I know, I know, Nice Guy vs. Jerk has been done into the ground many times, but I just did a consult with a young man about this and I thought you all might like to read my take on it. I think one of the easiest targets for Game hate is the terminology. It’s far too easy to apply subjective definitions to archetypes like ‘Nice Guy’ or ‘Jerk’. The standard binary response is usually, “So, I gotta be a complete asshole all the time or girls wont be attracted to me? Screw that man, I’m not into game playin'”
You can sift back through any number of forum pages of advice I’ve offered and read me over and over again telling young men to “get in touch with their inner A-Hole.” In any of my posts, never do I state to in fact become an A-Hole. The two most common questions I get asked advice for is “Why do girls love Jerks so much?” and the “How do I get out of the friend-zone?” line. Both of these illustrate different ends of a spectrum. Try to think of it this way: On one end of the spectrum you have the consummate Jerk – he’s obnoxious, an A-Hole, borders on abusiveness, but women flock to the guy in droves. On the opposite end of the scale we have the ultimate Nice Guy who does and embodies everything any girl has ever told him he needs to become in order to achieve their intimacy and has internalized this doormat conditioning into his own personality. This is the guy who’ll spend countless hours on the phone being ‘friends’ with a girl or spend fortunes on gifts for her in order to buy her approval.
I think it’s important to look at the roots of the terms “Jerk” and “Nice Guy.” Lets not forget these characterizations exist because women gave them these names and classifications based on their own common evaluations. Women defined these terms, guys simply made the association with them. We tend to see these as parodies or caricatures now; abusive wife-beating Jerk or doormat Nice Guy. These are two extreme ends of the spectrum and when considering them after candid assessments, the mistake becomes falling into a binary all-or-nothing interpretation.
Now the irony of all this is that the AFC thinks that this situation is in reverse. He believes that Nice Guys are the anomaly in a sea of Jerks. Of course he believes this because it’s all his female-friends talk about; their “Jerk BFs”, and how Nice they are for being good listeners. So his self-image gets validated and he believes he’s unique and valuable for being “not-like-other-guys” and his patience and sensitivity will eventually pay off – which it very well could once the object of his obsession has had her fun (and possibly bred) with the Bad Boy.
Most men WOULD prefer to inch towards the jerk end of the spectrum, if at all, and assuming they come to believing things aren’t as they previously believed. The more common mindset for beta males is to expect that women should appreciate them for being the ‘nice’, dependable, self-sacrificing guy that every woman since his mother has told him he should be. It’s far easier to believe that the world should change for you than to accept the truth that you need to improve yourself to get the things you want. It’s the lazy man’s path to disqualify or cheapen things that he desperately wants, but lacks the motivation to change himself to get. So the hot, ‘quality’ girl he wanted before, becomes the ‘trashy club slut’ after she rejects him. The real quality girl should love/desire him unconditionally, “for who he is” rather than force him into improving himself, which in this instance means he ought to become the caricatured Jerk archetype he’s been taught to hate. Most people resist becoming what they hate, even if it’s a change for the better.
We ought to worry less about social implications of converting nice guys into jerks than making them self-aware to begin with. The risk of creating a bona fide Jerk in an effort is a decent trade off.
Please expand on what this sweet spot on the spectrum looks like. I think your word “obnoxious” is a good one. That’s the point when a guy has gone too far towards the jerk end of the spectrum. My own view of the best mindset: aloof indifference with a touch of kindness. (yes kindness). The kindness demonstrates class, education, social acumen. But its not a genuine kindness, its merely a projection of confidence. The underlying true vibe is that I don’t give a shit what the girl or others think, but to demonstrate the authenticity of that perspective, I appear… Read more »
Even if nice guys want to change, altering your personality is not an easy thing to do. There are plenty of men out there who would prefer not to be nice guys on a deeper level, but they rationalise and tell themselves its the best way to be, because changing is too hard.
The sole disturbing thing about these interesting posts is, as it often happens, that everything revolve around the female. Everything is on the man’s shoulders, he is the one expected to change (by the women first, and by the Game after), he is the one expected to improve. Women, they are all the same. No mention about them except their immutable psychology (jerk magnetism). As a beta on the way, I tend to ask myself “But do they really deserve this effort from me? Being what I am not, having a lot of material possessions for impress her and having… Read more »
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Darwin
I’m not sure if I properly understood your question, but I’m going to lump it together with questions I’ve often heard, which boil down essentially to “why should I bother”. I sometimes get a bit irritated at the question. Is it my responsibility to give someone a point of view? Is someone trying to force a point of view? It seems to me that those who ask “why bother” are trying to argue about what is a good life mission. That’s up to you. I don’t see anyone trying to force anyone else into doing anything. If you see no… Read more »
I think not, my question was pratical not philosophical.
Not “why bother?”, instead “am I sure the ratio cost/benefit is good for me?”
Of course, it is that way or the highway, as they say.
I fail to see how the two questions are different. I’m not being snarky or polemic. They sound like exactly and precisely the same question to me.
Ok, if it’s a question of benefit/reward, then you see the rewards.
Game and a more realistic view of women gives you different rewards than you currently can see.
So with practice the rewards get bigger, while the irritations get easier to deal with, and even get smaller.
The entire setup of what is the benefit and what is the reward changes as your approach changes.
But that won’t happen NOW. You can’t get there from here, you can only start here.
cost/reward. Let me riff on that. The costs to gaming girls is doing things that are uncomfortable. With practice these things become not only more comfortable, but second nature and natural. The pain of drama never entirely disappears, but it becomes much more bearable. The rewards can be more than currently imagined. A woman who loves and dotes makes a mans heart wake up and go to sleep warm and sweet. That’s a priceless reward. Great sex where two people mingle in ecstatic union is nothing to sniff at. An easy warm companionship where a glance holds a wealth of… Read more »
Easy to say when you live around feminine women who deserve to be treated as more than cum dumpsters.
