Bit of a slow day today on the blogging front I'm afraid. I went to work, came home from work, and played computer games. There's going to be loads of band related activity at the end of the week; we have a jam on Friday, and band drinks on Sunday where we will wander around to different venues, show our faces and let people know about Kalmar.
Which is not to say that I'm not busy, or that the rest of the band is slacking in any way; we're choosing our new logo (which you will see tomorrow) and we're all writing reams of lyrics. In our non band related lives, we're all busy with our respective jobs and extracurricular activities (such as girlfriends).
We'll be getting a photo up of Coran soon so you can all see what he looks like, and so he won't keep blushing crimson every time he looks up the blog, and we're hoping to start posting up our Youtube videos of our various shenanigans in and out of the practice room; That'll be happening real soon, hopefully within the next week.
One of the topics I have been finding a lot in my travels through the blogosphere in the last four months is the spicy subject of the "nice guy." Here is a quite bitter male perspective:
http://evilwoobie.com/2008/02/10/ladies-i-can-be-the-guy-you-settle-for/#comment-2135
We've all been the "nice guy" at some point; You know, the hapless sap that becomes a a womans best friend, but in actuality, the nice guy is holding a torch bright enough to light the night sky for her. These relationships aren't terribly healthy; On the one hand, some guys who may actually be genuinely nice will start getting resentful of the situation they're in, and start thinking that "hey, y'know, I do all this nice stuff for her... I'm entitled to get laid!" This instantly turns them from nice guy to arsehole, because it does not matter what the situation is, you should never think you are ENTITLED to sexual intimacy (that it unless you are returning a favour; Go down on me and I'll go down on you, for example). On the other, genuinely insecure women will start noticing that they have a glorified lapdog and start treating this person who's supposed to be their best friend exactly like that. I've known a few women who realized with hindsight that that was exactly the sort of "friendship" they were in and admit that their behavior was less than honourable. And believe me, it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when you realise that you are just as capable of being that artlessly self centered; Using a guy as your emotional armour and being unwilling to take a bullet back is never cool.
There has been a huge feminist backlash on this topic, and the level of vitriol spouted about nice guys (or about so called nice guys) is somewhat staggering, and it seems that a whole other dimension to the nice guy has sprouted from nowhere; The nice guy as sexual predator, only a step up from a date rapist. He does all of these nice things quite simply because his ultimate goal is to guilt her into a bout of shagging that will be guilt free for him, and leave the woman a shattered mess of a person. It certainly makes a change from the Dawson's Creek model of a nice guy...
I suppose it was only a matter of time before this was going to happen. Any sustained attack against the sisterhood has to be answered, and it did have to be answered. The "Nice guy" and "can boys be friends with girls without the sex part getting in the way" doesn't paint women in the greatest of lights. It unfairly paints the picture that given the choice women would love to have an insecure guy who's maybe not great looking but adores her and will answer her every beck and call around to stroke her ego and tells her she's pretty so she can go and fuck the prom king/male model. It's not a nice picture and it definitely isn't true. So of course the sisterhood fought back, and well done. Women should stick up for women and for the most part do, and for men, that support network that women can have for each other, even for other women they don't know or have never met before is an awe inspiring thing; were we only so lucky (a small minority of radical feminists sometimes argue that the patriarchy is a support network all of it's own; Patriarchy is a support network for men in the same way that a violent husband is a good man because he didn't beat his wife tonight. Patriarchy harms men as much as it does women; The ways in which it does are myriad and incredibly subtle. If you don't believe me, read Manhood by Stephen Biddulph).
I'm fairly sure a lot of innocent bystanders, both men and women have been caught in the crossfire. There are of course the horrible creepy men who do the "nice guy" act purely as a means of getting their end away, and there's certainly enough anecdotal evidence of that in the blogosphere, just as I'm sure that there are the archetypal evil women using men as a guilt free crutch for their ego, their very own lapdog... cheaper than a lapdog, because he'll go home and probably won't piss on the carpet. But I'll wager the whole "nice guy holding a torch of unrequited love" thing is far less sinister than either of those two alternatives; He probably can't find a way to tell her how he feels, and maybe she doesn't know how to deal with it so never brings it up, or simply doesn't know. Of course, it can be quite difficult to view it that subjectively when you're the guy it's happening to, so bitching about it feels like a fantastic release, but it's one sided and just plain wrong. And when you're the woman being accused of being a bitch for leading people on, it can be quite difficult to just say "hey, he doesn't mean it, he's just upset. Probably shouldn't kick him when he's down.
The problem is that both of those negative stereotypes are sticking. The nice guy camp is clinging to their archetype of the evil self centered woman (which seems a little nonsensical because they profess love for women who are supposed to be possessed of radiant beauty, wit, charm, poise grace and dignity, and that's certainly not the woman described in the stereotype), and the angry woman fighting back camp is clinging to their stereotype of creepy nasty little man who isn't that physically attractive and uses the nice guy mantle to slime his way into womens pants for guilty sex that he feels entitled to (this also makes no sense because no sane woman would be friends with someone so unlikeable, much less best friends). It helps neither cause because the two positions are only tenable on the surface. Under closer scrutiny both arguments can in my opinion be proved as fallacies.
Me, I'm sitting on the fence for this one. I find it a bit six of one, half a dozen of the other, and all rotten. I was a former "nice guy waiting," myself. It took me moving two hundred miles away and two years of total radio silence with this girl to sort out my head. Now, we're friends again, proper friends, not weirdly ambiguous opposite sex buddies, but friends. She was tooling around on the internet and came across a nice guy thread and was shocked enough to call me and tell me that despite how weird our "friendship" was, she always knew I was honourable and not a creepy nasty little guy with nefarious plans to penetrate her because I'd done a few nice things for her.
Her words? "You're not a nice guy, you're a good man."
My only other advice is that Total honesty is key to any close friendship or relationship. Total disclosure may not be the world most comfortable but it does save a lot of time and effort, your soul won't blacken with lies, and in the long run, it strengthens your friendships.
And... if you're a nice guy waiting around for her, try saying something. If you two are good enough friends, it'll sort itself out.
If you're not a nice guy but a doormat for a bitch, leave her behind. No good will come of it. It's an abusive relationship, and she'll never change.
If you're straight up not a nice guy but seeking a quick fuck using guilt and the mantle of a nice guy into coercing a girl into something she doesn't want to do, then seriously buddy, you need to sort your life out, and stop it. You're giving guys who may just be too shy a bad name.
And if you're a woman looking to bash a man for the sake of it... remember how it feels the last time someone kicked you when you were down. I reckon in most cases, that's what you're doing.
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2 comments:
Your post made me think of "Lean On Sheena" by the Bouncing Souls.
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1_uVKOJ9Uc
And oh yeah, "Self Esteem" by the Offspring.
You make some good points. A few years ago I realized that a really good friend of mine had fallen in love with me. I only saw him as a friend, and I felt so bad knowing that he wanted more than friendship and I didn't.
Then again, we only hung out as friends and never even kissed.
But I felt so bad, because I knew I hurt him by not loving him back. And when I called him to hang out or do things we used to do there was always this little voice inside me wondering if he only did it in the hope of me falling in love with him.
When I moved (for completely different reasons) it was sad but at the same time a relief.
You shouldn't feel bad for not loving him the way you wanted. Maybe you could have tried tackling the issue but falling victim to the very human crime of avoiding a difficult issue is nothing to feel bad about. If you had taken advantage of that love and treated him like a crutch for your ego, then you would be ok to feel down on yourself.
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