The Nice Guy

I was recently talking with a female friend of mine one night after a rehearsal for a show that we were in. We were driving home and the topic of dating came up. How it was different in Utah(mainly in the Provo/Orem areas) then other places that she had lived in. It was interesting to get some points of views on things. She asked me why I haven't been married yet or even had a gf for a steady amount of time over the last few years. We talked about a few different things and some of them I would like to share with you today.

That talk left me with a lot of questions and I went on to thinking that night about girls I've come a crossed in the past, dates I've been on and the girls that I've had a meaningful relationship with. Also a little insight to myself, I love to people watch. It is one of my favorite things to do. Watching couples interact as they go through the day is also one of my favorite things and it has shown me a lot of what girls and guys alike tend to look for in the opposite sex and how they get it. It has also opened my eyes to a world of different tactics per say, in the way that girls look for certain guys and so on. Sorry ladies this is a post mainly to you, because being a guy I tend to not watch them as much, however I do watch how they treat you, and that is how I want to start my process today..

I remember one day in class when I was 7 a girl in front of me that I had liked for a long time. Gotta love those elementary school crushes right? She was a pretty great girl for a 7 year old. We used to play on the swings at recess together and shared lunches and all that gooey stuff that gave us cooties back in the day as kids. One day though she didn't swing with me she was swinging with the new kid. Well needless to say, I got mad and defensive and went over and pushed her off the swing. She cut her elbow cried and ran off. I know I was a little poop head, but at the time I felt pretty good for showing her how what she did made me feel hurt. Well I was pretty happy with myself till I got home. I walked into the front door of my house and my grandparents were over, yay grandparents! I loved seeing them, usually cause they took me to the beach. Well not on this day. My grandfather came over to me with my dad put his hand on my shoulder and asked me if we could go in my room and have a little chat. We got into my room sat down and my dad left the room. I had no idea what was going on. He then asked me about this girl in class and what happened that day. I was blown away that he knew about the incident. Turns out she went and told her teacher who called my parents. My grandpa then proceeded to tell me how that was one of the worst things I could do in my life. Treating a girl with disrespect. I come from an LDS family and we talked about how women are daughters of God and my grandpa even threw in that they are here to help us men become more like Christ. The conversation went on for a good hour(imagine my attention span at this point) and he left the room. Now many of you will read this and be like "really'? as a 7 year old this had an impact on you? Well honestly it really did. I have done my best to treat women like the angels they are and be that nice guy from then on. Sure I have slipped up, but I'm human it's bound to happen. Now that I am older and looking for someone that I can call my companion and wife I see that being the nice guy really isn't working for me at all. I've never really understood why.

Some of my favorite first dates that I have been on with girls is the typical going to a restaurant talking getting to know each other then go see a play, or some event. I love opening doors for girls and things of that nature. Call me old fashion but oh well, it's the way I was raised and its the way I'll stay. I've never asked a girl out on a date via text message so wrong that is...but that's for another day. Here's the thing though in our dating world today that type of nice guy has become very old fashioned and frightens a lot of girls away. Example; around Valentines day last year our bishop pulled a few of the guys out of Elders Quorum and took them into the Relief Society to have a talk. The 3 guys were kinda set up like a panel to be asked questions by the ladies about dating and what they like to see on first dates and such. One of the guys is a good friend of mine and we have the same style of dating so to speak. Neither of us get past the first date and our bishop asked why. He kinda put one girl on the spot that I had gone out with but never heard back from why she had said no to a second date and now avoided me at church(I heard about this after the meeting). She said that while I was very nice and treated her well, she thought it was too well, and that she didn't think that she deserved to be treated that well. Our bishop then asked for a show of hands of what girls in the room were turned off by a guy that treated them well. He was surprised that most of the girls in the class raised their hands. He asked the boys to leave then had a nice talk the rest of the hour about how that didn't make sense at all to him, and how they should look for a guy that does treat them like the angels that they are and to settle for nothing but.

I guess that is what this post is trying to get at. I've noticed so many girls "settling" if you will for a guy that treats them like anything but the person they deserve to be treated like, but because he makes lots of money, has a nice car, house, dresses like an male model has a great body etc. they look past the way they are treated because they have the guy every other girl wants. Now, I'm not saying the amount of money a guy spends on a date is the sole determining factor, not ever guy is in a position to take a girl out to a nice dinner and so on. But it's in the way that he treats her that will leave the girl thinking this guy really has invested time and sincerely wants to get to know me for me and not just get in my pants. But I've noticed quite a lot of girls that will readily look past that and end up with the kind of guy that they think they need to be with, nice car, money, house etc. and are surprised when this guy with all this nice stuff treats her like crap. I myself have been told many times that I am too nice or treat them too well by someone that I genuinely cared about and wanted to pursue a relationship with. Never understood that. I spent many a night at 4 in the morning in a parking lot with a good friend of mine that would come to me for advice on a guy she was dating that basically only wanted one thing from her. He treated her like she was the scum of the earth until she would succumb to his every wants and needs. I sat there for many nights just listening to her go on about him and how she should leave him. The next day message would be "Oh Mont, he took me for a drive in his Camaro today I swear he is the one" I would just sit back in awe and just wait for the phone call that night of can we please go talk about him, he did this to me. He never physically hurt her, but mentally and I think that the mental abuse a woman gets from someone she thinks truly cared about her would hurt more then anything else. So night after night I went through this with my friend till one night I came to her with a list. The list was a pro's and con's list. I basically asked her to write down what the pro's and con's were of the relationship she had with him. the con's list went on for a good almost page and the pro's list was all things that were worldly things. He took me shopping to buy a shirt to replace the one he made fun of. I then asked her if she could make a list of things she would want from the guy that she wants to marry. We both looked at that list and she just started to cry. Her boyfriend at the time had almost nothing in common with the list that she had made for her ideal guy. She looked at me and said well that's ok I don't want to get married yet. Well even if you don't want to get married why are you not seeking for that man that has all those qualities that you want in a husband?


Now what does all this have to do with Provo or our little happy valley? no, they're not on some reality show flaunting their goods. But it all begets a vicious cycle that the Nice Guys are caught up in. Nice guys don't ask girls out because they get rejected...and girls reject the good ones because they don't feel they are worthy of being treated well but say yes to the wrong guys thinking that is supposed to be the norm...so the Nice Guys get low-self esteem from being rejected all the time while the girls get lower and lower self-esteem from being treated like crap by the guys that are a dime a dozen guys. And the cycle continues. Now I in now way am trying to take girls down and make them feel like they are dumb or stupid or that they don't know what they are doing in their lives, rather I ask that they take a step back and look at where their standards have been and what they are now. Have they changed from what they were when you were younger? and if they have changed what is the reason for this change? Because in the end when we finally do come to that day we take the plunge and get married, we are the ones who picked our spouse. No one else but you makes that final choice to marry that man for the rest of your lives. So wouldn't you want someone that treats you like the way that deep down you knew you should always be treated? Or do you wanna wake up next to the guy that has it all yet you go to bed at night crying because of something he said o did to you?

I may still be single and looking but believe me when I say any future girls in my life and when the time comes my wife will be treated like a queen. I know without a doubt that I will screw up in my life with her and I know that all I can do to make that better is be a better man then I was the day before, and guy's love your girlfriends and wife's from the bottom of your heart, so she will always know no matter what happens in your life's together that you are are always there for her.