Saturday, June 17, 2006

Naughty or Nice

In my many years as a self-professed and outwardly confirmed "nice guy" I have never heard anyone psycho-analyse the nice guy persona, neither have I tried to. Perhaps it's because as soon as we hear 'nice' we accept it at face value, assuming its inherent good. If we find out that the label doesn't quite fit the individual wearing it, then we accuse them of fraud.

So is a 'nice guy' one who manages not to piss off anyone? That automatically excludes me!!! But how many does it leave in because everyone pisses off someone sometime?!

Is a 'nice guy' then one who manages to get along with most people most of the time? What of those who do that but then when they piss you off its huge?

What if a 'nice guy' is just one who manages to hide his unbecoming human frailties, while revealing the more acceptable or even desired ones? Sounds like a Master of Illusion! Consumate politician?! "Come on kiss di baby..."

I've been accused of being nice and complemented for being mean.... sometimes by the same persons. But I have never questioned the integrity of the 'nice guy' label......Until now!!

This article I found on-line is quite an interesting perspective. It doesn't raise many new arguments per se. It takes the usual flog-the-women arguments and actually points the finger at the 'nice guy' instead. For example, the 'nice guy' puts the woman on a pedestal and she can't handle it so those on the side of the 'nice guy' cusses her for not being able to handle it. This article says, 'why the hell should she have to handle such an unrealistic expectation?!'

Read and enjoy rumminating on this Food for thought!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting is right. Tho I'm not sure whether that is what "nice guys" are in general I can recognize alot of those traits from guys who are self-professed nice guys.

bassChocolate said...

Interesting indeed. Right in some respects, not so right in others, overboard in many respects. It's a difficult generalization to make about such a large group of people.

Diallo Dixon said...

yeah...what BB said. Still worth the read tho.