Why Nice Guys are Boring to Women

Recently, a commenter asked a question about my article “12 Traits All Boring, Unsexy Nice Guys Have in Common” – he wanted to know, specifically, why these traits, beliefs, and behaviors are so boring to women:

“Chase, I read your article about the 12 traits all boring, unsexy nice guys have. How do these traits in and of itself make a person boring? How does things like believing in karma or watching pundits make you boring? Is it possible that you could write about things men do that make them seem boring to women during conversation or in their actions? I don’t think you have that sort of list on this site.”

In case it’s been a while since you read that article, here’s a quick recap of boring nice guy traits:

He doesn’t mind waiting... and waiting...
He wants points for being ‘nice’
He gets upset when the world doesn’t play fair
He believes in ‘justice’, ‘karma’, or ‘just desserts’
He consumes a LOT of media
He thinks women are victims of men
He is extra soft, friendly, and gentle with women
He doesn’t have any interests or passions
He can’t understand why women want bad boys
He thinks women don’t REALLY like sex
He believes he must promise relationships to get sex
He can’t believe any girl could want him JUST for sex

Here’s a thought though; read that list. Imagine a man with those 12 traits. Would you like to have a friend like that? Or would you better prefer a friend who is the opposite of that?:

A guy with a lot to do who doesn’t wait around for long
A guy who, if he is nice, expects nothing back for it
A guy who shrugs if the world doesn’t play fair, then gets back to work
A guy who believes you only get what you get, no ‘karma’ about it
A guy who isn’t overly plugged into popular media
A guy who thinks women and men complement each other
A guy who is playful and flirtatious with women
A guy with several real interests and passions
A guy who knows exactly why women like bad boys... he is one!
A guy who knows women love sex (or at least they love it with him)
A guy who doesn’t give a woman relationship until well after their first sex
A guy who believes women want to take advantage of him sexually

Man, that’s a couple of totally different human beings right there, isn’t it? Do you know which guy you want to be friends with? I know which guy I want to be friends with. It ain’t the nice guy.

Why do those ‘nice guy’ traits make a man so unappealing though?

The Power Indicator

Read back through those two lists again. As you do, note down your thoughts about each item and what it says about how POWERFUL and how EFFECTIVE this man is.

Unless you just wandered in from Tumblr, I’m betting you can identify every or almost every trait in the ‘nice guy’ list as the sign of a powerless and ineffective man, and every or almost every trait in the ‘not a nice guy’ list as a sign of powerful and effective man.

The nice guy waits. Not because he’s just oh so nice, but because he hasn’t got anything better to do. The other guy isn’t going to wait around forever because he has lots to do, the sign of an effective man – his energies are employed, his talents engaged. The nice guy either doesn’t employ his talents/energies, or... he hasn’t got any in the first place.
The nice guy wants to win points for just basic human decency, which strongly implies he hasn’t got a whole lot else going on he can win points on. The other guy, if he’s nice, is just nice because it’s cool to be nice – it’s not an area he’s hoping to win points on. He’s got enough other things going on where he’s providing above-ordinary value and already gets so many points he doesn’t worry himself much about who’s giving them to him or who isn’t, and for what.
The nice guy gets upset when the world doesn’t play fair. This means it frustrateshim. This means his mental model is not expecting and does not account for ‘unfairness’. This guy can only function in a world in which everyone follows ‘the rules’, whatever those are. Does that sound like any world you’ve ever lived in? The other guy just takes the world as it is, and if things don’t work out, well, he adjusts. He’s adaptable. He doesn’t need a plastic bubble to inhabit.

... and so on and so forth. I won’t go through each of them, as that’d take a lot of room and I suspect you’re perfectly capable of figuring most of these out yourself.

What it comes down to, though, is this:

Traits women that bore women are, in fact, traits that signal a man’s powerlessness and ineffectiveness.

Women Want Powerful Men

That doesn’t necessarily mean they want muscle-bound men who can bench press 400 pounds or trained martial artists who can fight off three less-trained men. Nor does it mean they want to date celebrities with huge amounts of fame or business executives with ridiculous bank accounts. All these things help some if you’ve got ‘em going on though, of course.

But no – all this means is women want men who move through life getting what they want. They don’t want men who wait around for them, who drown themselves in the consumption of media instead of living life, who treat them like china dolls, who are passionate about nothing, and who think they don’t like sex.

Everything about a guy like that latter guy screams I can’t get what I want!

No woman wants to be with a guy like that.

No guy wants to be friends with a guy like that (assuming he has a choice).

And nobody’s stuck being that. Every guy can change. Many don’t want to make the effort, though; especially those trapped in victim mentality to one extent or another.

