The Dr. Horrible Syndrome (Horribly Nice Guys) May 21, 2010
Posted by flomped in Dating, Love, Men (Martians), Relationships.trackback
Nice guys really do finish last, and single guys around the world find this principle as confusing as they find it frustrating. So frustrating in fact that many of them go to the dark side.
Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a perfect example of this. Dr. Horrible is an aspiring supervillain (Dr. Horrible) trying to reach the big leagues of villainy in the hope that he can improve the world and impress the girl of his dreams, Penny. Dr. Horrible came to be as a result of a very common process:
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Step 1: Perpetually Single
A budding Dr. Horrible grows up wishing for but failing to start romantic relationships. He’s probably shy and not very charming and falls into the “only a friend” category too often (see Ladder Theory). Or maybe his standards for women are too high. Whatever the reason, though, a Dr. Horrible develops a pattern of being perpetually single.
These reasons for being perpetually single may be why he’s paralyzed and unable to talk to the girl in Step 4.
Step 2: They All Suck….
Dr. Horrible starts to identify his target gender as the problem. The problem can’t be him, he’s a nice guy! So it must be some vast flaw with the other gender and how they only pick out jerks, etc. He resents women and he resents the men they fall for.
In Whedon’s Dr. Horrible, the whole world adores Captain Hammer, Horrible’s nemesis and a handsome alpha-male jerk (see Darcy Syndrome), to Horrible’s constant dismay
Step 3: …Except For Her
Dr. Horrible is still lonely, so he picks out a specific girl who he thinks is “different”. She may be more compassionate (volunteering at soup kitchens), friendly to him in a kind way (talking to him when no one else does), or maybe she just offered to hold a door for him—it doesn’t take much because no matter how bitter Horribles may get, they still want to believe that there’s someone out there for him, and it’s only natural to find a reason to justify developing a crush.
The chosen girl will then be put on a pedestal by Horrible who convinces himself that she’s perfect. And that he’d be perfect for her too, since he clearly loves her so much, even though he hasn’t actually gotten to know her in any real way.
Dr. Horrible’s love for Penny is the perfect example of this: he sings elaborate ballads about Penny being his one and only: “I’m the guy to make it real/ The feelings you’re afraid to feel”…all based entirely on the fact that he sees her regularly at a Laundromat. And never talks to her.
Step 4: Indirect Pursuit
Dr. Horrible will only ever pursue his crush indirectly. A Horrible is so emotionally invested in his crush that his feelings for her paralyze him, and his natural shyness can only make things worse. Asking her out, or even talking to her, would risk rejection (or the crush’s inevitable falling from the pedestal). So, instead, he goes after her indirectly: coming up with elaborate plans to impress her and fixates on how great things will get when they actually get together.
There’s a scene in Dr. Horrible where the doc is enacting part of his master plan to impress Penny. Penny approaches him, asking him to sign a petition. Dr. Horrible has the perfect chance to start talking to her and break the ice, but instead pushes his dream girl aside in favor of executing an elaborate plan to impress her.
Step 5: Falling Off the Pedestal
Dr. Horrible eventually loses his chance with his dream girl, probably because: (A) he asks her out and gets rejected (in lieu of not ever really having spoken to her or having made his intentions known), or (B) she gets together with a different guy before he has a chance to make his move.
He’ll take this badly, because he not only lost his dream girl, but she had the nerve not to recognize (from his silent, longing looks) how much he cared about her!
When his depression blows over and he only gets more bitter about everything, return to Step 2 and repeat ad nauseam.
It’ll only get worse from here on out, because the more bitter and nasty he gets, the less appealing he is, and the less appealing he is the more he projects his negative feelings onto others.
Whedon’s Horrible acts like he’s been personally betrayed when Penny starts dating Captain Hammer, despite the fact that he never before asked her out, or in fact even spoke to her in a significant way. He says, “There’s darkness everywhere and Penny doesn’t seem to care that soon the dark in me is all that will remain.” So, he essentially transfers the blame for his inability to make a move as her fault for “not caring”.
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Guys like this often think of themselves as nice guys. Dr. Horrible’s touching love song to Penny seems sweet in a romantic comedy kind of way: he’s emotional, he’s sincere, and he obviously has a high opinion of her.
So what’s the problem?
