The Nice Guy Archetype and Why it’s One of the Most Dangerous
This is a blog entry about abuse, so I’m putting it behind a cut for those who surf by here for lighter fare, or other themes.
So who is “the Nice Guy”? First, gender-terms should be tossed aside because there is no guarantee that says The Nice Guy is, in fact, male. In my personal experience women are very quick to fall into this archetype and to accept other “Nice Guys”. Perhaps it’s the passive-aggressive or defensive natures of the Nice Guy that does it. I can’t say, I can only theorize.
The Nice Guy is above all things an emotional abuser. Possibly the worst emotional abuser, but we’ll get to that. The Nice Guy at the most innocent is the person who always gives others the benefit of the doubt, and shames others for not doing so as well. The Nice Guy at the worst is an incredibly sinister abuser who thrives on the power the archetype give them over other people.
The Nice Guy tells racist jokes and then laughs it aside with a “But I’m not a racist”. The Nice Guy tolerates all people, but is also convinced all stereotypes are true and holds people to them. The Nice Guy is the one who makes you feel creepy, the way they look at you, the way they seem drawn to underage people, but then they smile and laugh and you think it’s bad of you to think bad of them. The Nice Guy takes in “troubled” teens arguing with their parents, gives them a place of support and escape from their problems, then buys liquor for them to blow off some steam, giggles with them as they show off their porn collection and bonds with them while talking pornographically about the teen’s girlfriends.
The Nice Guy is completely inappropriate, doesn’t respect boundaries, even actively perpetuates their addiction, manias, whatever on other people, then clean up, puts on their adult face and plays nice to authorities, or parents, or offended party goers. The Nice Guy is incredibly dangerous because the Nice Guy talks you into distrusting your own instinct, your own mental warnings, by claiming that there’s been a misunderstanding, or hiding what was actually done.
The Nice Guy isn’t quite upset about a girlfriend breaking up with them, except that they’ve gone back to their ex, and he’s abusive. The Nice Guy would NEVER abuse someone, and if you have been made uncomfortable by something the Nice Guy said or did then you just misunderstood them, or you need to ask someone who really knows what happened because (even if you were there) clearly you’ve gotten something wrong.
The Nice Guy is one of the most insidious forms of abuse because it’s double dipping. The Nice Guy be sexually inappropriate (like exposing under aged children to porn, or commonly walking around the house naked, or semi naked “accidentally” exposing themselves to minors or the unconsenting), or even rape someone (“But you were giving me all the right signals, and you drank too much so of course I had to make sure you got home safe…”), be racist (“But it’s only a joke”), or sexist (“Oh, you can’t help it, you’re a man.”), or even a physical abuser (“I didn’t mean to, you made me! And I didn’t hit you that hard, you’re exaggerating.”) Then the Nice Guy pits your instincts, your observations, your feelings and immediately invalidates them. Some just dismiss them. Some go to great lengths to “prove” they they are the victim of YOUR issues.
Some go so far as to complain to many other people, other people who if they buy into the Nice Guy routine will unknowingly join in with the abuse as well. A Nice Guy tells his friends at work that his daughter is lying about him. That is is so hurt that he took care of her for eighteen years and now that she’s moved out she’s stopped talking to him, and he heard from others that she’s saying he’s an alcoholic. The Nice Guy over and over leans on others for support in his time of need, when his child is betraying him, breaking his heart. The Nice Guy never tells anyone about trying to get his daughter drunk at 13. Or of the nights he passed out on the toilet naked and she had to get him to bed. The Nice Guy never lets anyone know about making his daughter watch incest porn with him at seventeen. Or his long conversations explaining how good of a lover is is…that he had with his daughter. The Nice Guy worries that the daughter is in trouble, that she’s being blackmailed into disliking him.
When confronted the Nice Guy tells his daughter that it’s her boyfriend’s fault that she doesn’t love him anymore. The Nice Guy enlists the aid of family, told lies, to berate the daughter with phone calls asking if she needs to be rescued, or shaming her for abandoning her father “after all he’s done for her”.
The Nice Guy is a secret drunk who only wants the best for her kids. The Nice Guy works hard to give them the opportunity she never had. The Nice Guy doesn’t understand why they don’t want to go to school, or why they’re so angry and sullen all the time. The Nice Guy is misunderstood and stressed and a victim of her children acting out for some reason. The Nice Guy doesn’t actually want this problem solved (and will actually go out of her way to reassure people who might want to help, never actually showing up for family therapy or keeping out people who might actually make a change). The Nice Guy never want you to see that she gets drunk every night and screams at her kids for not appreciating all the sacrifices she’s made for them (her life, her looks, her youth). The Nice Guy just want you to be happy, and she’s the mother after all so she knows that this thing that she wants you to do will make you happy, not that thing that you want to do. You’re a kid, how could you know better than the Nice Guy?
