The "Nice Guy Finishes Last" Phenomenon

Brilliant article about nice guys at http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~jenf/writing/rant04.html

It's an interesting phenomenon, and you can't really deny its existence. Although if you are hoping to look for an explaination of this phenomenon from this female, you're probably looking for it at the wrong place. What this entry is about though, is the hypothesis that the same hold true for girls too.

Face it: the most popular girls are the ones who, as discribed in the article, shamelessly flirts with the nice guy friends (or just about any other guys for that matter) and expect the guy to be okay with it because they are "just friends". The manipulative ones who whine about not nice guys out there and say things like "if only there are more guys like you" but never seriously consider asking them out. The ones who feed on attentions and never give out any in return. It may sound terrible but hey, it's true, they all happen to be the most popular ones. I got dumped for one or two of those before.

Meanwhile nice girls are having the same problesm the nice guys are having. Nice girls don't neccessarily spend time to make themselves look better. Track pants and tee is perfectly normal. Guys don't even notice them somehow, they're too plain. Guy friends would tell them that they are "one of the boys" and expect that to be a compliment. These are the ones who aren't attention seeker, and so they get almost no attention. They aren't manipulative, and don't go flirt with they male friends when they're most vulnerable. They're the girls who, sometimes, even the guys oversees them.

The world is kinda cruel in that sense. While the nice guys complains about girls treating them like dirt, sometimes it really isn't the girls fault. There are girls who don't treat guys like dirt, but the guys just see them as one of the guys. Whereas the nice girls, well maybe sometimes it is their fault to choose the jerks as best friends, and dream that one day he'd realise they've always been there for him and he would realise they're really the one for him.

Maybe they are just too scared of rejection, and the age old "I don't want to ruin the friendship" becasue, believe me, it does. And msot of the nice guys and girls who are afriad of rejection has probably been there. A lot of them just get stuck in the "best friends" stage, and dreaming that one day it'll magically get upgraded. Meanwhile the other party just uses the nice one as an ego booster, and a back-up plan.

Nice guys/girls (Maybe I should call them all NG) are vulnerable. Becasue they've been used and hurt too many times. Because people expect them to be okay with the teasing and joking about not being attached, and making rumours about romantic links between various people around the NG, and that hurts. The NGs are normally the epathetic and sensitive ones, and unfortunately the rest of the population, well, aren't. After being hurt and used too many times, the NGs get even more reserved, and the vicious cycle goes on.

I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones who actually find myself a fellow NG to get me out of that cycle. (Not saying that all my ex aren't NGs. After all possibly only a fellow NG would date another NG.) But all the NGs out there need to realise that victimising yourselves isn't going to get your anywhere. There are nice guys/girls around, just like yourselves. But if you like to chase after the ones who aren't all that nice, well, don't say I didn't warn you.