Well, putting a girl on a pedestal might seem nice in theory, but when Dr. Horribles idolize a girl, they aren’t really in love with her—they’re in love with the perfect girl ideal that they want her to be. They haven’t necessarily taken the time to get to know her—who she really is. And they may not be happy with what they find if they keep their expectations so high. It also isn’t fair to expect a girl to be responsible for fixing Horribles’ busted view of women, and she isn’t going to want to try.
No matter how much Whedon’s Dr. Horrible is painted the sincere underdog, you can’t help but wonder what exactly Penny is supposed to find attractive about him when his only personality traits are crushing despair about everything, a creepy obsession, and a meek inability to act on his crush.
It’s only natural to feel that the only way to overcome complete feelings of hopelessness is to nurture the idea that there is a girl who is different than the others. If every other girl rejects you, then a girl would have to be different from them to go out with you…right?
Well, it doesn’t work like that, and, empathy aside, if guys want to pull themselves out of singledom, the first step has to be understanding what’s going wrong with themselves. Dr. Horribles have to pull themselves out of their heads, take the girl off the pedestal and act on their feelings. They just have to talk to the girl, and actually get to know who she really is. And do so before she ends up with the other guy.
My advice: try buying her a frozen yogurt. The ladies love the frozen yogurt.
Term of the Day
Dr. Horrible [Dok-tor] [Hor-rib-bul]
– noun
Someone who compensates for bitterness over past romantic failures by putting an individual on a pedestal as his/her perfect romantic mate.
The Slap and The Tickle 
ha ha very funny- i really did laugh though. amazing how many of those bullet points applied to me-was very informative- gained valuable insight. thanks.
this is pretty much amazing. And I actually used a Darcy comparison in my latest post about this guy I dated…and I couldn’t find an Austen nemesis to compare him to. Now, I realize, he is not in Austenland, but really a Horrible! Thank you for helping me. And, this movie was incredible…I wish I had seen it earlier in life.
All very true, in regards to this one character, but don’t fall into the trap of believing that EVERY guy (or even a significant majority of ’em) who lives with chronic rejection is at fault for not being direct enough. There’s plenty of us who have spent our lives in singledom who have never acted like the good doctor. And all the frozen yogurts in the world don’t stop the “you’re a nice guy, you’re just not my type”s from coming, without fail. Often it’s not US who put the “nice guy” label on ourselves so much as the eternally platonic female friends who tell us how great we are. Mayhap we should just blame it on a gypsy curse?
These are just the flaws of this one fictional character; we’re not all Horribles. Or Jonathans. Or Andrews. Or Warrens.
Do you think this would be as common if men were not culturally expected to pursue women?
All I could think of in reading this was how thin the line is between Dr. Horrible and a Very Horrible Misogynist Psychopath-in-the-making.
“The problem can’t be him, he’s a nice guy! So it must be some vast flaw with the other gender {..]”
SO scary.
That isn’t reactionary at all. 😛
[…] The Dr. Horrible Syndrome (Horribly Nice Guys) Nice guys really do finish last, and single guys around the world find this principle as confusing as they find it frust […] […]
Reading this post made me realize that some times Fiction parallels Real Life. I have a bit of a Dr. Horrible type that I was trying to cultivate a relationship with but he was way too shy to talk to me and he kept coming up with elaborate schemes to get me to pay attention to him. I guess he didn’t understand that I was willing enough to pay attention without them…
@ dontknowwhoyouare: Glad you enjoyed it, even better if you gained insight!
@ thenamelesschronicles: I totally agree, I really could have used this movie a few years ago…although perhaps its better now that I can really process what’s going on. A few years ago I probably would have just identified with the Doc and not realized the problems he had.
@ greg: Of course not…all poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles. Nobody should assume that a single guy is necessarily a Dr. Horrible or any other archetype, but it might be worth considering as a possibility.
@ cinephage: Hmm…an interesting question. I think it’s hard to say since so much about society would be different in that case that it’s hard to imagine how individual bits would be different. That said, friends have assured me that this kind of thing happens to women too, so maybe it is just part of how people attach attraction.
@ vcky: I like to think it’s not THAT fine a line (although the fact that Penny ended up dead doesn’t help my case), but this kind of thing can lead to misogyny if people don’t manage to pull themselves out of the loop in time…of course it’s never too late for someone to correct himself if he realizes what’s going on
@ raine0723: Oh, sorry to hear that on both of your accounts. If you think a guy is shy, though, you might want to just take the lead and tell him that, maybe confronting him with the reality might be enough to snap him out of it…maybe watch the Sing A Long Blog together and mention how “If only the Doc had just been honest and talked to Penny…”
OK diagnosis at first, then IMHO, dumb as nails.
