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How To Be Nice Without Feeling Like a Chump

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A while back I wrote about how nice guys are manipulative bastards. It is a lovely piece of prose, I suggest you consume it. Those “nice guys” who are really nice to women are being manipulative in their own way, just in a way that every one expects and thinks is fairly normal.

And it begged the question, how do I be nice without it being manipulative?

Here’s the trick. You can be nice, but you have to be nice to yourself first. You have to expect other people to be nice to you to.

If a girl asks you to pick her up from the airport at 3am, and it is really inconvenient for you to do that, then don’t.

If you wouldn’t regularly go out to a really fancy dinner on a Saturday night, don’t bring the woman you just met there on a first date.

The trick to being nice is that if you are going to go out of your way to do something nice, then do it because you want to, and because it makes you feel good to do it.

Be nice to women, but don’t do it at the expense of being nice to yourself.

Some examples:

If I am on a date with a girl, and I get a little hungry, I’ll grab a bite to eat, and I’ll pay for whatever she gets. It’s nice to do, but I’m not going out of my way to do this nice thing to her. I don’t make it a point that I am buying something for her, but if it comes up in the situation, it’s not a problem.

I like to cook dinner, so I would be happy to cook for a woman on a date. I like to do it, I would like doing it for myself, so I would be happy to cook for her.

If a girl I knew needed a ride from somewhere, and I was in the neighborhood already, sure, I’ll give her a ride. I’m not going out of my way to make myself available to her or to help her out.

Heh, this post was a lot shorter than I thought it would be. Be nice. Be nice to yourself. Do nice things for women, but only if it was you want to do, not because you expect something in return.

Should you buy her a drink? When to, and when not to buy a woman a drink at a bar

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Buying a woman a drink can be a nice part of the dating ritual as the two of you get to know each other and discover more and more that you like each other.

It can also be a way to lose money trying to be nice for a woman who is using you to get something (wow, that sounded harsh). Or it can be a way to bribe a woman into spending time talking to you.

No man likes to be used for his money and taken for a ride, which is what it can feel like when a man buys a woman a drink, then she takes off after 5 minutes of talking, or worse, leaves right after you hand her the drink you just bought her.

There are women that will go out just to have guys buy drinks for them. They like to find a guy who will buy them drinks, and in some cases, that is even their M.O. when they go out.

And I think that’s fine. More power to them. If a woman wants to put her womanly charms to work, then she should go for it. This blog is, after all, all about putting our masculine charms to work for us. I may have plenty of double standards, but not about this.

Women have every right to get drinks bought for them by men that want to buy them drinks.

I’m just not going to be one of those men.

I will buy a drink for a woman when things are moving along, and we are getting to know each other more and more. I believe that this is part of being a gentleman, and just as I would open the door for her and make sure she is safe, I would buy her a drink.

Knowing the difference between these two situations is important. I’ve screwed this up plenty of times, and learned from it. This post is about what I have figured out.

Also, as a special bonus, I’m gonna give you the best choice when a woman asks you to pick a drink for her. If you have asked a woman what she’s drinking and she says, “just pick something for me”, you’re gonna want to read this part. That’s at the end, so make sure you read all the way through.

As a second special bonus, I am going to give you the best answer when a woman offers to buy you a drink.

Don’t be an infomercial salesman

Don’t exchange a drink for a woman’s time.

If I ever catch any of you approaching a woman and asking to buy her a drink right off the bat, I am gonna slap you.

Lead with personality, not bribes. I have a whole category on this blog about leading with personality.

So how is this a bribe? When a man offers to buy a drink for a woman right away, there is another request going on, and that request is that she talk to him for a while, so he can work his game get to know her.

In terms of first impressions, however, you can do better. It is much stronger to make women want to spend time with you because of your personality, energy, and humor than it is to have her talk to you because something is in it for her.

For some reason, I think of infomercials where if you order now, you will get a free set of steak knives! Talk to me for the next 10 minutes and you will get this free cosmo for no added charge!

Girls just want to have fun (and drink for free)

It’s been done before, and it will happen again. A man will approach a group of women, and one of them will ask him to buy them drinks.

Ouch.

Deep down, you know that this is a sort of a test. She’s either trying to use you, or poking at you to see if you will lose you cool and give in to what she wants.

I think most guys know at this point that she is not asking for a drink because she really likes you. She isn’t gonna hang out with you for the rest of the night and spend a lot of time getting to know you.

I have felt that bad little feeling in my gut when a woman asks me to buy her a drink right after I meet her. I feel like I would lose some of my dignity if I did buy her a drink, but there is this fear that the woman won’t like me if I don’t buy her the drink.

