Nice Guys Finish Last

In this society, everyone says that nice guys don’t finish last. I am a single guy who has been trying to find a special someone for the last decade. I have great friends who tell me all the time how great of a guy I am and how great of a friend I am. They know I struggle with being the nice guy, but they don’t understand it. To fully understand my predicament, I am tall, average build, and wear glasses. On a scale of looks, I am about a 6 or a 7. I don’t do bars because I feel guilty if anything happens while they have been drinking. I treat women with respect and even hold doors open. No, chivalry isn’t dead. I even have a tendency to spoil girls that I am dating.

All through this life, I have heard so many girls tell me that all they want is a nice guy to settle down with. I have seen how most men treat women and I hate it. I legitimately have more female friends than I do male friends because I know how most men are. You can give them the respect that you, and they, think they deserve, but it normally ends with me being in the friend zone. I have been told a lot in my life that the friend zone isn’t real or that it is my own fault that I am in there. Let me just tell you, it is real. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, it’s real. As far as it being my own fault, if by that you mean telling a woman she is beautiful, helping her when she needs it, being there for her when she needs someone, and flirting in a non-pushy way, then I guess yeah it is my fault. Why is it that if you treat a girl right, she walks past you right to the next guy who is going to have her sobbing on your shoulder again?

As I said, I am a single guy. I don’t like to be single. I enjoy the companionship of a relationship, the little romantic things let a sweet text that she wakes up to, and the opportunity to see her smile light up a room. When you tell a girl this, you may get the stereotypical “AWWW,” or “That’s so sweet,” or my personal favorite “I wish I could find a guy like that.” Yet when it is the end of it, you see her relationship status has changed to be with Fabio who just looks like he is in it for the good time. Don’t get me wrong, I have seen several girls who I know end up with great guys. They were rough around the edges, but being in the relationship ground them out to be some pretty good skipping stones. I have also seen some girls end up divorced twice before the age of 30, in love with number 3, and all of them seemingly worse than the last guy. Why is this? I am a huge movie buff and a movie said it best to me. Perks of Being a Wallflower is a B-rated film with a pretty decent cast, but the best line in the entire movie is after Emma Watson describes how her boyfriend had been cheating on her and asks why do I always end up with the bad guys. Logan Lerman answers her with the best line I have heard in relation to love, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” The way that this generation has shaped itself to be, between the models we see on magazines, the shows we see on TV, and everyday life around us; I find it much easier to believe that so many women believe that the good guys that they want are just fairy tales and accept what they find.

When I say this, it isn’t limited to just romantic relationships. In my group of friends, we are all a bit rowdy with each other, pick on each other, but we don’t dish out what we can’t take. When it comes down to it, we help each other out, if and when, we can. The biggest joke I get from everyone is how I am going to be the eternal bachelor of the group. I laugh at it, but that one stings a lot.

Being the nice single guy of the group, I tend to be a third wheel for a certain couple that I would deem them both to be equally my best friends. They try and comfort me by telling me that I am not a third wheel to them, but part of their little family. I accept it to their faces most of the time, but feel the guilt of it later. I love them both and I never turn them down, but that is because I love the friendship that we have. I would do anything for them and they know it, but they never ask for anything from me.

The Bank of Tim. That is what I am called more often than not. When I hear that, I know somebody is about to ask for money. If I have it and can spare it, I will undoubtedly give it to them. They tell me I should have been a part of the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s and I would have been a mob boss. I like that comparison because I like the look honestly. When I think about it, though, I would have been too nice to do it. I have one person who I help out regularly. I always had a crush on her and I would get texts from her asking if I could spot her $20 here or $50 there because she was a single mom of 2 kids struggling and couldn’t afford formula for the baby or gas to get to work. She would stop by on her way to work, we would talk for a few, she would get the money and promise to come see me. We would talk for a few days and she would just fade out until the next time. I know that this is my fault for letting it to re-occur, but I am too nice to let her children go hungry because she is struggling to make ends meet. I love kids what can I say. Never have I got a dime of it back; which is fine with me because on the list of thing that matter to me in life, money isn’t even on the list.

Another struggle of being the owner, operator, and sole proprietor of the Bank of Tim, is people actually paying you back when they say they will. I have enough outstanding loans that range from my nephews owing me for a game they wanted, to a friend helping herself further her education, to a guy I barely talk to anymore but I helped him get his first family set up on their own feet. All of these people say they will pay me back. I haven’t overly annoyed any of them about paying me back, but these debts owned range from a year old to 5 years old. Some of them don’t change yet some of them grow and just build up more.

I know being the nice guy is my own doing. I can’t blame anyone for taking advantage of me over and over again, except for myself. I am aware that I put myself in the friend zone by treating them the way I do. That being said, I am the nice guy. I have tried changing my personality to better fit society and it doesn’t work for me. I will help when I am needed. I will get used because that is what happens. I don’t like it, but I care too much to tell people no. I don’t suffer in this life to any extent, and I don’t want others to either. Next time a guy tells you that nice guys finish last and you’re about to jump straight to “That’s a load of poo,” remember this, we get used, abused, rejected, and ignored, but we still are standing there ready for any chance. Do you have a nice guy in your life that could use a thank you for all that they do?