The problem is not the guys. It is the girls. In short, female hypergamy. The Pill, Condon, anonymous urban living, rising incomes for women, all give free reign to female hypergamy.
The desire by women for men significantly higher than themselves in status, power, and excitement. Women can and will share the few men they find attractive, particularly when they are actually attractive themselves. A woman of average attractiveness can and will sleep with an Alpha, a Tom Brady, or a Jessie James, or a Tiger Woods (who had sex with 201 women, most of them average).
Women are willing to make this trade-off because for women, five minutes of Alpha beats five years of commitment from beta.
This explains the birth dearth (later births, as women pursue Alphas during their fertile years, lead to inexorable Western demographic decline) and falling legitimacy rates: illegitimacy about 90+% among Urban Blacks, 70+% among Blacks nationally, over 50% among Hispanics, and 20% among White middle class women and 40% among White working class women.
Only White upper Class women behave as if in the 1950’s: illegitimacy at 4% or less! Because, duh, upper Class White guys are ALPHA.
Female Hypergamy creates a rush to thuggery. Your solutions of not viewing women as pedestal objects is wise (and taught by Pick Up Artists) but Alpha males go further — they don’t treat women as much of anything but easily replaceable objects. Something women pine for. Indeed, from Rihanna to Madonna (and Sean Penn) to the success of Charlie Sheen, women’s desire for bad boy, often violent jerks is well know.
A Dr. Horrible cannot become a smooth, taller, more socially dominant natural Alpha male. Any more than Alyson Hannigan can become say, Eliza Dushku or Giselle Bundchen. Which is basically what you seem to be arguing men to do, and what WOMEN EXPECT OUT OF MEN.
The easiest solution for Female Hypergamy is to thug it up. And that’s EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED in Black ghettos and White Chav Britain. Both rough places in 1950, but nothing like today where they are Hogarthian Gin Lane horrors.
Captain Hammer won’t look like anything but a punk if he’s bleeding on the floor. That’s the modus operandi of the thug-it-up way to get women, explained in exquisite detail in any Gangsta Rap Video. Of course, women get treated just the way they do in a Gangsta Rap video.
Women can’t have it both ways. Expression of female hypergamy, where moderately attractive but not raving beauties expect to share the few Alphas, and ignore their attractiveness/status peer male counterparts, is incompatible with general freedom or good treatment. It guarantees a race to the bottom by thuggery.
Almost no man can become Darcy — heir to vast wealth, able to overcome social gaffes by demonstrating EXTREMELY high social value. ANY MAN can thug it up. And bring Wickhams, or Captain Hammers, down to earth.
What PUA teach, to be actually successful with women, IS depedestalizing. But first:
1. Take women down a peg by playful teasing.
2. Act arrogant but good-natured arrogant.
3. Never do stuff for women — expect them to do stuff for you.
4. Treat women as disposable, and show indirectly they are lucky to have your company, not the other way around.
5. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have another girl on a string.
6. Success breeds success — if you are in a relationship with a woman, other women will want to have sex with you.
7. Give women the roller coaster of emotions they crave.
The most disheartening thing that PUA like say, “Style” (Eric Strauss, “the Game” or Mystery from VH1 say, is that mastery of pickup gives men a lower opinion of women. Because it works. It simply puts attraction into a fairly formulaic way playing on female hypergamy (the inbuilt attraction by women for much higher status men). Needless to say this guarantees no lasting relationship. Since the men feel any attraction women express is merely the result of “fake” signaling not their real personas, which remain geeky and not socially dominant.
In the West, the current quagmire of female hypergamy is only about 40 years old or so. A Buffy or Faith or Anya or what have you would not have the sexual freedom to go from guy to guy to guy, without consequences. They’d be viewed, rightly so, as nothing worth actual commitment by a quality man. Their beauty would be viewed as rapidly diminishing, and each additional partner would indicate both bad judgment and preferences in men AND a failure to bond properly. Strong female condemnation of serial monogamy and bad choices would prevent them from pursuing the bad boys. Buffy’s mother, Faith’s mother, Anya’s mother, plus aunts, grannies, cousins, and so on would form a disapproving check on innate female hypergamy and towards … family formation. Which requires compromises.
