See this was easier to keep straight in your head when the "Nice Guy" was referred to as Nice Guy[sup]tm[/sup]. The bare bones of the Nice Guy[sup]tm[/sup] stereotype is a person (usually male) who acts nice in the hope of receiving sex and/or a relationship as a reward for their niceness. Yes it does exist. Before I really understood what it meant to be in a relationship I was a Nice Guy[sup]tm[/sup]. If I had to hazard a guess as to where the mindset comes from, I'd say its a combination of a lack of understanding, lack of experience with girls, and poor portrayals of relationships and sex in movies, TV and games. I imagine porn also has a lot to do with it.Tarfeather said:snip
Back then I assumed that if I spent a lot of time with a girl, showed her how nice I was, what a great boyfriend I'd make, she'd eventually fall in love with me. This was what I'd been lead to believe by various sources. Reality took over, she didn't fall in love with me and for a while I hated everything. I hated myself for not being good enough, I hated her for not wanting me, I hated the guy she did go out with, I hated media with any kind of love plot/sub-plot, I even hated my cat! Eventually a good friend of mine sat me down and talked through everything with me, he explained where I was wrong, he helped me apologise and make up with the girl, and later on he even helped me get my first real girlfriend.
The Nice Guy[sup]tm[/sup] problem will exist for as long as there are guys who don't understand how attraction works and guys who are unable to recognise that you can be friends with a girl without having sex, being in a relationship or trying to make either of those happen.
[small]To this day I'm still ashamed of how I treated that girl.[/small]