The Nice Guy shows up in addiction, a lot. And in the -isms and homophobia. The Nice Guy loves all people, but can’t stand being around those flaming queers, or is sad that their neighborhood is “getting darker”. From the abuser side, being a Nice Guy is a way to not have to face up to the fact that you are being an abuser, or a racist, or a douchebag. If people are just miss understanding you it’s THEIR fault, not yours. No need for you to feel guilty. In fact, since YOU are actually the victim you can really know it’s not your fault by getting the support of the people around you in agreeing that it must just be in the other person’s head.
From the victim’s point of view you are literally sick to your stomach, and feeling more than a little insane (especially if the Nice Guy is in a position of power over you and can charm others into taking their side, and literally joining into the abuse the Nice Guy is perpetuating onto you). Growing up with a Nice Guy leaves your instincts completely savaged. You can’t trust yourself, but you can’t trust anyone else either. You know in your gut that the Nice Guy’s actions are wrong, but you also know that if you say anything you will have the full weight of the Nice Guy and all their allies pressuring you to recant, trying to force you to feel bad for making such accusations. You’re told often what a bad person you are, and you start to believe it. You sit up at night crying your eyes out, not because of the pain of the abuse, but because people who know the Nice Guy and know exactly how the Nice Guy operates, FOR SOME FUCKING REASON have decided to make accusations for everything the Nice Guy ACTUALLY did to you, against the people who have surrounded yourself with who finally make you feel loved, supported and worthy.
How do you stop the Nice Guy? You don’t let yourself be talked out of your instincts. You don’t let people tell you that the victim should be blamed. You don’t let racist or sexist jokes be laughed off or condoned around you. You arm yourself with knowledge, about abuse if they’re an abuser, about racial or gender psychology if they’re spreading hate speech. Is it hard? Oh yeah. Do you pay for standing up to the Nice Guy, of course, because people don’t want to think badly of other people. Not of people they know. Not of people they could have stopped from abusing others. People gladly buy into the Nice Guy’s BS because they want to be polite, or supportive, they feel sad, or they’re lazy, or, after it’s too late and it’s all come down to he said she said, people buy into the Nice Guy, and risk becoming the Nice Guy themselves, for the same reason the Nice Guy does it–to deny or bury their own guilt for not stopping it when they could.
But you can choose to stop it when you find it. You can choose not to be charmed by the Nice Guy. And you know what happens then? The Nice Guy backs off, because the Nice Guy needs to reassure themselves of their innocence. The need to not think badly of themselves because they cannot handle being wrong, or worse, being abusive. The Nice Guy will give you hell for not falling for their shtick, but then they’ll back off, because the Nice Guy cannot deal with you if they cannot manipulate you. They will move on to easier prey (though they might test you out every now and then).
From the victim point of view, sometimes all a person needs to take a step toward healing is for someone else to step up and say “Yeah, that isn’t right.” or “Regardless of what excuse they gave, their actions were clearly wrong, and honestly…abusive.” Sometimes having a single voice speaking out against the Nice Guy and all their allies is all a person needs to reach out and seek the help they need to be healthy. Asking ten years later if your suspicious were true, apologizing later for not doing anything to help, those things only help a Nice Guy ally face up to their own mistakes. The thing that actually helps the victim is reacting right then, right when you experience the Nice Guy charm and refusing to accept it.
None of us are perfect, and we all miss opportunities. Guilt is an amazingly uncomfortable feeling, and it’s no wonder we want to avoid feeling it. And of course, no one wants to be wrong and we don’t ever really know the full details of the situations we’re forced to deal with. But blocking the Nice Guy can make such a huge difference, and furthermore, not tolerating the Nice Guy’s charm is simply the right thing to do.
The Nice Guy is insidious because it victimizes everyone involved, the target, the allies, and even the Nice Guy themselves, who can’t change until they admit the truth of what they’re doing. The Nice Guy needs to be stood up to, if not for the victim than for the Nice Guy themselves, who are usually incapable (for some reason and to some degree) of identifying social boundaries. And you know what? The Nice Guy gets embarrassed really easily (though, they can get mad and violent too) because the Nice Guy, on some level, knows what they’re doing is wrong.
So the next time something someone is saying to you just isn’t adding up, or you get a weird feeling about someone, don’t ignore it. Don’t let someone else’s sweet talk, or charm, or manipulation, or niceness make you doubt that sick feeling in your stomach. Don’t dismiss your feeling that something is wrong because in that moment you can choose to take the risk of being wrong about something or take the chance to completely change someone else’s life (even if you never think you help them just giving them reason to think they need help can completely change their lives).