It’s a lose-lose situation, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

So what do you do? The thing to do is to banter. If you can poke her right back, that is the best sort of response to this sort of thing.

A couple quick banter lines that can turn this around:

  • Oh, I could never let business come in between our friendship like that.
  • You know, they say Hitler bought girls drinks at bars before he started World War 2.
  • Sure, I’ll buy you one of every drink they have, but only if you promise to be a good girl and finish them all.

Or the ever popular (and stolen from my friend Joe):

  • You’re a drink.

By bantering, you keep the interaction moving in a fun way, but without giving in to her (unrealistic) request.

There are going to be women out there that are interested in men buying them drinks, for whatever reason. It’s fine that they do that, but you have to remember that it is fine that you aren’t the guy to give that to them.

As the romance builds, a little drink goes a long way

So when can you buy a woman a drink without it being a bribe for her to spend time with you or you caving in to her demands?

If you and a woman have talked for a while, you are getting positive responses, and the conversation has moved away from just surface level stuff and is moving further along, a woman asking you to buy her a drink is probably inviting you to spend more time with her.

She isn’t trying to use you or take you for a ride now. At this point the conversation probably feels like it is the two of you together on a date than it is two people at a bar that don’t know each other.

If a woman asks me to buy her a drink at this point, what I really hear is, “would you like to spend more time with me?”

She is not asking in any sort of judgmental way, or not to size me up, but in a way that conveys that she wants to spend more time with me.

Keep in mind that if you are at a bar, then the thing to do is have a drink. That is the primary activity that binds everyone together at the bar. If the two of you have finished your drinks, the obvious thing to do is get another.

A drink isn’t that expensive. It is probably $5 to $10, depending where you are. At this point in the relationship, the drink is a token. It is a step in the mating dance, the step when you show a little investment in what is developing between the two of you.

How much do you make her feel she is worth?

To get some perspective, imagine this from a woman’s point of view. You have met a man, you have shown that you are interested in him, and he seems to be interested in you in return. You would like to spend more time with him, and continue to get to know him…

… but he doesn’t even buy you a drink. He won’t even spend a few bucks on a drink for you. His $5 is more important to him than you are.

You aren’t even worth $5 to this man. How do you feel about this man now? Is he rude? Is he inconsiderate? Is he a cheapskate? Will he take care of you?

If you can tell that this woman is interested in you, treat her well. Show her that you are willing to invest a little back into this developing relationship.

Even better, lead the interaction, and offer to get her a drink if you are ready to get one for yourself.

If you are done with your drink, and you are ready for another, ask her what you can get for her when you go to the bar. If your interaction is moving along as far as it should be after this much time, that is a very appropriate thing to do.

“You choose a drink for me”

I’ve run into this, you are spending time with a woman, and it is time to get drinks for the two of you. You ask what she is drinking, and she says, “pick something for me,” or “I’ll have what you’re having.”

Not a lot of women like what I like to drink (Bourbon and Scotch). Buying her what I would like for myself probably won’t work.

What do you get her? Something fancy like a cosmo might be a little try hard or cliché. Wine is usually out of place at a bar, especially if you or she’s been drinking other stuff. Not all women like beer.

When I get this response, I feel like I am being tested. Am I going to be able to make the right decision? Do I know enough about women to know what they like?

Here’s the answer: get two Coronas.

Most people like a Corona. It is a lighter beer, and easy to drink. It comes with that lime stuck in the top, which is cool.

Also, there is a bit of a counter challenge in that. Can she hang with out and is she cool enough to drink beer with you?

What to do if she offers to buy you a drink

It is a wonderful thing when a woman buys you a drink.

Women, if you want to impress a man and make him like you a little more, buy him a beer.

If she offers to buy you a drink, say yes, thank her, and enjoy that drink, player.

Nice guys are manipulative bastards

11 Replies

The “nice guy” that we all know and recognize is a manipulative prick, who only does nice things to guilt trip women into liking him.

How’s that for laying down the gauntlet?

I’m not down on being nice, even if I am sometimes a little mean. It is wonderful to be nice to people, and I may even write an upcoming post about that very subject.

But what is not nice is when a man does something that seems nice, but is in fact not very nice at all. In fact some things that seem like they are very nice can have ulterior motives, and that is definitely not nice.

What do I mean by that?

  • A man that takes a woman out to a fancy dinner, because he expects her to like keep dating him or to “put out” after that, is not nice.
  • A man that does favors for and hangs out with a woman, hoping she might come around and like him back, is not nice.
  • A man that goes overboard and brings a woman flowers on a first date to go get coffee, in hopes that that the flowers will make the good first impression, is not nice.

