The other day I couldn’t help but over hear a spirited conversation by a group of girls at an Italian restaurant.
Their discussion focused on the lack of nice blokes in night clubs and drinking spots. Not to be a grinch, I suppress the urge to inform them that nice guys will soon join the Dodo in extinction.
They will be the latest addition to the graveyard of male archetypes – such as chocks, snags and metrosexuals – that men unsuccessfully adopted when wooing the other sex.
In today’s minefield of male-female relationships, the nice guy has been reduced to the same level as leper.
They are to be pitied and spoken of sympathetically.
Gone are the days where nice guys were heroically embodied in celluloid by James Stewart, Sidney Poitier and Tom Hanks.
They have all been crushed by today’s mean spirited and sexist leading characters played by Daniel Craig, Collin Farrell and Gordon Ramsey.
When famous American baseball coach, Leo Durocher, uttered the immortal phrase ``nice guys finish last’‘, it was merely a blunt description of the opposing team’s mental weakness.
Now it is a mantra applied to all male-female relationships from underage discos to the most seasoned of couples.
I remember first being told ``the rules of the game’’ when I was old enough to start noticing girls a bit too keenly.
I used to be in awe of mates who were kind and respectful of others but total twats to girlfriends who inexplicably continued to adore them.
``Girls don’t like weak guys. You got to show them you have balls,’’ one mate imparted to me at high school.
``You meet a chick at a club, you don’t call them straight away. You got to make them wait. Treat’em mean, keep’em keen. They say they hate it but they really love it.’‘
As a 15 year old this was A-grade psychoanalysis.
But implementing these principles was harder than I thought.
I found myself constantly repressing my better values in order to be cockier and meaner, thus more desirable.
For those of us who found this required behavioural changed too radical, guide books on how to discover our inner bastard were published and fast became regular best sellers.
Fortunately, there are still women out there that judge men based on true character and who mercilessly call out the fakes.
However, with today’s pop culture filled with celebrity sex tapes and Big Brother ``turkey slaps’‘, sweeping and degrading generalisations regarding women are taken as home truths.
Meanwhile the original definition of a ‘‘nice guy’’ as a kind and courteous bloke has been gradually replaced to mean boring, spineless and gutless.
More humiliatingly, nice guys are now used like second hand Volvos: the one you go to for safety and comfort only after crashing your previous flashy sports car.
Last year New Scientist magazine detailed an American study stating women were susceptible to the charms of men who embodied ``the dark triad.’‘
These are men who are narcissistic, callous and exploitative.
While these findings may not surprise, it further seals the fate of nice guys who realise that good manners and a healthy dose of chivalry just won’t cut it when pulling in the ladies.
So to those girls pining for more decent blokes on a Saturday night, know that each bad boy you meet on the dance floor is really a nice guy suffocating inside, or some one that has well and truly crossed over to the dark side.
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