Do Nice Guys Really Finish Last?

As Mr. Nice Guy myself, sometimes I wonder.

Lindo Shandu
The Orange Journal
Published in
9 min readJul 4, 2022

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Jackie Chan with Miki Lee on the set of Mr Nice Guy
Photo of Nikolett Molnár from Instagram
· Perks of being Mr. Nice Guy
· Pitfalls of being Mr. Nice Guy
· Be a nice guy with boundaries
· Nice guys vs simps
· What do nice guys and sigma males have in common?
· Conclusion

Mona Lazar, you say nice guys never get the girl, but I beg to differ and I’ll tell you why. Madison Bovee, I think this will also interest you.

Being a nice guy definitely has its perks, but it also has its pitfalls. However, in my opinion, pros outweigh the cons.

Perks of being Mr. Nice Guy

As Mr. Nice Guy myself, I’ve gained a lot from being this way. I’ve grabbed the attention of a number of the nicest people I’ve ever met, most of them becoming my friends.

I’ve also had numerous opportunities shared with me by those I am nice and respectful towards. I got my current job this way. A friend of mine thought of me when he saw a job post and shared it with me and for which I applied and got employed for.

I also grabbed the attention of a few potential lovers in the past from being nice and decent. I just didn’t go out with them because I didn’t feel the same way about them as they did about me. I’m not being arrogant. I’m just being honest.

Turns out there’s girls out there who are into nice guys, including nerds like myself. So, do nice guys really finish last? I’m not too sure.

My take is that girls do want nice guys because it’s literally the bare minimum, but that we want guys that have more personality than just simply being “nice”. — Madison Bovee.

If you aren’t too sure whether nice guys are cool or not, think of the big names such as Keanu Reeves, Jackie Chan, and Johnny Depp to name a few. All three of these guys are well-known for being nice, regardless of their high social status. It’s their trademark that makes them global treasures, plus they have personality and charisma on top of simply being nice.

In fact, being nice is not a weakness. It’s a flex that can get you far in life. At the end of the day, we all need each other to make any progress in life. In anything that you do, you do need the support of other people and if you are not a nice person, then how do you expect others to help you get to where you want to be? I for one would never support any person who is not nice to me.

Most importantly, most people treat me with respect and humility because I treat them the same way.

So, be nice.

I’ve had a couple of strangers recently who confirmed my nice guy aura within seconds of having met me for the first time. One told me that he could tell that I’m a good guy, organized and obedient, and he was not wrong. However, I must let you know that my obedience has grown boundaries.

I no longer do everything I’m told to do just because someone, more like an elder, told me to do it. They must explain themselves by telling me why I should do it, but it also depends on what it is that they are asking me to do.

The second stranger who confirmed my niceness was a waitress in a restaurant who after having exchanged greetings with her blatantly told me that I seem nice. I hadn’t even made my order at that moment and I had my face mask on. She even asked me to briefly take it off to confirm what she had thought of me.

Both incidences have informed me about the kind of impression I give off to people and the aura I radiate the first time they meet me. I look approachable, trustworthy, radiate a positive energy, and people feel safe around me. I have no complaints about this. The last thing I’d want is for people to feel at unease in my presence. Even though I am all these things, I still have boundaries that I have zero tolerance of being crossed. So, you better not mess with me!

Pitfalls of being Mr. Nice Guy

Now, as for the pitfalls of being nice, there’s only a couple I can think of, at least as far as I’m concerned. When you’re nice, you get taken advantage of, disrespected and taken for a fool for your kindness sometimes, but that shouldn’t stop you from being nice and kind. You just have to know where to draw the line and not take shit from anyone.

Secondly, when you’re often nice, you face quite a backlash when you say or do the wrong thing. This is because being nice comes with high expectations. It’s like you have less room to make mistakes. Saying the wrong thing, which I barely do, has actually cost me a potential lover and a potential friend in the past, but I guess us going our separate ways was probably for the best.

Be a nice guy with boundaries

As much as it is 100% okay to be a nice guy, it’s so important to be a nice guy with boundaries and self-respect. This is what differentiates between a nice guy and a simp. Simps are also nice guys, but they are overly nice and needy and with little to no boundaries and self-respect compared to nice guys.

Nice guys vs simps

Ever had a guy who went out of his way just to impress you and get your attention? That was a simp and I’m sure you weren’t into him. Those are the kind of guys that finish last, if they even get to the finish line. I was once simp-like towards someone before and as you may have already guessed, I never got her, but the experience taught me to have boundaries and self-respect.

