Poor nice guys...
Jan. 31st, 2006 02:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coffeesnob318I like nice guys. I really, really do. There is intrinsic value for me in a guy being nice for nice's sake - not because he wants something but just because that's who he is. I even have enough idealism left over from grad school to believe that this is possible.
Having said that...I'm really drawn to jackasses.
I can't help it. And, before you roll your eyes and stuff me into a box, it's not the typical girls-like-bad-boys thing. It's not the same. Bad boys can be nice sometimes, and good boys can still be jerks.
I'm rambling, and only somewhat coherently. I blame the DayQuil. Let me back up.
Tonight in class, I discovered that the only names I remembered from last week (of the guys anyway - I remembered all the girls...all five of them...very male-centric class, this one) were the ones who pissed me off. The ones who heard my "be respectful" spiel and seemed to take it as a challenge to see how far they could push the envelope. The odd thing is, I remember them fondly.
I was commenting on this phenomenon to another instructor during the break, and she said something to the effect of "don't waste your time trying to change them, because they'll never change."
I was confused. I responded by telling her that I don't want them to change. That I like them just the way they are.
She was confused. I can't say that I blame her. I mean, it's generally accepted that to be nice is preferable to being...not nice, right?
I qualified my stance a little by saying that it might be different if they were my friends or a person I was considering dating - that I would want them to treat me politely. Then, I paused long enough to take a breath and launched right into disagreeing with myself on that point as well. Sugarcoating annoys me. I hate feeling as if I'm being "handled," and I don't know anyone who does it well enough to do it without me picking up on it. I want people to say what they have to say, and I don't trust them if they take too long to get to it. And while I appreciate charm as a skill, I can't really take it seriously. Even in my personal life I prefer brutal honesty to diplomacy. So behavior that others may interpret (and rightfully so) as being tactless, arrogant or just mean-spirited, I actually prefer to the probable alternative - not knowing what they're really thinking.
Yes, I said all of this to her. Out loud. In monologue fashion (or dialogue, if you count me and the voice in my head as two). She looked like she wanted to run away a little bit.
I still blame the DayQuil.
I value honesty. I would rather a person be honest than polite. And while "nice" and "honest" are not always mutually exclusive, sometimes they are.
Having said that...I'm really drawn to jackasses.
I can't help it. And, before you roll your eyes and stuff me into a box, it's not the typical girls-like-bad-boys thing. It's not the same. Bad boys can be nice sometimes, and good boys can still be jerks.
I'm rambling, and only somewhat coherently. I blame the DayQuil. Let me back up.
Tonight in class, I discovered that the only names I remembered from last week (of the guys anyway - I remembered all the girls...all five of them...very male-centric class, this one) were the ones who pissed me off. The ones who heard my "be respectful" spiel and seemed to take it as a challenge to see how far they could push the envelope. The odd thing is, I remember them fondly.
I was commenting on this phenomenon to another instructor during the break, and she said something to the effect of "don't waste your time trying to change them, because they'll never change."
I was confused. I responded by telling her that I don't want them to change. That I like them just the way they are.
She was confused. I can't say that I blame her. I mean, it's generally accepted that to be nice is preferable to being...not nice, right?
I qualified my stance a little by saying that it might be different if they were my friends or a person I was considering dating - that I would want them to treat me politely. Then, I paused long enough to take a breath and launched right into disagreeing with myself on that point as well. Sugarcoating annoys me. I hate feeling as if I'm being "handled," and I don't know anyone who does it well enough to do it without me picking up on it. I want people to say what they have to say, and I don't trust them if they take too long to get to it. And while I appreciate charm as a skill, I can't really take it seriously. Even in my personal life I prefer brutal honesty to diplomacy. So behavior that others may interpret (and rightfully so) as being tactless, arrogant or just mean-spirited, I actually prefer to the probable alternative - not knowing what they're really thinking.
Yes, I said all of this to her. Out loud. In monologue fashion (or dialogue, if you count me and the voice in my head as two). She looked like she wanted to run away a little bit.
I still blame the DayQuil.
I value honesty. I would rather a person be honest than polite. And while "nice" and "honest" are not always mutually exclusive, sometimes they are.