Just imagine a woman crying to her boyfriend that some guy just punched her in the face. And the boyfriend looks at her, squints, and says, “Don’t worry. Karma will get him.” Think she feels better? Or think she wants to punch him in the face?

A woman wants a man who’s powerful. She wants a man who:

Can protect her
Is busy with his mission
Is respected by other men
Is preselected by other women
Knows what he wants and what he stands for
Has solid frame control and isn’t easily shaken
Is decisive, engaged, and confident
Is good at something

He needn’t be a superhero, billionaire, or celebrity. Even many of those guys have surprisingly weak frames or aren’t as respected as one might think. He just needs to be a man who owns his own life. A man who is in charge of the square foot of land he’s standing on. One who gets what he wants and adapts if he doesn’t.

This is why Byronic character flaws work so well at enchanting women – they masquerade as ‘flaws’ or ‘vulnerabilities’, while in fact showing power and effectiveness, usually – while the powerless/ineffective ways ‘nice guys’ try to show vulnerability (such as going up to her and finally “telling her how he feels”... the very nature of which screams that he is at her mercy: he’s shown all his cards, and now she’s either going to make his dreams come true or crush them utterly) usually lead to women twisting their faces into odd contortions and begging off with “Well, I really like you too – you’re agreat friend!”

Behaviors Women Find Boring

I suggest, if you are dealing with any remotely nice guy-ish behavior or you ever find yourself stretching a little too far to accommodate women, you take a while to review your behavior and search for things you may have done that women would be likely to find powerless or ineffective... and, thus, boring.

To get you started, here’s a handful of items, per our commenter’s request:

You act pleased to accommodate impolite behavior: you’ve approached her and introduced yourself, and then she gets a text or a phone call and says, “Oh, excuse me,” and you rush to say, “Oh sure! Go ahead.”

What you should do: just give her a nod and act bored while you’re waiting. Put a little social pressure on her to end the call and resume talking to you. Don’t be a complete dick, but don’t patiently wait for her like you’re standing in line at the movie theater or something. She’s not the ticket master, she’s just some girl.
You qualify yourself to her: any time you start telling her all about yourself, listing your achievements, ‘spilling your beans’, anything like that, you are qualifying yourself to her. That’s nice to do with, say, an authority figure, such as a hiring manager interviewing you for a job you want. However, all a woman gets from this is, “This guy thinks I am way more powerful than he is.”

What you should do: don’t qualify yourself. Share little snippets of yourself – just enough to interest her – but don’t launch into five-minute-long tales of your adventures in high school unless you’re deep into connection-building, she’s already shared a ton, and you know this story is really going to click with her. Otherwise, deep dive her and have her qualify herself.
You ask her what she wants to do: this is okay to do sometimes with a girl who’s already your girlfriend or friend with benefits, but with a woman you haven’t slept with yet, it’s just deadly. Nothing says, “Hey, I’m just hanging out with you with no clear intention or game plan... we’re just hanging... yep, jes’ a couple of folks haaaaaaanging out...” than asking her what “So, what do you want to do?”

What you should do: build a process and have a game plan. You should always know what you want to do next with a girl, since you know what your end goal is, right? (hint: you want to have sex with her) A man who knows this is constantly thinking of ways to get himself closer to that goal – and that’s what she wants. A confident, effective man, who knows what he wants with her and guides the courtship there.
You don’t know how to flirt: there’s little more boring to a woman than a man who can’t flirt. If you’re bad at teasing women, bad at playful banter, bad at being playful in general, it’s just a clear sign you aren’t terribly experienced with the opposite, or terribly experienced socially in general.

What you should do: learn how to flirt! Spend time playing around with women; get good at teasing them. Suck them into you. This is such an important skill it’s crazy. You’ll do poorly with women until you learn how to flirt.

She’s Tired of Boring Men!

You don’t have to be exceptionally talented with women to start doing fairly well with them. Seriously. Most of the men women meet are just bad. They do whole bunches of these things wrong: they qualify themselves, get mad about the world being unfair, treat women like china dolls, flirt like 13-year-olds, and forget to smile. You’re not competing against a cadre of Casanovas here. Most guys suck with women.

However, you may find you’ve accumulated certain powerless or ineffective behaviors or mindsets over the years that hinder you with women. If doing well with women is a priority for you, it’s important you root them out. Not only do these beliefs and behaviors hamper your love life, they make you less appealing to other men as a friend, ally, employee, or associate.

When learning, simply keep the question in mind:

Does this belief/behavior make me seem more effective and powerful?

Or does it make me seem less?

Don’t bore women (or other men). There are enough boring people out there as it is. Be powerful, effective... and interesting.