increasingly hostile as the exchange continues. Think of the "nice" guy who tries to pick up a woman at a bar, and, when she turns him down, tries to "convince" her to change her response.

So, it's true that women aren't always met with (immediate) anger when they say no. Instead, they're met with distrust, and the assumption that they don't really know what they want. And then if the woman gives in, gives the guy another shot, and still doesn't like him (because that was her actual feeling all along)? Then she's been a tease.

So our options are: say no, be disbelieved and have our opinions belittled, give up and continue on with the guy, then be called a tease.

Or: just tolerate the guy, then be called a tease.

Quite an appealing set of options we've got, there.

(For a longer, more thorough article that explicitly links these socialized behavior patterns to sexual assault, see this post from Fugitivus.)