It's Not Him, It's You: Why Being The Nice Girl Is The Reason You're Single

“I don’t get it,” my friend started on a recent Gchat. “The date went so well. No moments of weirdness or blackout bragging about how I pissed the bed and still got laid (lol remember that?), and I still haven’t gotten a text.”

It’s a situation that we’re all too familiar with and is still puzzling. You’re a smart, put together, good girl with an attractive disposition and killer wardrobe -- and yet, you’re still single. You’ve seen worse girls nab coveted guys, but you can’t even lock down a steady hookup. What gives?

I had to pause and really consider this for a while. My friend has everything going for her and she’s always been the nicest one of the group. What was it about her -- or rather, what wasn’t it about her that repelled potential suitors?

“Maybe you’re just too nice,” I offered, recalling the similar complaints of my male friends who assert that nice guys finish last.

Her description of the whole thing seemed to closely match their nice-guy predicaments. She did everything she was supposed to, right down to the casual day heels, and was still finding herself second-dateless. Because, like nice guys, nice girls finish last.

Men don’t want simply nice girls. It’s the same reason women don’t go for the simply nice guys. Nice equals plain. Nice equals boring. There’s nothing else to say about them.

“Stay confident in yourself, and don’t be nervous to make yourself a little vulnerable. Maybe tell him a slightly embarrassing story that will make him laugh more than it makes him cringe, like the time you thought your professor was a student and hit on him during class.” It was the best advice I could give via Gchat in the moment.

“NICE!” my friend replied.

“No, it’s just the opposite.”

Nice is one-dimensional

Being nice is like doing the bare minimum. It’s the most basic quality to present, there’s nothing behind it. We all know how to be nice (or at least fake being nice), so we need to do more to differentiate ourselves and add depth to an otherwise prepackaged date.

Men want the girl who shows interest, who doesn’t play by the standard set of “waiting until he texts me” rules.

A recent study from the University of Rochester, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya in Israel found that being responsive on a date is good thing. Men are more attracted to women who show they care and who are attentive to their words.

Fundamentally nice women need to not be afraid to be themselves, blunders and too many drinks in and all. There’s more to you than just “nice” or “kind” and that’s the part that makes you shine.

We’re not saying that it’s bad to be a nice girl. We’re saying that being nice is a stepping stone. It gets your foot through the door, but the rest of your personality is what keeps you there.

Nice girls don't ask for what they want

Nice girls finish last because they aren’t upfront with what they want. “Women often don’t get what they want and deserve because they don’t ask for it,” say researchers in the Harvard Business Review. In the dating world, this means that we’re not putting our desires out there.

We’re not going for it. We sit back and expect him to do all the work. We’re not asking him to meet up; we’re waiting for him to initiate the text. We’re not disagreeing when he says he wants to keep things casual.

Nice girls don’t put themselves on the line. They don’t say what they’re thinking when they really like somebody. They put all the power for things to progress in the man’s hands, without giving any hint of wanting something serious.

Nice girls finish last

How can you expect a guy to want to get to know you when you’re not revealing anything about yourself, other than the fact that you are nice?

We have become so scared of rejection that we act solely in an agreeable way, effectively masking anything that makes us different or flawed. We’re scared to be challenging or angry, or come across as aggressive.

But guess what? According to relationship author Sherry Agrov, men do, in fact, love feisty women who can stand their ground and establish boundaries. Being kind is just one part of the equation.

Nice girls are a dime a dozen. They have no intrigue, and show little in return. They just expect that being nice is enough. And maybe in the qualifying rounds, it is. But to get to the next level, you have to step it up.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It