Men of reddit who were previously “nice guys” (r/niceguys) when and why did your views change?

26 comments

1. I took an assertiveness training class. No one made me, but I figured it would help me deal with difficult clients at work. Not only did it help me do that, but it helped me set clear boundaries and be more assertive around people in general. I was no longer Mr Nice Guy

2. In my mid twenties, I realized finishing first is more fun. Wait that came out wrong..

3. When I was in high school I would be a nice guy to girls I wanted to get with and didn’t care about the girls I wasn’t into..ironically it was the girls I didn’t want that wanted me and not to say they were ugly most of them fit girls who stuffed their bras athletic types and the deeply religious types that liked me but I was just too stubborn and set on for the emo girl with a pixie haircut, i regret meeting her.

4. when I realized that I wasnt really a nice guy but was using niceness to win people over even though people are rarely ever truly won over. I decided to become the best version of myself and attract whatever that attracts and simply let things happen organically.

5. i wasnt a full “nice guy” back then but i had one moment that i still cringe about looking back
   girl i was into back then who i helped out of an abusive relationship got a crush on another guy who wasnt that nice to me and some other friends so i kinda got frustrated and said some stupid stuff
   a week later i realized that i had been a dumbass, apologized to her and now we’re still good friends, i ended up befriending the guy and the girl is now with someone else who really cares about her (i havent had feelings for her in a very long time)

6. First couple years out of high school – basically, I watched what other successful friends were doing and realized that niceness (especially the resentful passive-aggressive niceness exhibited by NiceGuys) is orthogonal to attractiveness. If you are attractive and outgoing, you’ll have to fight off the women with a stick regardless of whether you’re genuinely nice or a complete asshole.

   Inversely, if the best thing that you can say about yourself is that you’re “nice,” you have absolutely nothing going for you… which means that you’re SOL with the above because you are definitely not attractive.

7. After my last fiancée cheated and tried to baby trap me with another man’s kid. Basically, the answer to both questions.

8. I started turning my focus inward, working on myself, I started to see the impact focusing on other people was having on them (not in a good way) and decided I needed to change and work on not being self-destructive, it’s cliché but it really does work

9. I wasn’t a nice guy in the context of how that subreddit is listed… I was a doormat and a push over. Never verbalized issues I had in fear of retaliation or upsetting the other individual. Just internalized all the wrong they said I did and tried to change those aspects of myself even if it was truly hard to do.

   This caused insane resentment and anxiety that I also
   Internalized to keep away from view of others. I thought I was being nice by trying to be everything someone else wanted but in reality I just looked like a fool.

   Took therapy to learn to standup for myself in the context of a relationship and that my needs are as important as the other participant. My nature has always been a people pleaser because it gives me a sense of purpose but unfortunately it bites me in the ass more often than not /=

10. I realized it’s not natural and being your normal self is far easier and more organic.

11. You realize after like 10 girls in a row all friend zone you but come around when they want to complain about their bf that they keep runing back too.

    You start to figure out real quick that they dont want what they say they do, and the only real way youre ever gonna get a girl to care is by not being the nice guy they claim to want.

12. When I was around 19 I saw a comic on funnypics that showed things from woman’s perspective and I realised how fucking stupid I was being. It was a real growth moment

13. 40’s , still have good heart but realised that being too nice can be seen as a weakness by some. Opportunists out there. I have been a slow learner in this department.

14. Nearly everyone in my life has fucked me over in some way so I just stopped caring what others thought and did what makes me happy. Don’t like it? Don’t be a part of it

15. The army, kid. When you are a sergeant, (for me at 25) if you don’t radiate authority and confidence, your men will walk right over you. Since then I have been berated by admirals and generals, didn’t flinch once, and just told them that they were wrong and should let me do my job.

16. I woke and realized who the fuck I am god damnit

17. i was a teenager and also I realized sometimes things don’t work out, and to do things for people out of ingenuity only makes me a worse person! I also became less interested in relationships and also became more aware that platonic relationships are much more satisfying and I should never overstep that! I am comfortable where I am, being with myself 🙂

18. About nine years ago. I stopped giving a f..k about people and what they thought of me and focused on my own needs. I live for myself nowdays and what I want.

