by Dr. Nerdlove

Meanwhile, other men will tell you over and over again that you need to be the Alpha Male, that you need to be dominant and prove you’re her social superior. Preferably by insulting her and pretending you don’t give a shit about her.

It’s been about six months or so since I addressed that perennial bugbear of nerd dating, the Nice Guy, and after some of the comments I’ve seen, on the blog and elsewhere, it seems like as good a time as any to revisit the topic.

Y’see, there are certain myths and misconceptions when it comes to dating that seem to have become axiomatic amongst men and chief among them is the classic “Women like assholes”. It’s the cry amongst the hapless Nice Guys that women only like assholes and therefore ignore the Nice Guys who would, like, totally treat them with respect man…

Meanwhile, other men will tell you over and over again that you need to be the Alpha Male, that you need to be dominant and prove you’re her social superior. Preferably by insulting her and pretending you don’t give a shit about her.

“Nothing to be done about it,” we hear. “Society tells men they’re supposed to be powerful, this is how powerful people act. Women like power and status.”

Meanwhile, Nice Guys continue to put the blame on everybody but themselves and the cycle continues.

So let’s talk about that for a little, shall we?

Where Does This Myth Come From, Anyway?

If you were to listen in on men’s conversations when the subject of dating issues, you would think that assholes – and their close cousin, the Alpha Male – has some sort of mystical, mesmeric power over women; the hint of douchebaggery and Ed Hardy clothing acting as the alchemical formula to getting more ass than a man in a car chase that plows through an ass cart and crashes through a plate ass window.

And yet, if you were to ask women – and believe me, I did – it’s all bullshit. Now maybe women don’t necessarily want passive Nice Guys with their senses of entitlement and passive-aggressiveness, but that doesn’t mean that they want some dickbag who patronizes her, insults her and generally treats her like crap, right?

And yet, we see hot chicks with douchebags. So many, in fact, that they have a Tumblr dedicated to it¹ So clearly there’s something to it, right?

So… what gives?

Well, it’s about exposure, mostly. You see assholes with hot women. They’re staring at you from the covers of the gossip magazines and the front pages of TMZ with the latest arm candy. They dedicate shows to horrible people who do nothing but party, act like coked out hamsters, pick fights and fuck. We see people in power acting like assholes, asshole celebrities who seem to be famous strictly for being famous (or for fucking famous people).

And of course, the guy who’s busily banging away at the girl you like – you know, the one who seems to be the source of all of that drama she keeps coming to you with, the one who couldn’t possibly treat her the way you would – he’s definitely an asshole.

Tally it all up and you could be forgiven for thinking that being an asshole is the common denominator.

What About Being An Alpha Male? Chicks Dig Alphas, Right?

In the primate world, the alpha male is the dominant ape in the herd who stands at the top of the informal hierarchy by dint of his strength, health and overal fitness. These are all favorable factions that influence his potential survivability, which in turn mean that his children are more likely to survive to pass on their genes. Because of the way ape sociology works², the alpha male has the most access to food and the females. The apes below him in the hierarchy, the Betas, have a greatly reduced access to sex, food and basic dignity. The Alpha keeps his position via intimidation and furious violence. Betas who piss off the Alpha do so at their own risk.

I’m sure you can imagine how people might see this reflected in humans.

 

In fact, there are plenty of people who try to map the idea of Alpha and Beta behavior into the dating realm. Nice Guys aren’t having sex, therefore they’re the Betas. Assholes are having all the sex; ergo, they’re the Alphas. So, if Nice Guys are Betas and assholes are Alphas, then it makes sense to try to emulate that behavior, right?

 

The problem of course, is that the idea of the Alpha Male having access to all the females and the Betas having none goes right out the window when you’re dealing with humans. But hey, it sounds like a simple, easily digestible solution to solving the world’s dating problems, right? When you take a bunch of people with a shaky grasp on evolutionary psychology who try to apply the concept of Alpha onto the convoluted morass that is human sexuality and sell it as advice, you end up with the vague idea that being “alpha” means being “dominant” or “socially superior”.

 

Just how this so-called dominance is supposed to manifest is, in itself, a subject of great contention amongst the sages of the dating world. Some will tell you that it’s all about being unreactive and proving you don’t need or care about her as much as she needs or cares about you. Some will tell you that it’s about staring down or squeezing out the other men around the woman you’re interested in. Some will say that it’s about keeping her insecure in the relationship and always having to please you.

In other words… you’re supposed to act like an asshole.

So Why Do We Think It’s True?

The reason why it’s become accepted that women like assholes is due to a logical fallacy known as the defective induction.You see women with assholes repeatedly and you assume that this is universally true… no matter how many women you see or know personally who’re dating perfectly decent individuals.

Now spread that out amongst frustrated men who’re angry about the fact that the women they like are dating jerks. As they carp and moan and commiserate about how unfair life is, they’ll all agree that it seems as though women prefer to date assholes instead of nice guys like them, which provides seeming confirmation. After all, if their friends are noticing this too, surely this means that there’s something to it, right?

Well, there’s a reason why the plural of “anecdote” isn’t “data”. And don’t call me Shirley.

Humans are complex beasties, sexually. There’s a hell of a lot going on under the hood that we’re not even vaguely aware of or even able to control on a conscious level, and these are all things that lead up to answer the question of “Will I fuck this person or not?”

