I’d like to tell you a story that should sound familiar to a lot of you reading this. It’s the story of a young boy who was raised to keep to himself and mind his manners. To listen to authorities and do as his superiors told him. He was never beaten or anything like that, but his value as a human being almost solely revolved around other people thinking he was a “good” boy. Otherwise he might be shunned and cast aside.
This is going to be a story of how I grew up as so many other millennial boys around me and how it totally fucked me up not only as an individual but as a man.
This story is going to help drive a lot of points home for you in a way that me sitting here on my laptop “lecturing” never could. What this won’t be however, is a sob story. While we may all technically be victims of our environments and circumstances, everyone of you who has the ability to understand the words that I’m writing, also has the ability to do with your life what you please.
I was never beaten or berated at home growing up. Nothing crazy like that. My dad was a bit tough, like most dads are. He died when I was young so I never had much of a relationship with him. My mom was (and still is) an incredible woman who treated me like most moms treat only child’s – her little prince.
We weren’t rich, but I always felt comfortable in our lot in life. Spent most of my formative years in a predominantly white suburb outside of a large city. Safe, sheltered, and well fed. All in all, a pretty standard upbringing for the 1990s & 2000s in the good ‘ol U.S.A.
Growing up, I always felt like a bit of an outsider. I was a nerdy mofo through and through – glasses, gamer, loner, awkward social skills.. The whole nine yards. With very little male influences in my life, my mom was left to teach me how to become a man. Something, that no matter how exceptional of a woman she was, is basically impossible for a single mother to do.
Her main job was to keep me safe, and she did just that. Teaching me to behave and stay out of trouble at all costs, otherwise I may draw the wrong kind of attention and be singled out. Reminding me that the way to get people to like you was to smile and make THEM feel special. Which worked wonders I might add. Adults loved me growing up!
I was the perfect student. My coaches always complimented me on how obedient I was. I even remember feeling particularly proud at being one of the kids who stayed still the best when getting haircuts, or visiting the dentist. I was on that validation high and I loved every second.
At school the point was driven home even further. I would get all sorts of accolades just for being the most “well-behaved”. Honor Roll this, smiley sticker that. You name it, I probably got it at one point. Teachers loved me! But ONLY as long as I behaved. If I ever got a little out of line those complimentary “atta boy”s would turn to condescending “you’re better than that”s real quick. Which taught me on an even deeper level that not only was being “good”.. well, good; but that stepping out of line was straight up unacceptable. Literally. The love and acceptance I was given was strictly conditional and I had to play ball if I wanted to keep it.
I learned to play the game that society had trained me to play. And if I may say so myself, I got damn good at it. To the point where to this day, I feel like I didn’t even have that much of a childhood because I was so busy trying to play by the rules all the time.
Now, imagine my surprise when I got my first crush and NONE of what I learned up to that point did anything for me. I was immediately friend-zoned by the girl I tried my hardest to woo with kindness.
DING! (1st crack in the fantasy)
But whatever, that’s just one girl. Maybe I wasn’t her type.. Let’s fast-forward a few years to the next crush. Different grade, different school, different Country! Same thing. Friend-zone. Ok… what the fuck?!
Maybe these girls just don’t understand just how nice of a guy I actually am. Which is weird because every now and then some random girl that I payed no attention to would tell me that SHE liked me. But of course that doesn’t really register to 10yr old me.
Instead, I turn things up to 11 (see what I did there?). I start watching shows like Boy Meets World, and movies like What Women Want that go on and on about how the guys women fall in love with at the end are always the ones that were honest and vulnerable from the start.
Meanwhile I’m thinking that I’m a goddam genius for figuring this stuff out so young. Women hate players! They say so all the time on TV. Why do men not get that women want someone who’s willing to sacrifice anything for them. That’s true love. And of course, all women want true love.
I decided then right then and there that I would never be like those jerks who where mean and unappreciative of the women in their lives. I was going to be decades ahead of the game with all this intel on the opposite sex.
Then, the worst thing that could have ever happened to me at the time happened – I got my first girlfriend being the pussy of the century. Soon followed by the best thing that could have ever happened to me at the time – she cheated on me.
Of course, I thought I was in love with this girl. And for a while, I’m sure she was into me too. I was fortunate enough to have gained some popularity in school and that confidence shone through to the relationship. But underneath I was still working under the framework that the “nicer” you are to someone, the more they’ll like you. That girls wanted someone who would do anything for them and wasn’t afraid to let the world know it. So I showered this girl with all the affection I could muster. At one point I even gave her a set of my mom’s REAL DIAMOND EARRINGS (by accident, chill). But despite my doing everything I thought was right, I found out she hooked up with another guy while we were dating.
DING! (2nd crack in the fantasy)
Needless to say, I was hurt. And for the next 4 – 5 years I became kind of a dick to any girl unfortunate enough to cross my path. Completely out of spite and heartbreak. All I knew was that I didn’t want to feel that way again, so I wasn’t going to let anyone else get close enough to hurt me like that.
In that same time I started to come into my own a bit. Joined the basketball team, made great friends, started fucking around more in school. Generally just learning to have a good time for once. And wouldn’t you know it, more and more girls started to like me. In High School alone I had around 11 different girls that I was talking to at one point or another. 6 of which I actually dated. A long way from the awkward kid who could barely hold a conversation with the opposite sex without stammering. It was surreal.