The high illegitimacy rate is a function of female hypergamy un-repressed. Women would rather pursue Alphas, all things considered, and have Alpha kids (in Ghettos, Barrios, and White working class places, that of irresponsible thugs) than trade-off for responsible guys who make long-haul good choices for fathers and husbands. But don’t get them hot and bothered at the club.
Give women total sexual freedom and they’ll be as bad, but in different ways, as men will. Without a need for provider, they pursue Alphas non-stop. This in turn provides a strong feedback mechanism to be Alpha in the one sure fire way: THUG.
China is the world’s biggest sausage festival. Men age 20-30 outnumber women by about 20 million. Due to selective sex abortion. In twenty years that figure will rise to 50 million. Its made worse by female hypergamy and big shot men hoarding mistresses sometimes by the 30-50 range. No wonder single guys go nuts and periodically kill kindergartners and women, those belonging to “other men.” Polygamy in Muslim countries produces the same despairing anger and violence. Undie bomber AbdulMutallab, son of a Nigerian billionaire banker (and polygamist) despaired of ever marrying, like Mohammed Atta, and was easy Jihadist meat.
Frozen Yogurt is a disaster. Buying a women something is stupid. Its the work of a supplicating beta. Even a moderately attractive woman has guys looking at her from age 14 or so. Her goal is to reject every one but the most Alpha. Because of no restrictions by other women on female hypergamy, she will indulge in it, thinking she’ll be actually worthwhile to a quality man when she’s older (past 30).
AT BEST, PUA offers a coping mechanism — sex without any prospect of LTR. By definition it is the equivalent of being Heidi Montag, getting breast implants, extensive plastic surgery, to make one’s self more male-bimbo-esque. Only it is done psychically, to remake a man into an assertive, cocky-funny asshole.
Qualities destined to get one fired in most jobs if ever expressed. And stuff that is not natural or taught to men, from age 9 onwards.
Ladies, that icky beta male who bothers you so, you helped create him. By not being honest, and by not demanding honesty, discussed openly about what women want in men. I.E. only the top most dominant men, the top 20% of men in attractiveness, social position, aggressiveness, and dominance. That you’ll share him, and indeed find other women being with him more validation that he’s worthwhile. Women like you, mothers, teachers, and older chivalrous men who cling to 1950, gave him the notion that being “nice” or indeed failing to cultivate an aggressive asshole nature would allow him to be successful with women. Indeed most beta men have no clue that 80% of men are sexually invisible to women. Even ordinary women of no great beauty who are like them.
Once that mental blinder comes off, however, you get the world of a Rap Video. Or British White Chavs. Whichever you prefer.
Whedon’s problem was that he did not look at how women create men. Dr. Horrible did not spring from someone’s forehead, immaculately. He was born and raised by a society culturally stuck in 1950 in how it denies what women want, and giving women untrammeled sexual freedom.
If the show took place in 1955, Dr. Horrible would be working at NASA. Married, to a nice, ordinary woman of no great beauty but one who considered him a great catch, both good genes for children (smart) and a good provider. Captain Hammer would have only one girlfriend, she’d be drop-dead gorgeous, but he could not play around much.
We live in Whedon’s world, where ordinary women and Alpha males benefit, and ordinary men and beautiful women are screwed. Alpha males have their pick of women, and ordinary women can have sex and kids with them, by sharing them. Beautiful women (see Elin Nordgren, aging beauty Sandra Bullock) have to share the Alpha. Betas go home to porn. Male cooperation goes out the window (its winner-take-all, loser gets nothing, for women). Geeky intelligence critical to technological advancement is penalized, and quickly bred out of the population.
Whedon’s world leads to another. Idiocracy. Very fast.
I’m all for thinking critically about these sorts of things, but whiskey’s posts are full of nonsense.
Let me add that we did not have this problem, of “nice guys turning into Horribles” when social controls prevented female hypergamy being expressed.
Sure, a few women maybe were trapped in loveless marriages. And sure, women could not share the few hot guys they actually felt sexually exciting. The hot, dominant, Alpha man always confident. The male equivalent of Scarlett Johannsson.
But how wise is it to base a society on every woman being as curvaceous and beautiful and busty as Scarlett Johannson? Where does that leave the Amber Tamblyn’s, the Michelle Trachtenbergs, the Sarah Michelle Gellars, the Alyson Hannigans, who don’t have that big boobed stuff going on.
