confessions of a former Nice Guy(tm)

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But I don't think anyone can actually be happy with themselves.. I'm constantly angry at myself for my failures, failure is unacceptable, I have to be BETTER than that.. if I was happy with myself.. it would mean also being accepting or happy with my failures.

If you're not happy with yourself, how can you ever expect women to be happy with you?

The reality is that you can feel justified in your self-pity all you want, but if you want to see yourself as successful it all starts with building self-confidence. The lack of it is pretty unappealing and generally seen as toxic. Much of it is this idea that having a girlfriend is this prize, the apex of achievement that you really want but can't have because of your own deficiencies.

Believe it or not, there's as many women out there as there are men. I do believe that the majority of women(not the really popular ones, not the losers) are just normal people who look for the same qualities in men that you would want in a woman, except that they've learned lessons early on that it's better to be single than to be in a toxic relationship. I imagine this is probably because of social conventions, they've already been asked out at some point in time and had to deal with these issues early on, as well as having the lessons passed down from other females in their life. Us guys don't normally have that luxury if we're too shy to take the risk of getting rejected or don't get a lot of interest. This leads us to see a relationship as a major life accomplishment because it's so pervasive, which leads to getting into the first relationship you can(and because of the 50/50 ratio of men to women, it isn't impossible if you're at all social, even in a limited sense).

So you know what happens then? You start learning the lessons that women have learned much earlier. You have a really bad relationship, and you realize it's better to be single. So congrats, you've finally learned the hard way. Then you start making a list of the traits you want out of a woman, and when you compare that to what women want you might actually find a lot of similarities. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

Want a shortcut? My suggestion is to try to befriend a woman or two with every expectation of keeping your relationship platonic. You can even do this online, it doesn't have to be someone who lives nearby. Talk to them about relationships and all these other things on a "friend" level, you might actually gain some insight that you can use to find a woman you'd be happy with. You might also learn a few things about improving yourself to make yourself happier and more confident. If you're too shy or not social enough to do this, I guess you know what you need to work on first.

If you don't accept failure in yourself and beat yourself up over it - how will you react to when a partner inevitably lets you down? Every couple makes a million minor mistakes - it's a fact of life. Intolerance to those mistakes will be devastating. Are you prepared to rationally deal with a girlfriend doing something you don't like?

yeah, that i something i have wondered about. i don't know if it i possible to be *that* hard on yourself without being *that* hard on someone else.

Well for me I've always been super tough on myself but at the same time very forgiving to others, because I find that I can't expect someone else to know everything, but I can expect myself to know things I've learned and apply them.

But I don't think anyone can actually be happy with themselves.. I'm constantly angry at myself for my failures, failure is unacceptable, I have to be BETTER than that.. if I was happy with myself.. it would mean also being accepting or happy with my failures.

Happiness is not dependent on external factors. Unhappiness stems from the desire. If you manage to dissociate from your ego and cease desire, you will savor the existence itself, though admittely it's not easy to reach such a state of what they would call enlightenment.

Sorry, and I don't mean to insult your beliefs, but that sounds awfully eastern-religious, I'm afraid that next you'll be telling me to meditate or burn incense..

Sorry, and I don't mean to insult your beliefs, but that sounds awfully eastern-religious, I'm afraid that next you'll be telling me to meditate or burn incense..

In my view, Happiness is ENTIRELY dependent on external factors.. The beatles were wrong, money can't buy happiness but it can certainly make finding it easier. I'm not happy because I have certain expectations, and when those aren't met, I get unhappy. during my recent past year, I learned to drive and I got a really good friend and I moved forward in making a more than friends relationship. I was actually, in spite of the fact I had little more money than I did before that happened, actually really, really happy. But then it all fell apart again, my car died and my friend betrayed me. Sure, they can't take away the fact I learned how to drive, but it doesn't do me much good if I have no car, or no one to go see.

you fell prey to the fact that your happiness was dependent on external factors. as soon as they dried up, so did the good feelings. if your good feelings reside with you (not fake good feelings, like affirmations - just based on simple self-acceptance and decent self-worth), then nobody can take that well-being away from you. then when the crap falls down around your head it doesn't matter (the crap will ALWAYS fall down around your head because that is just a fact of life).

i am not speaking from a protected ivory tower. you are talking to a person who has seen real violence, tragedy, health issues, unemployment, divorce, etc. those things made me sad/angry/upset, of course. but the events do not define ME. i have had harder periods that i needed to get a hand out of and sometimes i forget how to be happy, but ultimately i could never let circumstances (including my own "failures") decide for me when and how i should feel about myself. my life is mine to live, and it is up to me to decide whether or not that life will be miserable to live in, regardless of the events that populate it.

