I've come across this a lot in dating advice as well - the idea that bad boys are attractive and nice guys are not. This idea that it's the nice guys who are the ones with the problem and who need to adjust, that it's the nice guys who are inferior really infuriates me.
I'm a nice guy, and I am for many reasons. Some of them are faults, but others are genuine beliefs. First of all, I was raised in a good home. Money problems caused frustration at times, but I always did feel safe and snug, provided for, and cared about. Sure, there were some disagreements here and there, but I feel like I got along with my family for the most part. I was certainly not neglected, abused, or exposed to addiction, ***, violence, or other crime. Swearing happened here and there but was strongly discouraged for me and my siblings. I was raised, basically, to be nice - to get along, to be kind, friendly, pleasant, honest, to share, to be able to tell right from wrong and choose right. To think for myself and be true to myself instead of jumping on the bandwagon and changing, especially negatively, just to fit in and be "cool". To use my head instead of trying to solve problems with violence and to think about the future and consider the consequences of my actions.
Now that I'm old enough to choose my own beliefs for myself, for the most part I agree with how I was raised. I have some different tastes and views, but for the most part I feel the same way. I'm not really into being macho, dark, cocky, or lewd. I'm also nice because I try to treat others the way I'd like to be treated myself. I like to be treated nicely, so I treat others nicely. I do believe we can all get along, that there could be enough for everybody, and that it doesn't have to be a dark and nasty world anymore, especially not in a modern country.
Then, there are the problem areas that also influenced me to be nice. From my youngest years, I had a hard time fitting in with my peers. I still have a hard time with social situations. I was friendly and cheerful and enjoyed being a kid and being innocent, when everyone around me wanted to act "cool", "tough", cliquish, arrogant, and crude. I didn't see any appeal in that. I didn't know what to talk to people about or how to talk to them, so I was socially awkward. I liked "nerdy" things, and this was before that stuff became popular. Things like that were still looked down on back then. There weren't a lot of people who liked that stuff, and I didn't want to draw negative attention to myself so I kept a low profile. I didn't care for swearing or sexual slang. My life was fine and I felt no need to be nasty. I didn't know much about *** or attraction but it seemed like it caused a lot of problems, so I wasn't interested in that for a while. It seemed like it was for other people, the cliquish, stuck-up people. Even when I became more interested in girls just from growing up, I didn't really feel like there was anything I could do about it since I didn't have a car, money, or date ideas, in addition to not knowing what to talk to girls about since there were almost none who shared my interests. I wasn't exposed to a lot of cultural staples that people connect over, like bands, until later and I just didn't have the interest at the time. And I was a very late bloomer to partying. It took me a long time to make friends, and my friends were mostly late bloomers as well to these same things.
I also went through some verbal bullying and was made to feel like an outcast. I had no charm or charisma. For a long time I worried that this was proof that I was weaker, there was something wrong with me. I felt that girls just didn't like me because I was a low-status person, it was just the cards I was dealt and there was nothing I could do to make things better.
I couldn't be a jerk if I wanted to, because I didn't feel like I had anything to be cocky about. I didn't really feel like I was strong enough to win fights, so I tried to avoid situations that would lead to them - besides, I thought that I wasn't supposed to resort to violence anyway. I didn't have money. And I didn't feel like I could be good at anything, so I didn't develop any skills-based interests until later. I felt like if I could be good at something, then I would naturally be better at it than most people with little work, but nothing ever seemed to come easily to me. I felt like I was untalented and while I seemed above average in smarts, even that wasn't easy and I had to work at it. I felt like whatever advantage I may have had was only slight and it wasn't really enough to make a difference in my life.
I wasn't confident or assertive because I didn't know what to do, didn't feel like I could figure it out, and didn't want to make things worse for myself. And like I was saying I didn't feel like I had any kind of natural talent, gift, or ability, and I felt that working hard only made any difference if you had talent to begin with and since I felt like I didn't, there was no point. I felt like I was a runt, and combined with the way I was treated socially, it caused a lot of self-doubt and low self-image. I've only recently started to challenge my old narrative. But I still don't have all the answers, and that's another reason I don't have much confidence. I'm still trying to find myself and my place in the world.
I hated the cocky people who felt like they were better than everyone because they had more muscle, money, because they drank, smoked, cursed, did drugs, had ***, and acted superior to anyone who didn't. I felt like the way they acted was wrong, and I just couldn't understand how someone could be cocky because no matter how big you are you could still lose it all, and if that's the way you were, then everyone you ever thought you could piss on is going to line up to kick you the minute you make a mistake. And I didn't understand how the girls, or anybody for that matter, wanted to hang out with guys who talked and acted like they looked down on them, didn't care about them outside of whatever they could use them for, and just seemed to go out of their way to be as unpleasant as possible.
Being a "bad boy" never made any sense to me. I never really had anything to rebel against because I felt like everything would work out if I stuck to the plan and stayed out of trouble. Like I said, I wasn't rich, so I couldn't be the rich party ********* type of bad boy. But at the same time, I couldn't be the macho, working-class bad boy because I wasn't from that culture either. And I definitely didn't have the background or any reason to be an actual criminal. It would have made no sense for me to start acting like that because I would have been throwing my opportunities for a better life and all the good things I had away. I was always told that the way to get ahead in life was to get an education, that it was brains over brawn and luckily I had that chance. I always felt like bad boys were either unstable, true scumbags who brought their problems on themselves through bad lifestyle decisions that I knew better than to make, or obnoxious attention-seeking pretenders trying really hard to show everyone how "tough" and "cool" they were by being needlessly defiant. And I never liked the raunchiness, it always seemed in poor taste. It never made sense to me why I should want to imitate people in low places because it doesn't seem like a lifestyle that works.
The guy on the left, the nice guy, seems like he's being real, being himself, not trying to be anything he isn't and living for himself instead of being "cool". The guy on the right seems like he's trying really hard to be "cool" by adhering to a tired old cliche. I get that the nice guy is usually a little lacking in confidence and excitement, which is something I'm trying to work on about myself. I may not be there yet but I'm trying, and I still feel like that's better than being yet another rebel-without-a-cause copycat. Yet those guys still have the advantage. I just don't know. Being a nice guy doesn't seem to work and I don't want to be a square, but being a bad boy just seems dumb. I just wish I could find some way I could get what I want without having to be something I don't. I really don't see anything better about the bad boys and I don't see cheekiness as a good thing - I think it's aggravating. I hate smart-*****. And I never saw myself as a passive doormat - I thought I was being mature enough to pick my battles instead of fighting about every little thing to assert dominance like some kind of monkey. And if I try to change the way people perceive me, it's because I don't want my flaws and old stories to keep me from making the impressions and connections that I really want to, and might have been able to if I was more confident from the beginning. I get so pissed when people say that it's manipulation or that I am a ******* "neckbeard" that needs to just accept his low status. I don't think it is, because I'm actually trying to figure out how to do things the right way and get better. I think that there could be a way that I could have been good enough for the girls I liked, while still being myself - just with a little improvement and adjustment. I think it's that I don't want my experiences with being bullied, being a social outcast, my low self-image, or my other personality flaws that I picked up in my youth to define and limit me from the rest of my life, keeping things from being as good as they could be.
