No More Mr. Nice Guy?

A few days ago, a friend shared this meme thing on his Facebook page and prompted me to reconsider the age old question, "Do nice guys really finish last?"  Here are 20 reasons why they do!!!  (Note that this is why they finish last in terms of winning girl's affections, not why they bring up the rear in life in general...that would be a much longer list)

1. We care too much about how you feel. Spending too much time wondering what a girl is thinking leads to inaction. While we wonder if you actually want to go on another date or not, Joe Schmo is already asking you on your fifth. (Girls, maybe you shouldn't be so nice either and should tell Mr. Schmo you just aren't interested)

2. We put everything we have into a relationship and making our lady happy, so when it doesn't work out, we have a hard time recovering and putting ourselves out there again. We have a lot in common with investor guy who jumps off a building when the stock market crashes.

3. Safe and practical doesn't equate to sexy. Do you want a Honda or a Lamborghini? Neither, you chose the guy on a motorcycle.

4. Often times, nice is the only thing we have going for us...we are also ugly and poor. If perennial nice guy  and all-around stud James Marsden (X-Men, Superman Returns, Enchanted, The Notebook) is repeatedly jilted, what chance do us mere mortals have?

5. Jerry Magiuire was right, we live in a cynical world. Nice guys can't do their thing and be kind to a girl without her thinking there are ulterior motives. Can't we just be nice to you for sake of being nice? And if it somehow leads to you planting one on our lips, so be it...

6. If a dame we are interested in knows us well enough to be aware of our propensity for niceness, she thinks anything we do for her is just our personality and not part of some maniacal plot  to make her feel incredibly special.

7. We literally do finish last...when was the last time a nice guy won a race?

8. How many times have you heard a girl say, "I am tired of dating jerks"? On the other hand, how many times have you actually seen her date a guy who treats her like a queen and who understands her feelings? Sometimes you lady folk are like the person who says they are tired of things in life that aren't real, and then goes on a dive searching for the Loch Ness Monster. (Alright, such a person does not exist...but you get my point, right?)

9. Humility, a hallmark of the nice guy, can sometimes be perceived as a lack of confidence. We like ourselves, we just don't want you to know that.

10. At times we struggle at taking the initiative. We can be so overtly cognitive if your feelings that we do not want to cause you pain that could come from having to tell us you aren't interested or that you are dating Jo Schmo (again, why are you still dating him?)

11. Often, we fail to meet girls in the first place because we don't take the Beastie Boys advice to fight for our right to party. Instead, we fight for your right to vote. (That's happened already, huh?) We fight for your right to abort. (That's happened too?!?) We fight for your right to fight in the army. (I gotcha there didn't I? No??? Gosh darn it all) We fight for your right to emotionally eat. (There, something we can both agree on)

12. Nice guys often sacrifice our lives to save others, and the trait is slowly being bred out of society. If you are about to get hit by a moving vehicle, we push you out of the way and are hit instead. If there is a live grenade on the ground, we smother it with our body. If you are given a free ticket to a Neil Diamond concert, we offer to take the ticket instead. In other words, we don't pass Darwin's survival of the fittest test. Girl's don't naturally select us, why would Mother Nature be any different?

13. Sometimes we write blogs about our feelings instead of going on dates.

14. Many girls are suffering from "Disney Princess Syndrome" and are waiting for their prince to come rescue them without them having to do anything in terms of putting themselves out there in the dating world. Nice guys wait for a girl to give a sign that romantic feelings are reciprocated before they act on them. On a separate note, props to Disney for their new line of Princesses that take the initiative and fight for themselves (Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida). On another separate but related note, maybe nice guy's propensity for being too into Disney movies is a turn off?

15. It is in the Bible.  See Job.

16. Nice guys are notorious people pleasers.  We don't want to make one girl feel bad, so we often unintentionally lead a bunch of girls on rather focus on just one they are interested in. Nice guys don't gamble, but if we did, we would naively put one mark down on every number on the craps table and eventually lose all our chips.

17. All too often we accidentally take the fork in the road that leads to the "Friend Zone" rather than to the "Relationship Zone." Navigating through the world of dating games is tough for us amiable gentlemen.

18. We are too emotional. Girls want a shoulder to cry on, not a shoulder to cry with. For example, we don't like chick flicks because we often identify with the female lead more than you do...

19. On a related note, nice guys are usually cheery people, and there is a reason happy is synonymous with gay...some girls, in fact, believe we play for the wrong team...

20. We spend so much time pondering why we constantly finish last that we fail to realize that other guys, like Joe Schmo, have solved this puzzle, are dating a cute girl, and are nice to boot! (Ahh, that's why you are still dating him)

Charge!