Women are basically asking, all men to be the equivalent of Scarlett Johansson. Whereas, before, even a shy guy would find a mate, fairly easily, because women had constraints. They had lots of individual freedom, and liberty, but constraints in sexuality. They could sleep with whoever they liked, but if they got pregnant, faced a life of hardship and poverty. Particularly for their child. Few men would commit to them after well-known prior relationships, and none of good quality and desirability. Tight social relationships insured that a sexual liason was quickly well known across the potential suitor pool.
This made women far more choosy when it came to women. No longer was it hotness of the sexy dominance variety, but other questions. What was his family like? Would they help out with a baby? Would he make a good father? A good husband? Was he reliable? Would he be the kind of man to spend the rest of her life with, long after physical passion had cooled as it must?
The choice was still hers. Hers ALONE. Indeed Western men had a horror of arranged marriages (particularly in the English speaking world) and that horror goes back deep, back to the 800’s or so. Shakespeare’s audience sided with Juliet and Romeo, against the families. Unlike that of Continental Europeans, who took the opposite view. But the choice was more about long-haul duty, than short term excitement. Pickup trucks, unsexy but serious, instead of fancy sports cars were the choice.
The pill. Condom. Anonymous urban living. Rising income standards for women. All things that have blessings and curses. That shattered that society.
Women ought to expect the following long-term. Most men will thug it up to compete for them, its the easiest and most reliable and works. [See Sandra Bullock, and Jessie James.] Kids are something for the Big Shot who got them pregnant, don’t expect commitment or caring from whoever they sleep with — or anything but general hostility by most men socially. Men will quickly move to the model of lions in the savannah — mate with any female they can, kill any cubs straying from the mother to sire new ones. China’s a good example.
Men short term should probably read Eric Strauss’s the Game, see Roissy’s blog, Roosh’s, and a few other PUA sites. This can make them more attractive the way make-up, push-up bras, plastic surgery, and lipo do for women. But it fundamentally does not fix society.
As a note to readers: Even if every single thing he said was true it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to date the entirety of female society: you just have to find one person to date. And saying hello and asking her to a fro-yo might not work, but it will probably be more appealing than a carefully speculated diatribe about her destructive female hypergamy.
Ha ha, good point.
@Whiskey – Um…wow. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that perhaps you should write an article of your own. I’m not sure the comments portion of an e-zine is the appropriate place for that thesis paper you’ve got started there.
My substantive response would be that the trick is to find a part of your life in which you ARE alpha. I may be short and not particularly well built, but I know what I’m good at and I embrace those things. When I’m in a bar full of college students, I feel insecure and uncomfortable next to guys several years younger than I am. When I’m in a room full of power nerds, I’m an alpha. That’s why I date weird girls; they’re attracted to my eccentricities. This is where the success comes into play. I realize pick up artists tell guys to act like the girl isn’t that important, and the reason is to instill a presumption of success. The much more sensible approach would be to actually be successful at something. No matter who you are–find what you love in life, pursue it with passion and ambition, and everything else will fall into place. Especially the girl.
Oh, also nearly all your social commentary is wrong. I’m not even going to waste my time elaborating.
Good advice, but leave out the alpha. There is no alpha/beta. It’s a popular myth as it’s usually conceived. There’s a trivial truth that some people are more successful than others at various things at various times and cultures privilege some of those successes more than others.
When you get right down to it, Whiskey is just another Dr. Horrible. It’s not HIS fault women don’t like him, oh no, it’s this horrible new social norm that lets women choose who they want to date, which of course, means that women never choose him (gee, I wonder why – misogynist racists whose understanding of history and social anthropology is fundementally flawed are usually such a catch). Instead they all choose to date thugs (AKA jerks AKA Captain Hammers, AKA anyone but him and the sort of people he hangs out with).
So it’s all society’s fault, for making women uppity, oh if only we could go back to the days of yore when all you needed to obtain a woman was the ability to kill 100 enemies with your mighty battle axe (wait, there were courtesans, mistresses, harems and multiple marriages back then with the women all going to the few rich and powerful because that was their best chance of survival – guess you would have been SOL then too)
Whiskey, you are a disgrace to your namesake. Whiskey is delicious; *you* have left a bad taste in my mouth.
Best regards,
A woman who is highly offended by your generalization of women, your oblique racism, your faulty logic, your poor research, your long-windedness, and your lack of cohesion.