Looking back now, I realize that I could have done even better! While I had grown a remarkable amount, I still never really felt all that confident in myself and never really believed that girls in general could be attracted to me. The girls I ended up with were the ones that had the lady balls to come up to me and flat out tell me that they liked me or that would spend so much time with me and my friends that things just sort of happened.
To add to that, deep down, I still believed in the whole nice guy act. I was just too jaded to let it surface too much…
…Until after graduation that is.
When all my friends had gone out to college and my sense of identity was taken away. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life so I just kind of floated around for a few years. Going to community college and working a part-time job, I became close with a girl I knew from high school but had never been very close with. Let’s call her, Topanga.
She became one of my best friends. Which was new for me because I had never really been friends with a girl before. Not like this.
She was a total bitch to most people, but not to me. One of those chicks, you know? We’d spend pretty much every day together. It was chill and 100% platonic. She had a bofriend. I had a girlfriend.
Until one day dude breaks up with her.. ON HER BIRTHDAY!
To this day, it’s one of the most savage things I’ve ever seen someone do to another human being. And I’m from a third world country. I’ve seen some shit.
Of course, as a friend, I’m there for her. Shoulder to cry on and all that.. Then one day, out of the blue, she tells me she likes me. That she always has to some degree. Since high school.
Immediately, I realized that “Oh shit.. I like her too.” And not like the other girls I’ve been with in the recent years. I fully trusted her. I cared for her. Seeing her upset made me feel worse personally attacked. This was the closest thing to Love (with a capital ‘L’) that i had experienced for anyone since my first girlfriend.
This was it! The real thing. What I’d been looking for all along.
We had been good friends for a while already so there was a trusted foundation. Just like in Boy Meets World! It was perfect.
I broke it off with my girlfriend, rode to Melanie’s house in the middle of the night ON MY MOTORCYCLE (what a badass right), knocked on her door, and kissed her right then and there.
To this day, gentlemen, there have been few moments that have felt as good as that one. It was so cheesy and magical that sometimes I question if it ever actually happened and I didn’t just crash on my way to her house landing me in a coma where I dreamed all of it.
Her knees buckled, I pulled her even closer, and fireworkds went off in the distance. We break off and she tells me that she would invite me upstairs but her parents are home. I honestly didn’t care. Wasn’t even in it for the sex, I just wanted to cement that moment for the both us. I wanted to be with her and I wanted her to know it.
I turned right back around, got on my bike and rode off into the night feeling like Eragon after his final conversation with Arya (shoutout if you get that reference!)
Sounds like a happy fucking ending doesn’t it?
It would have been if I hadn’t gotten a text the following day from a mutual friend asking me what the hell had I do to Topanga last night?
He goes on to tell me that she was up all night CRYING over her ex and how she would never be able to get back with him now…
DING! (3rd and final crack in the fantasy)
Remember the ex? Homeboy that broke up with her: ON. HER. BIRTHDAY?!?
Yeah, I was shook. I’d never been quite so confused before or ever again after that text. Reality wasn’t matching up with all the stories people were feeding me about how life and relationships were supposed to work.
That confidence I felt the night before turned into panic. From that day, I chased Topanga for what felt like months trying to get us back to where we were that fateful night on her porch. But the more I chased, the further she retreated. I was missing something, and I needed to find out what before I lost my mind.
At first, the motivation was to win Topanga over. Soon after, I realized that what happened with her wasn’t an isolated incident. Guys from all walks of life seemed to be going through the same bullshit. There was even a term for it: Nice Guy Syndrome.
Oof.
The first time I read the urban dictionary definition of that phrase I felt an actual knot in my stomach as flashback after flashback played in my head of all the times I was inadvertently turning genuine attraction from women into revulsion.
It was like I was seeing the world for what it was for the first time.
My guess is that you’re somewhere around that stage right about now. Reailzing that things are not what they appear to be when it comes to attraction and success with women.
Feeling like everything you were taught growing up about love and relationships between men and women is a lie.
That being a Nice Guy only really serves those who inevitably take advantage of your misguided kindness.
And you’d be right.
Somewhere along the way, usually while we’re still very young, social conditioning widdles away at the thing that makes us attractive to women at the very core. Overwriting it with layers upon layers of faulty programming. Until you get the modern man you see paraded everywhere in the media.
A weak, timid, apologetic guy who’s eager to bend over backwards for other people’s approval.
Now, I don’t know if this was done on purpose or if it was just a total fuck up on an evolutionary standpoint.
What I do know, is that it’s not only ineffective but UNNATURAL. You are not this Nice Guy persona that you’ve attached yourself to. Your real power as a man which makes women hopelessly irresistible to you lies somewhere deeper.
And that’s not me blowing smoke up your ass, either.
The key to attracting women isn’t about doing MORE and TRYING HARDER. It’s about doing LESS and LETTING GO. Which is what this site is designed to help you with.
I am not a Guru. Nor do I want to be. I’m just a guy on a similar journey. A journey of rediscovery that leads back to our lost, true masculinity.
Welcome to Kingsman Dating.