None of these things are nice, because the nice thing is done with the expectation or hope that the woman will give the man what he wants in return. If you do something nice for a woman, with no thought of anything nice in return, that’s great. So often when a man acts nice towards a woman this is not the case though.

Story Time

Back in the day, I was out one night at a bar with my sister and one of her friends. We were having a grand ol time, and the drinks were flowing. We were sitting in the middle of the bar, plenty of folks around, so of course some guys started talking to us.

A few guys were hitting on my sister and her friend, and it was all good. They were nice enough guys, and everything was friendly.

Eventually the three of us got tired of the bar we were at and decided to take off and go to another bar. My sister went to settle our tab, which was pretty hefty. Over 100 bucks (we weren’t being shy with the drinks).

Something surprising happened. One of the guys that had been talking to my sister offered to pay for our entire tab. All three of us. My sister declined, but he was really insistent. It took a while for my sister to get it into his head that, no, he wasn’t going to pay for our tab.

Now, that could seem like a pretty nice thing to do. He offered to cover our entire tab. I wish people would pay for all of my drinks all the time. Very nice thing to do.

Behind that, however, was a certain agreement he was trying to force into place. He wasn’t offering to pay out of the goodness and kindness of his heart. He was not practicing random acts of kindness or anything like that. He was buying the drinks to make the two women I was with that night like him. I’m pretty sure that in his mind, he was thinking that he would pay for the drinks, and the women would go out with him because of that.

The *nice* thing he was offering up was really an attempt to manipulate them into feeling obligated to spend more time with him.

Catch it before it starts

This is easy to change. Whenever you have the option to do something nice for a woman that is above and beyond what you would normally do, ask yourself if if you are hoping for anything in return.

If you hope that doing this will make her like you, or do something in return for you, then it probably isn’t a good idea.

If you are expecting something in return, then your nice action is actually going to be tainted with manipulation. Manipulation just isn’t cool. Not towards women, not towards men, just don’t do it. You don’t want to end up like this guy, calling to ask for her share of what you paid for dinner on the date, just because she didn’t want to go out again.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a woman to like you. Don’t get the wrong impression. I have met plenty of women that I wanted to like me.

Rather than go overboard trying to show how nice and thoughtful I am, I know I will get much further by actually just being nice and thoughtful.

Be good, and be nice, but don’t be a nice guy.

Should You Pay For A Woman On A Date?

2 Replies

Yes.

No.

Maybe.

There is tons of advice on this that floats around our information heavy day and age. I heard someone mention the advice that Tom Leykis gives, to not buy anything for a woman. He says that we are just perpetuating a culture of women that think they should have everything handed to them on a silver platter.

A lot of guys listen. They can see the points that he makes, and feel that they shouldn’t pay for a woman on a date. It’s time to show women that they can’t just take you for a ride.

I disagree, and follow the general rule that if I invite a girl out, I expect to pay.

Maybe you don’t think you should pay for a woman on a date. Now, you can keep on not paying for dates, that’s fine.

Realize that you are going to lose girls that you otherwise wouldn’t have by doing this. I did it too. My head was full of thoughts like “don’t ever pay for women” when I started to learn how to be better with women. And I lost girls that I other wise wouldn’t have. It comes with the territory, so be aware of that. It may be unfortunate, but screaming at a wall won’t make the wall go away.

The thing to realize though, is that spending money during a date for a girl, whether it’s a $3 ice cream cone, or a $10 sandwich, isn’t that big a deal. Objectively, I mean. Even if you are making minimum wage, it still is only half hour to a couple hours of work. In the grand scheme of things, and purely from an objective point of view, there is no big deal with this.

There’s something else going on here with guys that think this. Something that makes spending money on a woman seem like a bad idea. Now, there are way too many men in the world who are sad, hurt, and frustrated because of women. There are way too many men that feel like they can’t get the happiness they want with women. I was this way for years. It didn’t feel good. I felt powerless to get the thing I needed most.

I haven’t listened to very many of the shows that promote this attitude towards women and dating. That is mainly because when I have listened to them, I thought they were total garbage. What they do is give men a way to take all the pain, sadness and frustration they feel, and replace it with anger. It works well for them, because anger is much easier to live with than pain and sadness.

There is another way though, and it is often a bit more difficult. It takes a lot of work, and sometimes requires that men revisit the pain that they have because of their relations and interactions with women so far in their life.

When a man chooses this other way, he takes the pain, sadness, and frustration that he has had, and replaces it with fun, excitement, and happiness as he moves forward. It is a bit harder, but in my experience, it is far better. This is the way that we teach at PickUp 101.

The first step is to learn how to make a woman happy. Check out the program, Everything You Know About Women Is Wrong. It is a great place to start to make the changes, and follow the path to a happier life.

Click here now to find out more.