P.S. Stop being so fucking bitter, Whiskey. Goofballs and skinny guys and nerds get laid too. Just because women aren’t sleeping with YOU doesn’t mean that they’re uninterested in 95% of men. They’re just not interested in YOU. Get a personality, then maybe someone will like you enough to have sex with you. Best not show any potential prospects these posts, though. I definitely wouldn’t have sex with you after reading them.
P.P.S. Great article, Taylor. A lot of valid points and analysis. It’s definitely true that not all men fall into this category (though Whiskey definitely does), but for people who recognize that stuff in themselves, hopefully they’ll manage to break out of it and take some chances. Nice guys don’t always finish last. A woman who knows what’s good for her will pick the nice guy every time. I promise.
the “original” article is copy+paste drivel. thanks to whiskey for some original thinking.
you should have stopped at the hypergamy argument, though. the digression into a prediction of chavs and thuggery is not something you can substantiate, and will detract from your more meaningful ideas.
i love how flomped argues that you just have to find that one girl who’s different! (which is exactly what the boy in the original article is derided for thinking)
look how this poor guy changes:
You call this a ‘poor guy’ but to me he appears to be a shallowly ‘nice’ guy. Putting on this pleasant gloss, does not constitute NICE. Women will sense this right away, and instinctually we know that someone who pretend to be nice, is definitely not nice. This is the kind of person who will let you down, play games and pretend to be innocent. How can you accuse him of doing anything wrong when he’s such a nice guy and everybody knows it? When he lets you down, he blames you, and everybody, blames you, because he’s just nice right? And, you, are just a b*t* right? Get real.
What I said was that you only have to find one woman TO DATE, what I criticized in the article was finding one woman AND instead of dating becoming obsessive about her.
And there’s a reason that what he said was original thinking, it’s because it was entirely wrong and nobody with a working brain would make such statements.
Really, though, I’m not going to invest any more time dealing with a bunch of trolls.
Funny article but I don’t think agree think women hating was Dr. Horrible’s problem. There was no evidence that Horrible hates women (except for Penny). Dr. Horrible’s problem is that he romanticized the idea of evil and then got driven mad by revenge. Your using him as a metaphor for something he isn’t.
I don’t think that the problem is being nice. What is a turn-off with guys who ‘think’ they’re nice or who put on a nice ACT, is that it’s easy to see through. Usually, ‘nice’ people are not really nice at all, once you get to know them a little, and it’s not attractive, to see phony nice. Real nice, is very hypnotic though. That’s the good stuff and there are no bad side effects. Problem with that, is that some men can fool me for a while into believing they are very nice indeed, only to eventually show their true colors. At that point, they get relegated to the ‘friend’ category, unless they will come clean. No man has ever come clean from that mess yet with me.
I will admit that I was blind to how nice a certain man was, a long time ago, because I was afraid to believe him and find myself fooled. I wish I’d given him a chance before an emergency evacuation from the life I had was unavoidable and it was too late to make the connection. He was truly nice. I know he was now.
My suggestion to real nice guys, is to offer a woman you really care about, your contact info and make sure you write a note with it that says she can contact you if she ever needs anything, even if she just needs someone to talk to. If my nice man had done that early on, I would indeed have called him, and I know his gentle eyes, mind and touch, would have been like coming home.
Unless he had me fooled. I guess I will never know.
Why do you want horrible people as your “friends”? I can understand you stringing along people you hate because you know it will hurt them, but why would you call that relationship a friendship?
what do you have to say about girls what perpetually attract Dr. Horribles? The “Pennies” of the world. I had a friend who was constantly attracting these types, sometimes more than once with the same guy. Is it just being too nice, fitting that certain “different” type, some x-factor, trouble being honest with oneself and others about motivations for things, enjoying the attention at some level and so inviting it subconsciously? I’ve always wondered.
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As willow said, the article gets Dr. Horrible wrong, and creates a false metaphor. That’s because Dr. Horrible did not have a problem with “all women” or “all alpha men” but just with Penny and Captain Hammer. Dr. H’s problem was his inability to attract Penny’s interest from a lack of flirting skills (not his fault, either, because it’s something not taught in any school). The Dr. Horrible story is popular with nerds because almost every hetero male nerd has experienced a situation like that at one point (and perhaps contemplated “going evil” as a result, but in most cases did not “go evil”). A much better job of explaining “Nice Guy Syndrome” and American women’s view of it comes from girlwriteswhat:
The advice in the article to “talk to the girl, and actually get to know who she really is… And… try buying her a frozen yogurt” is not enough. Doing all the above will usually makes a guy closer friends in her friend zone, but will not take things into a romantic/dating/sexual direction.
my take on the comments:
“don’tknowwhoyouare” … simply agrees with article; no new content
“thenamelesschronicles” … simply agrees with article; no new content
“greg” … makes the great point that most “nice guys” do not become “Dr. Horribles” which is true.
