On a Tuesday night in September, I found myself curled into a heap, resting atop a pile of pillows and blankets on the floor of one of my hallmate’s room. I had been sexiled by my roommate during my first week of college. I laughed it off and got to talking to Stephanie, my host for the night. She sighed as she recounted a story about the guy who walked her home the other night.
“He was nice, you know? He kept agreeing with everything I said. He kept talking about how important it is to treat a girl well. And he insisted on walking me home. I mean, it was nice…he was just … too nice, you know?”
I nodded like I understood, but when the conversation was done I found myself staring up at the ceiling from my makeshift mattress. I couldn’t help but ask myself where this backward, paradoxical notion stemmed from. So when exactly is chivalry set to formally die? When did it become a problem to be “too” nice?
I’ll admit it, I have fallen into this trap myself. During my freshman year of high school, I dedicated myself to Jake, a khaki-clad new kid who’d transferred from a local private school. The guy worked the best he could to be my knight in shining Lacoste polos with gentlemanly trips to the movie theater or the mini-golf course.
I was initially charmed, of course. But in time, the monotony of holding hands in the hallway, meeting up at the same corridors and taking the same routes to class together became too much to handle. I felt I needed an intervention desperately, lest I should overdose on the toxic pleasantness of it all. Naturally, I did what any other level-headed female would do: I cut off my supply of nice guy.
I can’t attribute that kind of shallowness either to myself or to the self-respecting women I’ve met here at the University. To that end, as I reclined on Stephanie’s floor, I contemplated the ostensible allure of the “bad boy.”
I’d say it isn’t so much the “bad” persona people go starry-eyed about, but rather it is the unattainability that keeps us hooked.
On some level it makes sense — the drive to want what you can’t have. Something which is easily and imminently attainable is boring, in a way. But guys can seem dangerously unpredictable without being complete jerks. I think if a guy can avoid predictability and hyper-eagerness, he’ll be as much of a badass as necessary to keep a girl’s attention.
And that’s just it, isn’t it? That’s the crux of it: the “nice guys finish last” phenomenon rests on the delicate perceptual boundary between too nice and too predictable. Maybe if the guy who walked Stephanie home that night had spontaneously decided to take her to dinner on the Corner, or if Jake had switched it up from the mini-golf routine to keep me on my toes, those “nice guys” wouldn’t have been left in the dust.
We aren’t turned off by the nice guy, but by the boring guy. Maybe it’s time we all learn to acknowledge the difference.
Victoria’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at v.moran@cavalierdaily.com.
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