Allow me to talk about my encounter with this person. I’m kinda about to bleed my heart out here.

I must admit that I was exceptionally heartbroken when I couldn’t get the girl. She was the girl of my dreams after all. Nobody has ever swept me off my feet and took my breath away like she did. I fell crazy, stupidly, and incredibly in love with her. She was the first hot girl I had ever met who I did not believe for a split second that I didn’t stand a chance with her. The words ‘out of my league’ became non-existent in my vocabulary.

She wasn’t the one who broke my heart. I broke my own heart by falling in love with someone I couldn’t have, not to mention someone I barely even knew. I couldn’t get her no matter how hard I tried to get her to notice me. This happened the following year after the day we first met which felt like the happiest day of my life at the time.

I gave my heart to someone who couldn’t catch it because she was not even aware that she was the recipient or perhaps she stole my heart and didn’t know what to do with it.

I wasn’t wiling to let her slip away from my mind, heart and soul anytime soon. So, I started stalking her and the more I did that, the further she slipped from me and I never got the chance to tell her how I really felt. My love for her started as a crush, then developed into love, then turned into infatuation, then became toxin-like. Sometimes I wept at the thought of her.

I had become overly emotionally attached to this person. I was going insane! Loving her began consuming my energy. At times I also felt like my happiness and self-worth revolved around her. I put her on a pedestal and that was my biggest mistake!

There were also times when I saw her even when I didn’t see her. Only those who have been in love before will understand that one. I loved her so much it really hurt. My heart bled for her. Ever loved somebody that much? I really thought and believed that I was going to end up with her, but I guess the person you think is the one for you isn’t always the one for you.

Eventually, I decided to let go. It was time for me to pick my heart back from the ground. My decision to move on from her marked the beginning of the opening of my third eye.

To heal from my self-inflicted pain and heartbreak of loving someone for 3 consecutive years without having that love reciprocated, I started expressing that pain and heartbreak in writing. Writing had become my new form of therapy and self expression and I slowly but surely found healing from it. The more I wrote, the more I enjoyed and got better and better at it, and the more I understood myself. Eventually, I decided to express myself in writing publicly and that was when I found out about Medium. The rest is history.

If it wasn’t for having met this person, I wouldn’t have become this phenomenal writer that you see today. I wouldn’t have found my love for and gift of writing. Before her, my romance vocabulary was non-existent. This may sound a bit fat-fetched but meeting this person evoked in me courage to go after what I want. If you knew what I did to get her attention, even though it was stalkerish, you’d realize that it took balls.

So, my unexpected encounter with her was a blessing in disguise. She was my wake-up call to rediscover myself and for that, she’ll always be dear to me.

What can I say? The girl both ruined and refreshed me by taking my breath away without even meaning to.

Just so you know, after her I never loved anyone else as much as I did with her, but believe me when I say I never threw the keys to unlock my heart away. I still hope and believe that someday I will love someone who will actually reciprocate my love twice as much. I deserve that. Someone out there is the one I’m meant for and compatible with. It’s only a matter of time before I finally meet her, if we haven’t already met. As cheesy as it may sound, I still believe in true love, just no longer the one you see in romcoms.

If you are of the impression that I’m a nice guy who finished last with the girl I’ve been talking about, truth is I couldn’t even make it to the starting position if you catch my drift.

I didn’t get the girl not because I was nice, but because I was being simp-like.

What do nice guys and sigma males have in common?

As you can see, nice guys, just like sigma males, wear their hearts on their sleeves for those they care deeply for like I did with the girl, but the difference is that nice guys, just like sigma males, respect themselves enough to know when it’s time to back off. They don’t force any kind of relationship with anyone if they can see it’s not working out. They walk away with their dignity still intact when their efforts are no longer recognized, appreciated and reciprocated, just like I did with my former dream girl. That’s why I used the term ‘simp-like’ rather than ‘simp.’

I am a nice guy and I don’t wish to be anything else.

I have 2 other nice guys in my family, both my uncles, and they have been married for a decade. I’m going to follow in their footsteps.

Conclusion

Having said that, nice guys don’t finish last. It’s just a myth that they do. They can get and keep the girl, like my uncles did, and if they can do it, so can I, and so can you!

toj

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Lindo Shandu
The Orange Journal

Top Writer in Psychology. Fraud Solutions Specialist by day, Writer by night.