For example: women have a natural attraction to high levels of testosterone in men. Outward indicators of high levels of testosterone: wide jawline, body hair, even behavior such as competitiveness and risk-taking will trigger a response in women. If a woman is ovulating, her reaction to high testosterone is even more pronounced. However, this reaction isn’t binary or constant; a women who are at the waning phase of their menstrual cycle tend to prefer less masculine men; that is, men with lower levels of testosterone.

Men who are less “alpha”, as it were.

And all of this is before we get into the psychological aspects that help define who and what we’re attracted to.

But “Hey, we’re all really fucking complex machines” doesn’t sell a lot of books. And then frustrated nerds and Nice Guys give up and start trying to act like dicks without understanding just what it is that women do find out about assholes. As far as they know, as long as they emulate the traits of an asshole, they should be getting tail too. And so, like a Pacific Islander cargo cult that thinks that building an ersatz air strip will lead to goodies raining from the skies, frustrated nerds, pick up artists and Nice Guys start acting like cocks in hopes of getting laid more often.

And surprise surprise, when they’ve quit being passive and anxious and actually start standing up for what they want and making demands instead of pleading… they have a little success. And that little success is far more than anything they had before, which further confirms that “women love assholes”.

So Women Don’t Love Assholes?

Nope.

Oh, to be sure,³ there will always be women who love men (or women, for that matter) who treat them badly; like I said, we’re all kinds of weird and fucked up when it comes to sex and sexual attraction. But in general, what really attracts women are attributes and behaviors that often correspond with being an asshole, rather than assholish behavior in and of itself.

What Can I Learn From This To Be More Attractive To Women?

You knew I was gonna get here eventually, right?

I’ve covered some of this before, but there’s always more to learn, isn’t there?

Be A Challenge:

Part of what’s appealing about assholes is that they’re emotionally unavailable. They’re notoriously commitment-phobic, always with one foot potentially out the door. One of the kinks of human psychology is that we want things that we can’t have, and we value the things that we had to fight for more than the things that just fell into our laps. One issue that women have with nice guys is that they’re easy. There’s no real challenge to them. Think about fishing: do you tell the story about the one that you eased out of the water like a young man stepping out of the bath or the one you had to fight tooth and nail to land?

Be Assertive:

Assholes are selfish. They think of themselves first, last and always. As a result, when they see something they want, they go for it. Nice guys tend to be too concerned about other people. They’re worried about what other people might think. They’re worried about whether the girl they like might like them back. If the nice guy has especially low self-esteem, he’ll worry whether his approaching a woman is an inconvenience to her.

Assholes? They couldn’t care less. And while on paper, this sounds like a negative, in practice it means that they’re approaching women they want. An asshole don’t give a damn whether she likes him already. He couldn’t care less about what other people think about him. He wants a girl, he’s gonna get a girl. If he gets rejected… well, that’s her fault, isn’t it? Rejection rolls off his back and he rolls on to the next girl.

You know what that looks like?

That looks like confidence.

And – say it with me now – confidence is sexy.

Be Honest:

Let’s face it, you know what you’re going to get with an asshole. When an asshole is going up to a woman, he’s not trying to be her friend. He’s not trying to convince her that he’s really a sweet guy who wants to hang on her every word, buy her Haagen-Däz when she has a fight with her boyfriend and hang out without the expectation of any sort of sexual encounter later on. He lets her know right from the get go that this is a fuckin’ thing.

This is why assholes don’t get stuck in the Friend Zone.

Nice Guys (notice the capitals) hide their intentions. They pretend to be only interested in friendship, but they’ve got an agenda from the get go. They’re in a relationship under false pretenses; they want their friend to fall in love with them without taking the critical step of actually risking rejection by being honest from the beginning. As a result, when they do make their sudden grand declaration, the woman finds out that her “friend” has basically been lying to her all the time she’d known him.

Be Self-Validating:

This ties back into how self-absorbed assholes can be. They don’t care what other people think about them. They’re not worried about other people’s opinions. As far as the asshole is concerned, he’s the shit, baby. He’s money. He’s money and he knows he’s money. Things go wrong and it’s never the asshole’s fault. If a girl rejects him, she’s a bitch. Or a lesbian. Or just plain stupid. The reasons don’t matter, it just all comes down to “I’m awesome and if she couldn’t recognize it, there’s something wrong with her.”

The asshole doesn’t need validation from other people. He gets all he needs from himself.

Nice guys, especially nerdy nice guys, can have incredibly low self-esteem and look to others for validation. This manifests itself in their body language and in the way they respond to other people; they come across as needy and clingy.

The asshole? He doesn’t need anybody. He’s not going to have his ego crushed if his girlfriend argues with him or gets angry. He’s going to keep on not giving a shit because it’s unimportant. He keeps his self-esteem high, and this attitude makes him more attractive to women.

Find the Balance.

The idea that women love assholes is a myth. There are hordes of good guys out there in successful, fulfilling relationships with incredible women.

You caught that, right? Not “nice guys”. Good guys. Y’see, the good guy has found the proper balance between emulating the best parts of an asshole’s behavior without being an asshole. He may be a challenge, but he can also be incredibly sweet. They’re nice, but they still have that “bad boy” edge that assholes can have. They have a little of the drama, the challenge that women find appealing without crossing the line into being a complete jerk. They walk the line between nice and bastard.

Adopt the attributes of an asshole, without becoming one.

‘cuz, seriously.

Nobody likes an asshole.

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Dr. NerdLove dispenses love, sex and life advice for geeks, otaku, dweebs, poozers, nerds and the occasional neo-maxie-zoom-dweebie. He helps geeks learn how to get the girl of their dreams. Remember: Dr. NerdLove is not really a doctor.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.