This rant was writ­ten for the Whar­ton Under­gra­duate Journal

This is a tri­bute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whi­ning and bitching about what assho­les guys are, while dis­pro­ving the very point. This is dedi­ca­ted to those guys who always pro­vide a shoul­der to lean on but res­train them­sel­ves to ten­ta­tive hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reas­su­ring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the chan­ging room at depart­ment sto­res. This is in honor of the guys that obli­gingly rei­te­rate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appro­priate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of sup­port. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back atti­tu­des, with honest con­cern. This is in honor of the guys who res­pect a girl’s every facet, from her pri­vacy to her theo­logy to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewil­de­red female friends back from par­ties and never take advan­tage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accom­pany girls to bars as buf­fers against the rest of the creepy male popu­la­tion, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for com­pli­ments but give them out any­way, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor chea­ters, for the guys who are acc­re­di­ted as boy­friend mate­rial but somehow don’t end up being boy­friends, for all the nice guys who are over­loo­ked, unde­res­ti­ma­ted, and unap­pre­cia­ted, for all the nice guys who are mani­pu­la­ted, mis­led, and unjustly aban­do­ned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent mes­sa­ges on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours pains­ta­kingly dis­sec­ting two sen­ten­ces her boy­friend said to her over din­ner. And even though you thought her boy­friend was a chump and a jerk, you assu­red her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she inte­rrup­ted the best killing spree you’d ever orches­tra­ted in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that roman­ti­cally lin­ked her and the guy she thinks is the most repul­sive per­son in the world. And even though you thought it was imma­ture and you had nothing against the guy, you pau­sed the game for two hours and hel­ped her con­coct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after nume­rous vows that there was nothing “serious” bet­ween the two of you, she drag­ged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flir­ted sha­me­lessly with you, jus­tif­ying each fit of rec­kless tea­sing by announ­cing to ever­yone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invi­ted purely as a sym­bo­lic warm body for her ego, you went any­ways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get cre­dit where cre­dit is due. And perhaps more dis­tur­bing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logi­cally explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have obser­ved on cam­pus and what I have lear­ned from tal­king to friends at other schools and in the work­place, the only conc­lu­sion I can form is that many girls are just illo­gi­cal, mani­pu­la­tive bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when pre­sen­ted with such a spe­ci­men, they say irra­tio­nal, con­fu­sing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boy­friend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t pos­sibly ask him out!” or the most frus­tra­ting of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they con­ti­nue to lament the lack of data­ble men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sym­pathize and apo­lo­gize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my abi­lity to fathom. I can’t figure out why the con­nec­tion breaks down bet­ween what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this com­plete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phe­no­me­non doesn’t last fore­ver. There are defi­ni­tely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and rea­lize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for gran­ted. The tricky part is fin­ding those girls, and even tric­kier, fin­ding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I pro­pose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hea­ring your­self desc­ri­bed as ubi­qui­tously nice. But the truth of the mat­ter is, the world needs your patience in the depart­ment store, your hol­ding open of doors, your party escor­ting ser­vi­ces, your pro­pen­sity to be a suc­ker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tole­rate, for all the situa­tions where you are the face­less, name­less hero, my acco­la­des, my ack­now­led­ge­ment, and my gra­ti­tude go out to you. You do have cre­di­bi­lity in this society, and your well deser­ved vin­di­ca­tion is coming.

Fu-zu Jen, SEAS/WH, 2003

ori­gi­nal url: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~jenf/writing/rant04.html

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