Thursday, September 21, 2006

An Open Letter to All the Nice Guys

Dear Nice Guys,

I am sorry. I really, truly, deep in my unconscious am very sorry for the way we treat you. By "we" I mean girls. Pretty girls, nice girls, sweet girls. We're not "hot" or particularly "sexy". We're the girls who befriend you instead of just brushing you off. We treat you bad, and I'm sorry. We throw our arms around you and profess our undying love with that "like a brother" hanging unsaid in the air. We drag you out as our straight friend accesory so that maybe you'll help us land a douche bag. A guy who will take us home and never call. A guy who will make us cry on your shoulder. The guy that we'll take back over and over again in all of his different identies because when you're a girl and you're warned to "stay away," it only makes you want it that much more.

Eventually one drunk night we'll figure it out. We'll realize why you always call us back, why you always buy our drinks and let us crash on your bed while you take the couch. We'll deny it though, out loud and in our brains, stressing that you need "a good girl, a nice girl," our very definition. We don't mean to lead you on, even though we know it's not gonna happen tonight, tomorrow night, this year, next year, but we need the security of you. Of someone wanting us, loving us and being nice enough, sweet enough to hang out with us while we hunt out and take down any number of bad choices.

I'm sorry that this is the way it is, but we're probably not going to change quite yet. Give us a few more years of scavaging then we'll realize that it was you. The whole time. You were the perfect person and you stood there night after night waiting for us to figure it out. Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll get a better girl, a girl ahead of the curve who figured it out that much faster. And you deserve her.

You also get one night. One stupid drunk night where you get to, either directly or with the use of euphamisims or metaphors or whatever, you get to make us feel bad about the way we live. Because we know its bad and knowing you're pissed makes it even worse. You should probably apologize the next morning, because even though you're the one with the hangover, we're the ones with the soul, just slightly cracked, that has to rebuild and reflect. What you say probably won't change our behavior, and you'll go back to your status as official Boy Who Makes Us Feel Better, but you'll have said your piece and it'll stay lodged in our brains as we go out looking for the ones who will break our souls and never turn around to help pick up the pieces.

And for that, and everything. I'm sorry.

4 comments:

that mckim girl said...

Ew, no! Delete this! I don't care that you made a mistake out there in the wide world. Delete this.

You are just playing into their fantasies. Because, I must say, at least 99% of the 'nice guys' out there, just THINK they are nice guys. Really, they are just assholes like all the rest, and with this letter, you are playing into their stupid little 'woe-is-me-I'm-such-a-nice-guy' fantasies.

I know this. Because I am a nice girl. And I loved a 'nice guy'. And fat lot of good that did either of us.

I have a lot of anger issues to work through. Obviously.

But still. Most nice guys are just assholes who haven't had the opportunity to reveal their true colors to you yet. Remember that.

Rachel said...

Haha. Tragically I can't delete this. But. I can add an addendum (and maybe learn how to spell it). I made someone upset, knowing full well the scope of my actions and I don't feel bad or guilty about what I did. But I am sorry.

Also, MATTHEW P. DEMOS was NEVER a nice guy! Never. That boy tried to get into my pants (well, not really cuz he's Matt Demos, but you get it) 15 seconds after I met him. Call a turd a turd. You loved him, but nice?! Nope.

And now that I've aired all of our dirty laundry on the internets...

that mckim girl said...

Seriously. You used middle initials and everything.

I'm just saying: You screw someone over, you screw someone over. We've all done it at some point, no matter how nice we are.

And he WAS a 'nice guy'. You should have met him freshman year. Even sophmore. There was niceness.

Then again, nice doesn't mean anything. It's a chosen mode of behavior. As the woman who you stalked for me outside of her trailer sang in one of my favorite musicals- 'You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice.'

Nice doesn't mean a thing.

I think perhaps we should start emailing each other. Obviously we have too much to say for mere blog comments.

Rachel said...

I just realized I don't know your e-mail address anymore...I'm assuming its no longer through your old school or your old job.

I think that this moment and this blog came out of a realization that I've known a lot of "nice" guys and I've treated them all like shit while I hook up with people who are bad for me. Its an apology to all of them even though sometimes they weren't so nice to others.

She's pint-sized and amazing.