I'd rather say that buddhism happened to stumble upon the fairly simple neurological process that is ego dissociation. For example, it sometimes happens as a result of suicidal depression as a defence mechanism, but not to those people who are only a "little" unhappy unless if you know the ways to speed the process.

Why would I want to disassociate my ego? That would be the same as me taking SSRI's or Lithium and being a zombie... done that, hated it.. have no intention of ever going back on any of their pills.

And I simply have a different philosophy than you do. I believe my "Self worth" is entirely dependent on my relationships with other people, both platonic, work related, and romantic. That I'm defined by how I appear to others. That me being "Happy" in the way you are saying isn't valuable to society. And that It is entirely external factors that determine how my life will run. I can leave as early as I want too, but if I get caught in a string of red lights I'm still not going to get there any faster.. but I can't take the risk of leaving on time and still getting caught in the red lights and thus being late. I don't believe those are "Facts of Life" they are simply current problems because we haven't exerted the will to make it different. It's perfectly possible to make more robust cars, and it's perfectly possible for human beings not to life, provided they have the willpower to not lie. Why should I have to constantly compromise or make redundant plan B's, C's and D's in order to account for other people's screw ups? I take responsibility for myself, and no one else. I simply don't believe it is up to me to decide what sort of life I'll live. None of the most important choices which determined my life were left to me to choose from. All of the things that define me were made for me by external factors. Everything which happens to me is a choice made by some one other than myself. I have to take a math class to graduate college because the board of regents mandates it. I have to have a car to go shopping because people didn't choose to build public transportation. I have to have health insurance because we don't have a one paper healthcare system. The list of external factors impacting my life is enormously big compared to the minuscule list of things I have direct control over.

i don't think that you have created a framework under which you can be happy, because other people will not accommodate you to the degree that you require. they won't stop annoying you or start changing the red light patterns or redesign cars or start dating you just because that will help you to become fulfilled. so you will continue to be unhappy no matter what - any possibility for happiness is entirely fleeting. it cannot last as it is out of your hands.

i think you don't have to have control over events in order to feel happy in spite of them. one isn't reliant on the other.

i think part of the problem here is actually the word "happy". i once wrote a blog post that i didn't believe that happiness exists as a lingering state of mind, but rather as a fleeting emotion. when i am talking about "happiness", i actually mean leading a meaningful, satisfactory, balanced, life in which the person cherishes themselves and others... but i think every person has highs and lows, and i don't imagine a person walking around alone with an expression of glee. i have heard people used the word "centred", and i think that's more what i mean by "happy"

But I don't think anyone can actually be happy with themselves.. I'm constantly angry at myself for my failures, failure is unacceptable, I have to be BETTER than that.. if I was happy with myself.. it would mean also being accepting or happy with my failures.

I see. So because you can't be happy with yourself and see it as succumbing to failure, so must everyone else. And anyone that is happy on their own must be a total failure and has given in to all their failures? Hmm, wow, yes indeed. It's all beginning to make sense!

Oh wait, no it's not. Sorry dude, but your experiences do not form the experiences and mindsets of others. Do you view loners as failures? If so, why? Lots of very brilliant minds on the planet in human history that were by nature loner (though I'm sure they did have sex at least once their life time IF you attribute failure to that).

In my view, Happiness is ENTIRELY dependent on external factors.. The beatles were wrong, money can't buy happiness but it can certainly make finding it easier. I'm not happy because I have certain expectations, and when those aren't met, I get unhappy. during my recent past year, I learned to drive and I got a really good friend and I moved forward in making a more than friends relationship. I was actually, in spite of the fact I had little more money than I did before that happened, actually really, really happy. But then it all fell apart again, my car died and my friend betrayed me. Sure, they can't take away the fact I learned how to drive, but it doesn't do me much good if I have no car, or no one to go see.