This Therapist Is Trying To Cure ‘Nice Guys’
No more Mr. Nice Guy — but what does that mean for women?
I n May 2017, a Reddit user by the name “HelpMePlease” posted a request for advice. He met a 19-year-old woman while working together at their university’s rec center. They had gotten lunch together, and he had given her tours of campus. “We hit it off immediately, and I knew I was in love instantly,” he wrote in the forum. When he asked her out, she said no. But he continued to give the woman gifts, call her, text her, and even follow her to another town, to “show her how much I love her.” She sent him a cease and desist letter.
“What do I do now that she thinks I am a total creep?” HelpMePlease wrote. “I know I have made some mistakes, but I promise I am a nice guy.”
Within a week, the story had been reposted in the subreddit /r/NiceGuys. The forum takes its name from a phenomenon that began to gain prominence in the early 2000s, when feminist websites like Heartless Bitches International published pieces arguing that self-proclaimed “nice guys” aren’t actually nice. Instead, Nice Guys think treating women with a basic level of respect is a bargaining chip that can be exchanged for attention, sex, or a relationship. When Nice Guys don’t get the exchange rate they expect, their behavior can become cruel and even violent.