“In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls… generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.” 
― Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

On July 2, 1863 Colonel Joshua Chamberlain found himself trapped between the proverbial rock and the hard place.  He and his Maine men were in the unfortunate position of being the last regiment on the left flank of a two mile long Union line of troops that barred the Confederacy from pursuing a course to Washington D.C., and perhaps, the end of the now two and a half year long Civil War.  Although he held the high ground, an extremely beneficial position in military stratagem, his men were nearly exhausted of both spirit and ammo after being attacked repeatedly by Southern troops for hours.  Chamberlain had been told emphatically by fellow officers that he could not retreat and must fight to the end, lest enemy troops flank the Union line and sweep away the troops like a strong tide, perhaps washing away any hopes of preserving the nation and ensuring freedom for those still in chains.  However, as he looked at his men, and then down the hill at the grey coats preparing another assault, he simply found himself out of options.  Should he sound the retreat and perhaps save the lives of his comrades in arms, one of which happened to be his younger brother?  Or should he order them to fight valiantly where they stood to the last man, a heroic, but in the end pointless, sacrifice?

In essence, the weight of a war fought to ensure that the lines "all men are created equal" truly applied to all men, and even the destiny of the entire nation first forged when the Founding Father's laid quill to paper to create the immortal Constitution, found itself squarely on Chamberlain's shoulders, and luckily for posterity, he did not flinch at the strain.

Rather than be overcome by the intensity of the moment or what seemed like inevitable defeat, Chamberlain did something bold and unexpected.  He sounded the call for his troops to fix bayonets, and then ordered a charge down the mountainside and into the enemy position.  Unheard of in terms of military tactics, his higher ranking officer's mouths must have been agape when he informed them of the plan.  Charge the enemy when they are seemingly infinite in number and when you hold the high ground?  Pure folly at worst, unusual at best.  But Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was not a "usual" soldier.

In fact, it was improbable that he ended up in the conflict at all, not to mention commanding troops at its epicenter.  He was not a fighting man, he was an academic.  He was a professor of rhetoric at esteemed Bowdoin University, and taught men how to be better communicators, not better killers.  Described as shy and reluctant by some, it was unfathomable--or as it turned out, providential--that he held a position of military leadership at all.  But Chamberlain held two hallmarks of character that made him the right person for the job at the right time: clarity of thought and empathy towards others.  He knew he could not retreat, but he also knew he must act.  Yet he also saw his men, the men he had marched with, bled with, and nearly died with, sweltering in the summer heat and frantically searching for cartridges in the belongings of their fallen comrades. So he availed himself of the only option left to him and boisterously yelled "charge" and began running down the steep mountainside with his troops, sword in hand.

Perhaps it was the fact that the enemy troops, exhausted themselves from the day's events, were taken completely off guard.  Or maybe it was the tenacity with which the Maine boys swept down the mountainside, wheeling from left  to right in order catch any Southern troops in the vicinity.  Whatever the case, the "Lion of Little Round Top" made a courageous decision when the fate of the entire nation was in the balance, and he ended up tipping the scales in favor of the Republic's preservation.  He would later receive the Medal of Honor, the highest award given to a soldier, and would go onto serve after the war's end as Governor of Maine and President of Bowdoin College

It is important to remember that tomorrow marks not only our nation's independence, but also the sesquicentennial of the end of the climactic Battle of Gettysburg.  There are so many stories of bravery and selflessness from both sides during the three day struggle that ultimately changed the course of history, but ever since I became fascinated with this event as a teenager, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain has been one of my personal heroes, not just because the part he played on the grand stage of our nation's history, or who he was as a person (both of which were admirable), but because in a moment of extreme chaos and calamity, he had the courage to act rather than be acted upon.

How many times in our life are we placed in a stressful situation and we simply sit around and wait for circumstances to get better?  I know it is a personal bad habit of mine to figuratively crawl into the fetal position and cut myself off from the world around me when faced with extreme challenges.  Like the frog in a pot of boiling water, I feel the temperature of life's turmoils increase, but rather than take action and escape, I grow comfortable with not taking action at all.  How much more healthy would it be if, rather than simply wait and let life act on me, or even worse, retreat from my problems completely, I followed Chamberlain's example and charged them head on?  Even more poignant, how much more of an impact could I have on the world around me if I wasn't afraid of what other's thought or whether and simply acted in the manner that was best?

I love history because, when taught well, it should be the most engaging of stories;  a tapestry woven with the actions of heroes and individuals that we can look at and learn from.  The actions of figures long left behind by the annals of time can be remembered, and as Chamberlain said, "their vision can pass into our souls."  So as you remember those who fought and who are currently fighting to preserve the pillars of liberty we as nation hold dear, remember not only what they did, but the lessons they were trying to teach us.  Like the lesson that an unassuming teacher from Maine taught 150 years ago: that sometimes when life seems like it is beating down furiously upon you, when you are being plagued by column after column of quandaries, sometimes you have to bravely take a step forward and charge into the fire in order to avoid getting burned.

Happy Day of Independence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(If you made it to the end of my bloviating, I commend you and I apologize for the many grammatical errors you were sure to have encountered.  In my defense, I am writing this at one in the morning and decided that I could not give my tired brain rest until I finished.  On the other hand, it is sad to think that a post dedicated to one of my heroes, who happened to be a professor of language, would be riddled with errors that would most likely make him cringe.  So if you are looking down from the great haven in the sky JCL, or if you are one of the 4 people that actually read this post, I am sorry!!!)