With american girls the costs don’t outweigh the benefits because women aren’t held to any kind of standard of femininity. They utterly fail to inspire masculinity in me. These women DON’T deserve the effort. These days I only put forth minimal effort to get my needs met. That’s it.
When a guy asks a question like this you need to temper your answer with the knowledge that he is probably living in a completely different environment than you.
You might be right about that, GLC. It’s been over a decade since I’ve been in the west. However please also understand that the world has changed in the east as well. There are different challenges over here – especially with women being slutty vixens. I’m imagining that it’s the same basic challenge – to gain hand and get a woman who does not want to do your bidding to do your bidding and love it. If you imagine thats an easy task here in SE Asia, please try to understand that it is a challenge here also. I hear… Read more »
I’m talking about making wholesale personality changes in a completely unacceptable girl. I’ve done this several times.
I’m not talking about finding some great girl and seducing her.
Meant to say “I hear you though that women in SE Asia at least play up their femininity, usually.” And I will agree that there is a lot to be preferred here. Just saying that even though it can be a better initial working material, you can’t just find some girl you like, and seduce her. I’ve found a great deal of molding must take place. Yes, even here. I could write a long post about the incredible changes this particular girl of mine has undergone under my hand. And I could write other posts about other girls. A huge… Read more »
A lot has changed here in the past 10 years. Not only do you have the advantage of having better raw materials to work with, you also have leverage, which is something that western men lost when women started making their own money (and of course when the money isn’t there the government is more than happy to step in).
Now that’s a point I’m not going to argue with. I’ve put this discussion on my blog, and I”m giving you the last word on that last point.
@ traveller Women have changed to improve mating over the years, they just have to change again. 150 years ago, cosmetics, hair dye and other such things were not mainstream. Charm and chastity were emphasized to attract a man, but not sexyness to keep him. Though status and money are not sexual attractors for men, they most certainly were mating attractors. A woman without dowery, wealth or equal or above social status or title would have a hard time getting a husband. She’d have to take a gamble that her face would be her fortune. Working has levelled that requirement… Read more »
Have also wondered if it’s possible to be simultaneously flaky and mysterious with women while remaining a reliable man to men.
I know that the male friends I choose are reliable, helpful, compassionate, loyal etc., as I hope I am.
There’s a continual desire to show these traits to women despite the overwhelming evidence that this is not a good idea.
Recently, I went against all my instincts and deliberately flaked on a woman (canceling a date at the last minute). It felt alien to be unreliable! But the unfamiliar feels wrong until it has become familiar.
You might know something that I don’t, but it seems to me that if you want to be reliable, you can use that to advantage. Beta traits are attractive, they just don’t generate sexual heat. But reliability is none the less attractive. You can keep and be proud of all your beta traits – they aren’t problematic. But to generate heat you need to look inside yourself and find genuine emotions that you feel that are edgy, and express them. You can lead with your beta and do fine. Girls will try to suck you in to their world as… Read more »
“Have also wondered if it’s possible to be simultaneously flaky and mysterious with women while remaining a reliable man to men.” This was also a good point of discussion. Being a jerk with women does not mean being a jerk with the rest of the world. Even if anyone will find game work in the job market too (treating your company like you have other options, do not appear broke or in need of the money, absolutely do not think a good job automatically will bring recognition but it needs advertisement – that’s specially true for nerdy programmers – etc).… Read more »
“do not think a good job automatically will bring recognition”
As a job here I mean “a successfully completed project inside your current job”
(Jerk employees will receive always the raise while nice employees will receive the difficult tasks to complete and they will be just given for granted.)
Alpha is a mindset
A (very) late addition, I know. I agree that so many of these terms we throw around — “nice guy,” “jerk,” “alpha,” etc. — are relative; they are abstracts; they are often situational. But in re: the nice guys vs. jerks arguments, I will make this observation. Most of the guys I’ve known who were extremely (in the Elite sense) successful with women were guys who had very problematic personalities in one or more respects. And by that I mean — yeah, we all have our imperfections, we’re all screwed up in one way or another. But the guys I’m… Read more »
http://postgradcasanova.com/conversation-mistakes/
Like a few others above i feel part of the Cold Case department. It’s interesting after reading for over two years I can still find things of interest. The bit about feeling women “should love you for you” hit home. We were beta but we weren’t total idiots. I knew if went to the gym, swaggered around like a prick, got a ridiculous haircut and trendy tattoos that “certain” girls would’ve been interested. But not the quality girls, the nice girls who will love me for me. So if I lift something heavy enough times they’ll deign me good enough?… Read more »
In addition it comes back to projection as you allude to in the seminal “Blue Pill Idealism” essay where, to no doubt paraphrase “The habit some betas have of assuming I’m like this so everyone is like this” …. Guilty as charged. I genuinely found many alphas obnoxiousness, ridiculous and facile so even without taking into account the envy side of things I absolutely “resisted becoming what I hated”, despite its clear benefits. Being unique over being happy. I’ve since learned maybe worryingly maybe poignantly that my past mental description of evidently attractive young men was eerily close to that… Read more »
Based on evolutionary psychology, it makes sense that women would be aroused by the jerk (and overall masculine) types. Because this attraction is built in the genetic make up that did not change for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. So think of the kids of men that would best survive in the dog-eat-dog world of 100000 years ago. It helped to be strong, able to dominate others, care about yourself not others, ready to fight and even steal or take by force the fruit or prey of others. Being jerk / insensitive was way more advantageous then than… Read more »
*typo above: kinds, not kids of men