Why Nice Guys Finish Last

When I was in high school, I was in one relationship. It was one that consisted of nothing more than hugs and PG-rated cuddling while watching movies in a predominantly basement-styled setting, but that was okay for me.

I was 17, and she was 15. We were both in marching band. I considered myself cool and she was a freshman. In my eyes, she was one of the more attractive girls in the school. We texted all the time. I thought we would be together for a decent stretch.

After said girl broke up with me at the end of my junior year, I found out she was simply staying with me until another crush broke up with his girlfriend. Though high school drama is never this simple, the only other detail I will need from my journal is that this was the first time a girl would call me a “nice guy.”

Fellow nice guys, I understand your pain! We are everything our dream girls’ mothers envision when they hear a young man is coming to dinner. We detest the notion of a bar-themed introduction by stumbling behind a young lady and proceeding to grind while creepily adding a “hey.” We abhor having sex after the first date because what kind of story would that be for our future children? Above all, we hate having the woman of our dreams feel rushed into or uncomfortable with anything we suggest.

Fortunately, we don’t need to worry about any of this because some other guy usually takes care of it for us. We will go home alone, perhaps 10 dollars short after paying for the drinks of a girl whose boyfriend was silently laughing from the other side of the bar.

In the young love/lust scene, the archrival of the “nice guy” is the “asshole,” and those dudes seem to have been given the secrets of the universe. The asshole does not care about anything but guiding his tongue into a target’s mouth and eventually his nether-region to hers. As I witnessed the triumphs of these people, I became curious.

Just as Luke Skywalker must eventually master the dark side of the force to gain true enlightenment, I set out to be the asshole that I detested so much in my early college days. It worked. Those stories are not needed for this argument, and I eventually settled down with a girlfriend, abandoning the act altogether.

It is not the nice guy’s fault that he has difficulty with the ladies throughout his awkward youth, but rather a misunderstanding of the female mindscape. Anyone who has read anything about what girls find most striking in first impressions knows the key is confidence. In reality, this is the trait that helps seal the deal with anything—job interviews, first dates, dog training, etc.

Confidence is central to the asshole’s entire premise, not because they go out of their way to exude it, but because it is conveyed as a by-product of their general lack of caring. An asshole will go up to a girl and simply say “you tryna?” without worry of what the result is because the worst case scenario is that they’ll say she was ugly anyway.

The asshole’s impenetrable shield to his ego is his ace in the hole, and girls eat it up. Because assholes pretend like don’t care, many will misconstrue this as confidence, and confidence is sexy. Your girl will go home with this dude and make out with him (or more) on his bed whose sheets have totally not been changed as recently as yours.

Nice guys, you are not doing anything wrong, girls just don’t appreciate all that you’re doing right! That, and the dude with an awesome chin strap is helping her overcome her insecurities by repeating all the nasty things he wants to do to her.

Please note the solution to your problems is to not become an asshole, but to understand them and incorporate what they do right into your game plan for the weekend. Show confidence, make out with that girl, get her number, and then text her in the afternoon and take her to an Applebee’s to show her you won’t only think of her to fool around at 2 am on a Friday. Order the ice cream/hot brownie combination because it’s delicious.

Thankfully, this is only a phase in our love life because after we get older, our confidence is judged in tandem with what kind of job we have. Additionally, the rash decisions that assholes make their living by become a rarity as we grow older.

Retain that confidence, nice guys. Incorporate your inner asshole if you must, but remember who you are—who we are. Someday in the future, you will find yourself in the same position as George McFly, enjoying Biff Tannen (your asshole rival) washing your car in an oddly appropriate jumpsuit.