relationship advice

Over the last couple months, I saw some good threads on reddit that opened my eyes to the way dating works. Of course, now I can't find them. But I wanted to write/expound upon them before I forgot them. Both for any future kids and just general knowledge.

1. Befriending vs Attracting

I'll start with what I think is a typical occurrence. A guy starts liking a girl. Probably because of looks first, but if there's more to it (they share a similar sense of humor, they're both easygoing, or share interests or whatever) then it develops into a crush. So now a guy has a crush on a girl. What does he do?

He's nice to her. He might give her a compliment, he might carry her books, he might make her food. In his head, he's hoping that she'll see how nice he is and want to date him. (And when that doesn't happen, he might complain that she likes bad boys or assholes. But more on that later.) But what is he really doing? He's befriending her. He's doing nice things that a friend would do.

And here's where some guys seem to complain that "she friendzoned me." That she thinks of me only as a friend, when I want to date her. Well as the saying goes "girls are not machines that you put kindness coins into until sex falls out." She didn't friend zone you. You became her friend. And you never gave her a reason to think of you as anything more than that.

In other words, you befriended her. But you never attracted her.

It seems sort of simple, but this was the revelation to me. It probably never occurred to me, because you never think of the girl as doing anything to "attract" you in the first place. But she did, even if was just being herself.

So what's the solution? I don't know that I have this part figured out. And I sincerely believe the advice isn't to be someone you're not. But it's not just be nice either.

I think it's probably starts with believing that you're worth being attracted to. That you can tell a funny story, be comfortable with who you are, and not worry about whether you're attracting her at all.

2. Girls Like Jerks

Here's another common story. "Nice guys finish last. I'm so nice to this girl. And she wants to date the guy that's mean to her. He rides a motorcycle and doesn't remember her birthday."

(You'll notice that these two points do overlap.) I fully believed this story for a long time. And just chalked it up to "girls like bad boys," as a sort of rebellion that I didn't understand. But here's what clicked for me recently on reddit.

a. Girls aren't attracted to bad boys. Girls are attracted to guys with confidence.
b. Nice guys often hear girls talking about the problems in a relationship, either while it's happening or after a break-up. Girls rarely gush to their guy friends about how great their boyfriend is. But they have no problem mentioning that their boyfriend was a jerk the other day. So nice guys perceive that girls are in relationships with jerks, but that's probably not the full story. I suppose that sort of covers point B.

Point A is something that I suppose nice guys have heard all their life and then shrug their shoulders and whine about how am I supposed to have confidence if every girl always shuts me down. Here's what I say to that: Fucking nut up. Fake it 'til you make it. Girls have not shut you down. You've shut yourself down. If you go up to a girl and really believe (like truly believe it) that you are worth talking to, you'll be fine. Or don't. Continue whining.

I don't know why this turned angry, but I read so many posts about friendzones and lack of confidence that it annoys me. No company wants to hire the applicant that doesn't believe he can do the job. And no girl wants to date a guy that doesn't believe in himself.