In defense of the nice guy

For some reason I have been thinking about this whole nice guy thing lately. It could be that Mr. Googleappears to be a pretty freaking nice guy. But then again it could just be that I randomly think about things and then over analyze them to death. After all, that is what I do best as a writer/blogger.

When I was younger, I was way too into bad boys. I mean I was that girl that broke up with guys because they were too nice and then started dating the bad boys. I dated a guy that stole my parents' credit card, there was also a guy that didn't graduate high school and was heavily involved with some highly suspicious entrepreneurs (if you catch my drift). Half the guys I dated didn't have a driver's license because they were in trouble with the law in some fashion.

So, yes, it is safe to say that I dated bad boys. Honestly, I dated them because they were the kind of guys that were interested in me and I didn't have enough confidence in who I was to really stick my standards. Yes, I know how sadly pathetic that sounds but never the less it is the truth. I have never been the girl that's all about having a boyfriend to make me happy but I'd be lying if I said attention from boys didn't feel nice.

That is until I started to get a little older and I realized that some attention isn't worth having and that half those guys really weren't interested in me but more in what they could get from me. I can't say I am perfect at picking out boyfriends now, as we have established from Mr. BST and I still enjoy a guy who is a little bad, so we can get into the good kind of trouble together ahe because be needs to know how to handle my sass. But never the less, I am better at enforcing my standards now.

And through the years, I have also learned that there is a difference between being nice and letting people walk all over me. I believe that most guys go through a similar process as well.

We've established that I am not a fan of the whole nice guys finish last thing

because I really don't think that's necessarily the case. Honestly, I don't really believe it's about a guy that's nice; it's about a guy that is a pushover.

Per Webster the definition of nice includes:

a : pleasing, agreeable b : well-executed c : appropriate, fitting

a : socially acceptable : well-bred b : virtuous, respectable

polite, kind

And as per Webster, the definition of pushover is:

1 : something accomplished without difficulty : snap

2 : an opponent who is easy to defeat or a victim who is capable of no effective resistance

3 : someone unable to resist an attraction or appeal : sucker

Now, I don't like to get all technical, but in case you didn't notice, another word for pushover is sucker. Which to me means they will do anything and fall for anything and that they don't have much assertiveness when it comes to their own opinions. That seems considerably different from the way that nice was defined.

Nice guys still have standards. They don't let everything slide and they have a breaking point. Sure, I am not arguing that it might take them a little longer to come around than a bad boy. Though I also have to say that most bad boys don't break up with women because they aren't being treated the right way.

I kind of feel like we are shooting ourselves in the foot with the whole idea that women don't want nice guys. Doesn't that kind of give them the go ahead to be a jerk? Case in point: my friend who sometimes acts like a total douche bag. When I call him out on it he always tells me that he wants to be an ass because women don't want a nice guy they want a jerk. That whole thing just seems silly to me. I mean are perfectly nice guys really acting like douche bags just because they think it will get them a woman? Sure, we see it on television but is this happening really happening in real life?

I guess my point is that maybe we need to re-examine the way we look at this whole nice guy thing. Being a good guy (aka a nice guy) is not a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with it, really, I promise. I think it's important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Is a guy just being a genuinely nice guy or is he letting you (and other people) walk all over him?