Chemistry and "Ladders"

To be fair, there is such a thing as being too nice. We’ve all seen the kind of limp-wristed metro-sexual saps that live in the village and skip to work at the flower shop every day. Self-absorbed souls who feel compelled to emotionally vomit every 5 minutes and somehow end up spending more time talking about relationships than actually having them.

One of the things dating has taught me is that my own heart and soul have a story to tell… not a manifesto, or an inauguration speech, but a story… about who I am, where I’ve been, and where God is taking me. A big part of what women want, is the joy and serendipity of discovering that story… savoring its nuances one page, one vista at a time… and the privilege of helping me mend the torn pages in it. At times I’ve been so concerned with proving that mine isn’t a horror novel… Friday the 13th – Part 26… that instead of having faith in the process of getting to know a woman, I’ve been racing right to the end, wrecking the plot, and ruining all the mystery… when I could’ve been spending just as much, if not more time savoring their stories also, the way I’ve always longed to. Today, I have a lot more faith in the process, and as a result, more joy in letting the story unfold at a natural and healthy pace.

But that said, the havoc wreaked by excessive openness and “niceness” pales in comparison to its opposite, but you’d never know that from the dating choices of countless women these days. More often than not in my own relationships the “come hither/go away” cycle has reared its head at the very first sign of emotional availability on my part, long before anything that would’ve passed for “emotional vomiting” was evident… and after nowhere near the months or even years these women had invested in drama-laden relationships with narcissistic and emotionally distant men.

I understand why women avoid emotionally needy and excessively “nice” guys—I would too. But it’s revealing how many of them are exceedingly cautious with this extreme, yet utterly reckless with its opposite.

The Larger Picture

If this were my experience only I wouldn’t think twice about it. After all, it’s not like I’m God’s Gift and above having baggage of my own that I bring to relationships. My time would be (and in fact is) far better spent in counseling exploring the dark side of my own dating choices. ;) But countless men report similar experiences, and although it may come as a surprise to some, there is now a wealth of science behind it as well.

Over the last decade the ascendency of online dating, and more recently speed dating, has made it possible for sociologists to gather real-time, in situ data regarding the romantic and sexual preferences of men and women. Previously, research of this kind was confined to after-the-fact self-reporting data that was (and continues to be) fraught with the same denial and rationalization that characterizes so many online dating profiles and bitch-sessions at the salon. Today, researchers don’t have to rely on what we say we want in a partner… they can directly observe our actual dating choices as we make them, when we think no one is paying attention including ourselves. Needless to say, the results are revealing.

Strident protests to the contrary by women notwithstanding, a growing body of evidence now reveals what men have known all along… nice guys really do finish last.

Women are far more likely than men to pursue dangerous or emotionally unavailable partners and endure drama in relationships. Research has shown that the dating and sexual choices of women overwhelmingly favor what researchers are now calling the Dark Triad - narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Men who test strongly in one or more of these personality traits have far more dates, more sexual partners, and more relationships than men who do not (Jonason et al., 2009; Urbaniak & Killman, 2003; Bogaert & Fisher, 1995; Sadalla, Kenrick, & Vershure, 1987). Their relationships also tend to last considerably longer despite the pain and drama they produce. This agrees with my own experience.

Then, there’s the issue of money. Women bristle at the suggestion that their love can be bought, especially when the accusations are accompanied by allusions to the world’s oldest profession. But once again, the evidence clearly shows that they can be. Compared to men, women overwhelmingly show a preference for wealth and status in their dating choices and a willingness to make significant compromises in other areas to get them, even emotionally and spiritually (Hitsch et al., 2005; Shackelford et al., 2005; Buss & Schmidtt, 1993; Berscheid et al., 1971; Greenlees & McGrew, 1994; Goode, 1996; Bereczkei et al., 1997). The datasets supporting this are so broadly based, and across multiple socioeconomic and cultural variables, that the resulting regression models even allow for a price tag to be put on many of these compromises.