Nice guys, jerks, and growing up

Ah, typhonblue, the old woman-hating troll from Hugo's blog, has struck a nerve with a blog post that has just enough truth in it, that guys who think they are nice because they are willing to suck up to pretty women to get laid are annoying, that she has managed to sneak in once more some of her appalling and downright frightening views on relationships between men and women. Hugo and Kameron have commentary.

Typhon makes it clear that we poor, pathetic women have two choices--Nice Guys and Jerks. Nice Guys are those guys that annoy everyone by whining about how nice they are. Fact of the matter, they are the ones who define themselves as "nice" and the word comes up when they are trying to explain why a girl they find really attractive is dating someone else. You want to smack them for being whiny, and that's it. It's an ego thing--do they think they are the only people in the world who dwell on the flaws of their romantic rivals? And questioning a woman for her romantic choices, attempting to woo her by attacking her, is not really attractive. Not when Nice Guys do it under the guise of "helping" and not when Jerks do it by opening jumping all over you.

Typhon doesn't like the "helping" shit, and I don't blame her, so she's gone with the in-your-face asshole thing.

I live with a Jerk, by the way. If we go on a hike and I pack too much he tells me to suck it up and live with it, he doesn’t carry it for me. If I forget my jacket he tells me that I should have remembered it, he doesn’t give me his. If I’m whiny and clingy he tells me to stop bothering him and deal with it myself. If I hit him, he hits back. If I’m a bitch he doesn’t give an inch.

Ah, there are your choices, ladies. A guy who makes you feel stupid by condescending to you and a guy who makes you feel stupid by jumping all over your shit any chance you get. Should women have to tolerate being told they are stupid and inadequate all the time? But of course! Women are stupid and inadequate and need a big, strong man to make them better. (And typhon wants women to be treated as individuals? Apparently, treating women like morons across the board is an effective strategy.)

Doubt me? Here's some examples of how Real Men Give Tough Love to Stupid Women.

Most women not only love gossiping about their men, they also don’t have the mental ability to understand what’s really going on. So women complain endlessly about all the awful things their Jerks do, which just amounts to the Jerk not treating them like a delicate flower.

Thank god we have cool, rational men carefully cutting off affection to control our out-of-control gossipy ways!

Because my Jerk boyfriend doesn’t carry my pack, I’ve gotten that much stronger and more rational about what I pack. Because he doesn’t give me his jacket, I learn to remember it so I have it even when he can’t offer his. Because he doesn’t always drop everything and tend to my emotional ills, I’ve become more independent and capable of tending to them myself.

The fundamental difference between men and women, right there! Men are born cool, rational, thoughtful and mistake-free. Women don't know a damn thing and have to learn everything the hard way. A good man allows his woman to grow by making her learn everything the hard way, stoically knowing that it's the only way.

I wonder where my relationship falls on this scale. I am prone to doing things like forgetting my jacket, and my boyfriend will remind me before I leave. But alas, despite his manly perfection, he is prone to misplacing things, which I am good at finding. And neither of us really gets overly hung up on teaching each other a lesson.

Because he hits me if I hit him, I’m reminded that I’m accountable for my actions. Because he doesn’t reward my bad behavior, he’s helped me mature and grow up.

Getting closer every day to the day you realize that in most situations where someone crosses the line and raises a hand, real grown-ups just walk away.

I don't really know any men anymore that are Nice Guys or Jerks. I tend not to hang around men who have big control issues when it comes to women. Most men I know genuinely like women. I know, that probably means they are deluded Nice Guys by typhon's definition, since genuinely liking women is pretty much impossible, since women are plain awful.

Any sane person can see that women vary wildly in character. Some are catty, vicious and bitchy. Others are smothering, clingy and suffocating. And then there are those who are honest about it.

Damn, I don't like women either if those are your choices. But see, I actually do think that women vary wildly in character and so do men. So wildly that you really can't narrow it down to Smotherers and Cats or Nice Guys and Jerks. In fact, most people vary wildly in character over the course of the day, going through periods of rationality and emotionalism, sturdiness and neediness. And most people in my life I really enjoy treat their lovers and their friends as just that--lovers and friends, not clay for molding, not goddesses on a pedestal. And your lover isn't your student and coolly teaching someone a lesson is a power trip. And power trips are the complete opposite of actual rationality.