Welcome to the Bro Blog! What’s the deal with women’s attraction to jerks? Do nice guys really finish last? The bro bloggers give you their answers!
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Mike Mallazzo
Brandon Wilson
Ben Eisenberg
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Dear nice girls,
To find inspiration for this article, I typed “do nice guys really finish last” into google and was redirected to an article on askmen.com which is perhaps the worst website in the world. Getting dating advice from askmen.com is kind of like asking grandpa how to take a bra off or going to extra-help in health class to learn how to put on a condom. It’s socially unacceptable plus you get a lot more than you’re looking for such as grandpa reminiscing about his first time with grandma or the knowledge that usually the health teacher’s only after-school visitor is the JV football coach. Reading the AskMen article, I learned all about how women find “nice” guys boring and instantly friend-zone them and actually want “good” guys. Simply put, I believe this statement about as much as I believe that Bill Clinton stopped at third base or after Monica. Despite Bowling for Soup arguing to the contrary, high school does end and nice guys truly finish first.
The jerk had a golden age. It was right around 2008 when Asher Roth decided to write “I Love College,” a song so bad that it managed to trigger the global financial crisis. The worst part about this was that it triggered the rise of awful white college rappers, a pandemic far more detrimental to the public than the financial crisis, swine flu, or proliferation of free pornography. I can be 100 percent objective in saying that, with perhaps one exception, white college rap sucks as bad as the CTA yellow line. Suddenly, everyone liked Hoddie Allen and Sammy Adams. Liking Sammy Adams or Asher Roth instantly makes you a giant jerk-off. Thus, by the associative property, 95 percent of male, college students became jerks. Girls were left with no choice. The only “nice” guys left had either just moved here from Korea and had no exposure to American culture or had spent the last two years locked in a lab in Tech. So girls gravitated towards jerks because they had no choice.
However, now in 2013, the world has suddenly realized that white college rap is awful and though the jerk has found new life in electronic music, he is reduced to the periphery of events such as ULTRA, or as I refer to it, God’s blind spot. The nice guy has made his triumphant return. Today’s nice guy has learned from the mistakes of nice guys of the past and is funny, charming, and shares, one has even taken a page out of the jerk’s playbook and installed a pull-up bar in his doorway. So ladies, pick yourself up a nice guy that will buy you flowers, hold your hand, help you with studying, and bravely compliment you in front of your friends. Find the guy that will run to Starbucks at 11:50 and show up at your apartment with coffee. And don’t you dare friend-zone him because when the time for Bill Clinton stuff comes, remember that us nice guys are considerate which is ultimately what matters.
F*** the Yellow Line,
Mike
Read Brandon’s opinions on the “nice guy.”
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“I can’t believe I dated that jerk.”
Yes you can.
The question of why women seem more attracted to jerks than nice guys has been bouncing around unanswered for as long as I’ve known anything about relationships. And I have some hypotheses as to why this phenomenon exists.
First, let’s get on the same page with what I mean when I use the terms “jerk” and “nice guy.” When I say girls prefer “jerks,” I don’t mean to give the image of a guy whose first line is something aggressively mean like, “You’re ugly, annoying, and your breath smells. Go away.” That kind of guy won’t get far enough in a conversation to even learn where she’s from.
The jerk I’m talking about is the standoffish guy—the one who you see redeeming qualities in, but also the one who doesn’t always return your texts, is often short-winded, and who seems to have a general lack of care for life (as far as you can see).
The “nice guy,” on the other hand, is the one who replies an essay to everything you say. The one who asks a separate question for every single point of your conversation. You meet him one time, and he gives the vibe that he’s ready to drop his time and friends and life for a chance to have a relationship with you. There’s no mystery about him, and there’s nothing you want to dig deeper to find. He gives everything to you without you even asking. He’s rye bread.
I firmly contend that women my age (college-aged) typically want something that they have to fix in a man. Not something drastic like curing his disease or making him taller—but a personality flaw. I think the girl wants to feel like it’s something she did to make him finally open up. It makes her feel special, because she knows from experience that her man doesn’t share his emotions easily.
That’s the problem with the nice guy. For a girl who wants a project, a relationship challenge, the nice guy is 2 + 2, whereas the jerk is multivariable integration to find the moment of inertia of a three-dimensional object.
I think an often convoluted and even kind of messed-up truth, is that many guys think by showering a woman with attention and crowning her a princess from day one, they will make her fall in love. From my office window, that’s just not how it works.
I beg any reader to take this as misogynistic, but I think that kind of princess-like treatment is to be earned, not expected. I treat my mother like the queen she is because, well, she’s my mother. So should I treat you that way because, well, you’re a girl? Now understand this—I certainly WILL NOT disrespect you or avoid conversation with you, and of course I will do all I can to make you feel safe and welcome in my presence, because, well, I care about people. But when I meet you, will I shower you with gifts? Compliments? Put on a big ol’ grin and pamper you and praise you and do anything I possibly can to make you happy? No. But those are all things I’d do a thousand times over for a girlfriend.
To me, saving the “nice guy” side of myself makes it more meaningful, genuine and valued when a girl finally sees it. I think any woman would respect and feel secure in knowing that she has an exclusive insight to her man’s heart, his character, and he doesn’t simply display it to every girl he meets. She had to work for it. It doesn’t make him a jerk. It doesn’t make him not “nice.” It’s simply means he’s careful with his emotions and whom he shows them to. And I believe a girl respects the “jerk” because she has to pull few layers back to reach him. The more I think about it, the more I realize how badly the term “jerk” is misused. I don’t know about you, but I would feel so much more validated by studying hard and acing a test than by having an answer sheet right in front of me.
Ladies, you shouldn’t be intimidated or discouraged by a rugged exterior. It’s merely a defense mechanism. If he’s someone you’re interested in, but his initial (perhaps feigned) lack of interest turns you off, press on. Do a little digging and see if there just might be something special hidden behind that stoic shoulder shrug. If it doesn’t work, you can always find me on Facebook and yell at me.
-Brandon
New blogger Ben’s got something to say… keep going!!!
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As I self-proclaimed nice guy, I would hope that we don’t finish last. In all honesty though, I don’t think we do. It’s all about what kind of girl you want to end up with. For me, I don’t want to be with a girl that’s attracted to jerks. I’m fine letting the girls who want to be with jerks go so I can be with a girl who’s actually attracted to me for all my qualities, including being nice. Isn’t that what everyone wants? Someone who appreciates them for being themselves?