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Perhaps the best thing about having married young is
that I spent little time dating. Accordingly, I did not burn much
energy fretting over how to impress women; the one I had didn’t make
me guess and there was no need to worry about the others.
Many of my single pals, on the other hand, exhausted every waking
moment trying to figure out what the other sex wanted. Their
conclusion: Women say they like nice guys but really prefer jerks.
As proof they offered the fact that I had a great wife, but also
ticked off a list of wonderful female friends who had latched onto
shaky characters.
Their own problem, my buddies griped, was that they were just too
darned nice for their own good. Probably too handsome, too.
Robert Glover, author of “No More Mr. Nice Guy!”, Barnes & Noble
Digital, might agree. He describes a nice guy as a fellow who works
so hard for approval from others, particularly women, that he makes
himself and everyone else miserable.
“Nice Guys are
concerned about looking good and doing it ‘right,’”
Glover writes. “Nice
Guys are especially concerned about pleasing women and being
different from other men. In a nutshell, Nice Guys believe that if
they are good, giving, and caring, they will in return be happy,
loved, and fulfilled.” This no-win situation, says Glover, is the
result of a female dominated education system and decades of
complaints by women that men are creeps.
Blaming other people for your problems doesn’t seem very
nice. Glover bases his theory on observations from his
psychotherapy practice and claims to be a recovering nice guy
himself.
He was cured by his wife,
oddly enough, after days of moping over some perceived slight by
her.
When he finally blew up she responded, “You’re right, I
did treat you badly, but it was your job not to hang around me.
It’s your job to pull off the road, get out the cell phone and call
me a cab, but do it with love.”
“Calling a cab with love” thus became a catch phrase in
Glover’s treatment of the clinically wussy. I understand the point,
though if I tried that I’d probably need to call an ambulance for
myself. I’m not a “Nice Guy” in Glover’s hand-wringing,
always-capitalized sense, but there is plenty of territory between
“milksop” and “jerk.”
Glover’s wife, incidentally, is also a psychotherapist, which must
make for excruciating arguments. Spouses often accuse each other of
trying to play analyst; these two can do it for real. In the wrong
hands this could be a match made, well, someplace not nice.
Apparently they’ve worked it out; Glover is still
married and has turned the “No More Mr. Nice Guy!” concept into a
full-fledged business. Besides the book, there are seminars, a
five-day “NMMNG Seattle Summer Institute” (at $800 per wimp),
support groups, a
Web site, and a
newsletter.
Glover’s isn’t the only book with controversial guidance
on male-female relations. In
Ephesians, the apostle
Paul advises “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord,”
stirring indignation in those not grounded in the Biblical notion of
submission – and, to be fair, in some who are.
However the sentence before that reads “Submit
to one another out of reverence for Christ.” It’s a two-way street;
Paul continues: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved
the church and gave himself up for her … In this same way, husbands
ought to love their wives as their own bodies.” I’m not sure
calling a cab qualifies.
Glover is right to bemoan the overly sensitive new-age wannabe, but
the answer is in the same old book where it has always been. No
$800 seminars required.
Are you a Nice Guy?
Take this quiz.
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