19. had been switching many times between those two and its hell of a ride. why did my views change? i realized its totally okay to be nice to someone who turns out not to be. thats their decision.
    if you did your part right you will always be clear headed and being hurt is gonna go away one day but regret wont. i needed a person to teach me this, and now hopefully i will sort myself out for the sake of not hating myself.
    dont be a dick to others because someone else did that to you

20. Realizing that it’s better to be a “respectful guy” than a “nice guy.” It’s important to make sure you do what’s best for you and nice guys are generally too worried about what everyone else thinks. Once you realize that you are the most important person in your life, and act accordingly, then you will be much happier. You can still be nice to people while putting yourself first which is why I labeled it as being a respectful guy.

21. Because I, like many “nice guys”, wasn’t actually a good man. I was spiteful, too dependant on attention, too easily jealous, and I was weak. I was only a child, 12-14, and I feel like that’s the stage many young men go through. I grew out of it by the time I was 16.

22. I was always a non-spoken niceguy, but I didn’t know that – I had the niceguy thoughts and never verbalized or acted on them. Until I found out that other people thought the same way, the reactions people had to Nice Guys made me seriously reconsider my own thought processes. I realized my thoughts were toxic af.

    I’m still not very verbal, I’m asexual so I never felt the need to “hunt” for women (or men) so staying single never bothered me enough to verbalize and act on my, what I then realized, fucked up views on my own entitlement. I mean I guess outside of my own mind, nothing changed, I’m still just that one dude who doesn’t hit on anyone, but I think it’s still good to have changed internally as much as I could change.

23. Partly lost it due to going to the gym and getting laid in my early 20s. Typical reasons.

    Lost the rest of the toxic thoughts after my divorce. The sexual liberation made me recognize the simplicity of it all and the humanity I was ignoring.

24. at first it was “i’m a nice person, why doesn’t anyone seem to like it?”

    to “women don’t like nice guys”

    to “NO ONE likes nice guys”

    you don’t have to be an asshole but just be yourself. don’t hold yourself on a pedestal bc you’re a “people pleaser” or “better than that jerk”.

    hold yourself to your own standards. take accountability for your actions, personality, and mindset in every relationship you have, whether it be platonic, romantic, sexual, etc.

25. I would say that I was a mild example of Nice Guy in my early 20s. Eventually a few people did stop talking to me but I never really connected the dots. Some friends did have some words with me that were eye opening and my girlfriend outright called me out.

    I’m better now but sometimes in the back of my head I still automatically feel entitled to affection or compliments whatever. It’s brief though fortunately. I just dismiss it and move on.

26. A lot of being a “nice guy” stems from really poor communication and confidence. When I was younger in my late teens, I hadn’t had a lot of luck dating, but I knew (as we all do) that I wasn’t a bad person, and rather than asking what I could be doing differently to make myself more attractive, I’d always put my rejection off onto others and make it their fault for not being more open minded about dating me, I’d look for any potential entry into dating someone, like I’d keep conversations with girls going for what, in retrospect, was far longer than they wanted to talk to me for and they were just humouring me not to annoy or offend me.

    A big part of getting past that is just growing up and maturing. Now that I’m older, I see a lot of those nice guy posts and cringe and remember how my dumbass self at 19 could EASILY have wound up on there. I think as I got older, I actually started to mature, I had relationships, I met more people and got a more realistic understanding of what people look for and how so much of my issues were as simple as me just being a directionless idiot. And another part of it is being able to put yourself in their shoes. Like… if a girl I wasn’t into kept messaging me (this is something I’ve actually experienced) I’d just humour them too and that’s nothing against them it’s just the fact of “hey I don’t like you like that but I can tell you want me to”

    Idk. It’s a very long process of just growing up, putting aside some emotional baggage and patience that if you work on yourself you’ll come out ok, and you don’t have a right for someone else to want to date you. My old attitude is actually the biggest thing I regret about kid me as it actually wound up driving away a girl I was with because I was just SO neurotic and lacking in confidence, always second guessing myself and our relationship, always telling her how she felt about me and how she should feel about me.

    It’s really hard to explain and isn’t an overnight thing, rather it’s something you just look back on one day and think “CHRIST I was saying this shit?”. I actually recently found some DMs of mine from 2015 trying to get girls and Jesus Christ I’d smack myself silly if I met me in 2015.