- A Bad Vibe
- Talk to Strangers With Caution and Humility
- Nothing Is Better Than Wrong
- Take Heed of the Dead
- Hot Take: Be Better
- Prove Them Wrong and Work
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This is a post about labels.
Labels can be damaging or provide a boost to one’s efforts, one’s psyche. They mark one and one’s role in the world. That is power. And that power makes labels dangerous.
This is also a post about guys (i.e. the masculine parts of society, using the shorthand “men” here) and the “nice” label. “Nice Guy” is a dangerous label.
Let us talk about why this is.
Damning with faint praise.
Alexander Pope
A Bad Vibe
What is the first thing you think of when you hear “nice guy”?
Caring? Respectful? Agreeable? Someone to commit to?
All pretty nice.
How about boring? Less successful? Someone to save for later? A pushover? Easy? Entitled? Humble to a fault? Weak? Victim? Finishes last? A loser?
Every one of those is an association with the “nice guy.” While considered quality people, nice guys lack the qualities feminine and masculine folks value: Successful, Ambitious, Strong, Tough, Attractive, Authentic. Nearly every positive trait of a nice finishes last on lists of what makes for the attractive masculine.
Labeling someone a “nice guy” thereby strips the person of success, strength, ambition, attractiveness, or etches a scarlet letter as one to avoid (which may be rightly so – read on for better ways to do this). That cognitive dissonance is a terrible thing to do to someone who thinks of themselves as higher quality. That is a bad vibe.
At home I am a nice guy, but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.
Muhammad Ali
Talk to Strangers With Caution and Humility
Malcom Gladwell had it right – the unknown is cast in shadow. A person must take caution when treading dimly, as roots and pits and grues and strange things lie in the dark. What, then, is stranger than another person?
Even best friends, lovers, partners of decades can surprise, deliver something new, something unknown and strange. Does that not reveal for but a moment the other person to be a true stranger?
Does that not reveal that two persons can hardly know each other completely, each other’s capacities? Histories?
These unknown people, they are strangers.
All this is just talk of other people – make no mention that about 90% of people are unaware of what they themselves do.
One ought talk to (and about) strangers with caution and humility. Nothing on the surface is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as it seems.
Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Nothing Is Better Than Wrong
When it comes to data, having no information is better than acting on the wrong information.
A driver steps on the accelerator when they think they have the right of way as another driver thinks the same, food has an allergen when it advertises otherwise, a doctor gives a prescription thinking the patient can take it, money is invested in a business that admits to a sounder foundation than actual. Bad data leads to worse results than no data at all.
Mislabeling “nice guys” is the same bad data. While not all “nice guys” are mislabeled (more on that in a bit), too many are.
The mislabeling comes from a lack of imagination on the one giving the label. This is a treacherous thing to do for all those that hear the label and for the society in which they live.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas Paine
Take Heed of the Dead
Suicides are at all-time highs. Young men – guys – lead that charge. That is the better news.
What is worse is that the most dangerous societies trend in having young, broke, and alone men (e.g. only 3% of mass casualty events in the US are conducted by women).
To repeat, “nice guys” are considered less successful (broke), less attractive (alone), and have too much time to dwell on themselves and society (young – I skip a dive into the growing stats of at-home, directionless folks in their prime working years).
Take heed of the dead, especially those still alive. Choose better words than “nice guy.”
Masculinity is a wonderful thing and should be embraced. And to conflate toxicity and masculinity as bad for society […] I think it is an existential crisis for the United States.
Scott Galloway
Hot Take: Be Better
“Nice guy” is the “interesting” of labels. At best it is a flag of dire awareness, of the low-key danger someone poses; at worst, it is a cruel and careless copout.
Regardless of applicability, regardless of the harm it does or tries to prevent, “nice guy” reflects on the giver a slothful character. “Nice guy” is a lazy, inconsiderate, unimaginative, reckless way to slander, even with the best of intentions.
And should the “nice guy” truly be a sly hazard? Be better in calling a snake a snake – passive aggressive labels leave things in too vague terms. Half measures do more evil than good.
Same goes for oneself – never claim to be a “nice guy,” or associate with the lesser traits of the label, nor those who would take the term to heart for themselves. Another either/or: at best, being a “nice guy” undermines one’s own self worth, embracing being a loser; at worst, it screams entitlement and a dangerous, cowardly, pathetic demeanor.
Kind, compassionate, committed, dedicated, caring, thoughtful, capable, disciplined, loyal, dependable, sincere, quality, strong, excellent – there are so many, many labels. Wretched, pathetic, entitled, weakling, anathema, enemy, weasel, pushover, two-faced… When choosing to use one, be better. Choose to use better labels.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
proverb
Prove Them Wrong and Work
For those accused of being “nice guys,” address the offense as it comes. Polite assertiveness keeps both the little positive of the term (i.e. being agreeable, polite) and bolsters positive masculinity (i.e. assertiveness, audacity) all while protecting (“protector,” a high-quality masculine value) reputation and correcting someone in the act of doing something resentful.
Thereby, self-defense in the moment is justified and right when “nice guy” comes as a slight. Still… there may be a point. Maybe there is something to the term, something to the other person’s perspective.
Being the harshest critic available, a potential “nice guy” must take stock: What masculinity is lacking in demonstration? Or, if the term is meant as a brand to ward others away, what evil through ignorance or self-aggrandizement does one foster? Whichever the case, “how must I improve” is one of the most important examinations one can do that cannot be delayed in the answering.
Yet these are just words, no matter the weight of meaning. Acts are the only tangible evidence by which a person may be judged, the works by which said person may be known.
So make more than hot air in one’s defense. Do not claim or think; know and demo. Hold oneself to the highest standards of excellence in habit and thought, before and after the fact. To be (and thereby allow others to claim one as by their own perspective) attractive, ambitious, successful, guardian, et. al, these are the values to strive for always. These are the values that prove them wrong in using “nice guy” because the the work has been done to show for it.
[Be] acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.
John Fergusson Roxburgh
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It has always been a sore point for me to have anyone’s kindness or respect or empathy or care taken for granted. After the ever-useful journaling, meditation, and rubber-ducking in therapy, I now know why.
“Nice guy” rubs in all the wrong ways – see all the above for the tldr. For me, I do not need to be called such to empathize and recognize the pain “nice guy” can and does cause.
Please, do not use “nice guy” in conversation to imply anything but as it is: a slur, a warning of social abhorrence. Do not allow others to use “nice guy.” Yet, do not assume another is wrong in using “nice guy” – prove them wrong and do the work to be as you would see yourself.
Keep labels in mind as we commune with friend and family this holiday season, focusing on the time as it has passed, the times yet to come. Have these heart-to-hearts should the conversations arise, advocate for those guys still alive. Know better, be better, and hold others to better standards.
DO IT.
Shia LaBeouf
Go do fine and magnificent things this season, y’all. Cheers ~
Jimmy Chattin 