“cinephage” … asks a good question — My answer is, American men have been brainwashed by maistream feminist media to be more sexually passive towards women, resulting in more “nice guys” than ever, and leaving many women disappointed in all these unmanly men. Simply being more active and (nonviolently) aggressive in pursuing women is a good first step to solving the “nice guy” trap, for both men and women.
“vcky” … simply agrees with the article; no new content
“cinephage” … content-free comments–no facts, no reasoning, no ideas
“raine0723” … simply agrees with the article; no new content
“flomped” … full of empty platitudes; not helpful
“whiskey” … very intelligent analysis with many good points, arguments, facts, analysis, and predictions. I disagree with the idea that unbridled female hypergamy helps average women and hurts alpha females: I would say it helps younger, more attractive women and hurts older/less beautiful women when it comes to relationships, regardless of social status, but when coupled with modern marriage/divorce/child support/alimony/sexual harrassment laws, hypergamy fincancially rewards most women (80%). The biggest winners are the alpha males (top 20% who get more than a fair share, especially the top 1% who get a lion’s share of sex with women) AND alpha females (who get the lion’s share of financial benefits from alimony, child support, sexual harrassment settlements, and inheritance from older, shorter-lifespan husbands). The biggest losers are the most unattractive women (bottom 20%) and the below-average-status men (bottom 49%) who have trouble getting anything at all. I believe the hostile branch of feminism has been actively promoted by the top 1% as a population control/population-growth-control strategy since the 1970’s. Google “Gloria Steinem CIA” and “Gloria Steinem Henry Kissinger” and “Henry Kissinger National Security Memorandum 200 population growth” for more information. The ties are not “conspiracy theory” but documented facts.
“Kyle” … is “not even going to waste his time elaborating” because, obviously, he has no facts or ideas to contribute.
“Molly” … nothing original, repeats the trite feminist ad hominem bromide that any man who disagrees with her must be a bitter loser who is not be able to attract a woman. My reply is, speak for yourself, Molly. Just because you can’t attract a man, does not automatically mean that everyone else has the same problem with dating. I’m willing to bet that whiskey, like me, has no problem attracting a woman using “game theory” but is just not happy that “the game” has changed so much that traditional courship and marriage rules no longer apply. Winning is not everything if the prize for winning is not what it used to be. In the past, “the game” only lasted during the single years (from puberty to marriage, or only about one decade for most people). But with modern laws and morals, “the game” continues your entire life, and if you ever stop playing it, you risk losing your shirt in divorce court. Marriage has become a minefield.
“Marissa” … great name, but horrible comments. Goes on and on namecalling and criticising whiskey for being “wrong” without giving any specifics about WHY he is wrong. I bet dollars to dimes it’s because “Marissa” has no facts or arguments to back up her opinions and insults.
“causation” … insightful comments. I agree that the bitter tone of whiskey’s essay detracts from his many valid facts, arguments, and analysis. A more neutral or friendly tone would be more persuasive with the women on this thread.
Unfortunately, the video “causation” linked to no longer works. What was in that video?
“Red” … can’t judge the video comment without watching the video. Regarding Red’s advice to nice guys, “offer a woman you really care about, your contact info and make sure you write a note with it that says she can contact you if she ever needs anything, even if she just needs someone to talk to.” is typically misguided female advice. Doing as Red says just takes a man deeper into the friend-zone. It takes more than that to get to dating/romance/sex. Confident, and unashamed remarks about having a healthy masculine sex drive is a good start. Letting the woman know that the man has other other options helps, too. But doing it in a way that doesn’t come across as rude, creepy, or bragging takes skill and practice. The dating game is not a simple formula.
“willow” … great comment. The OP article gets Dr. Horrible horribly wrong.
“Anonymous” and “Sarah” … both made good points. Women are not all passive, innocent, delicate flowers. Women can have “nice girl syndrome” too. A small percentage of women are narcissists, borderline personalities, or even psychopaths. And women are better at being subltle and hiding their personality flaws than men, on average.
“neurovector organic branwave synchronizer” is a spam comment. How can we get it removed?
–Social Analyst
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