Why nice guys might have problems dating
While thinking over a tricky moral predicament the other day, I became conscious of the fact that I don't have the option of always being the 'nice' person I was several years ago, or of making the same moral choices. A tendency to do things for the sake of pleasing others, I argue, would be a liability to a committed relationship.
Often I've come across questions along the lines of 'Why do girls always choose bad boys over nice guys?'. The question comes, more often than not, from a place of frustration with the dating game, and from some misunderstanding of what people look for in a potential partner. There is some truth behind the question, though - being a 'nice guy' is a disadvantage - but I'd like to answer it in a way that has some utility.
By 'nice guy', I don't mean someone who pretends to be nice for the purpose of getting into our knickers. At best, I'm referring to the guy who typically puts others' interests ahead of his own, perhaps way more than he should. At worst, I'm referring to the guy who's predisposed to being taken advantage of.
I think many guys become unstuck when they think 'being nice' is always a desirable quality, or an indication of virtue. It's not, and one rarely hears it being unambiguously spoken of as a virtue in itself. When we do hear the word 'nice' spoken of as a desirable quality, it's always in the context of something that doesn't have agency.
Being 'nice' can often be a moral weakness, and a liability to a relationship, and girls know this at some level. If I was dating a 'nice guy', I'd be asking myself what he's willing to compromise for the sake of pleasing the wrong people, and whether he's insistent enough to put marriage and childern first.
Case and point (and this is the moral predicament I currently face): A relative had asked me to become involved in building a court case against someone. The outcome of the trial wouldn't actually make any material difference to the accuser or the accused, but I'd be helping to instigate a vendetta over something we'd long moved on from, and that would make me a target. About the only thing that would be achieved would be that I pleased my relative.
Having the responsibilities that come with being in a committed relationship, I needed to make the hard decision of refusing to get involved, because the consequences of my involvement would potentially harm myself and my partner.
My overall argument here is that one cannot be the 'nice guy' and hope for a lasting relationship, in the same way that one cannot be the most ethical and the most successful person in a room. A guy must be disposed towards putting the interests of his partner and/or children above the interests of everyone else.