by 
It’s the question most asked after the guy doesn’t ask you out on the date or doesn’t call after the date. It’s especially asked when the guy tells you that he just wants to be friends. Willow expresses the opening of her frustration this way (warning use of the f word on the linked site):
Why is it that the nice girls are overlooked, those who become friends and nothing more, who spend hours fixating upon their looks and their personalities and their actions because it must be they that are doing something wrong. Why is it that because we don’t give it up on the first date, we don’t want to play mind games, we provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story we’ve heard a thousand time, they cant see it? We understand that we aren’t perfect and that the guys we’re interested in aren’t either. For us girls who flirt and laugh and worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch, because somehow we are able to keep alive that hope that maybe… maybe this time he’ll have understood. This is a homage to all the others who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in skirts and sweats and combat boots, who care more than they should for guys who don’t deserve their attention. This is for us girls who have been in the trenches, who have watched other girls time and time again fake up and make up and [sex] up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for us girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” to “time heals all wounds.” This is to honor us, who know that guys are just as scared as they are, who know that we deserve better, who are seeking to find it.
In this paragraph alone we see the problem really isn’t “why nice girls are overlooked” but it really is why can’t I get the guy I want. What is the problem here? It can be broken down into 5 things:
1. Young Women have become Young Men.
Part of problem goes back to the feminist movement. For years, since the 60s, the gospel of “free love” has been preached. Sex was something that (contrary to the Bible and moral values of the time) was to be engaged in with any person from whom consent could be attained. Women were encouraged to experiment with sexual freedom– for only when they could have sex without the stigma like they perceived men didn’t have would they be free.
In this day in age, the woman that has sex with the most men is held up to acclaim. They’re the heroes. Just look at the popular shows: Desperate Housewives, Sex in the City, etc. We’re exalting this deviant behavior, and I pity women. They gave up the “princess” for the “[Prostitute]” and think that they are now free. Instead, we have Willow’s problem above.
2. Men are given what they want without having to work for it.
You see, at one day in time there was sacrifice and codes of conduct that was in place for how a man treated a lady. There were payments and arrangements made– he had to have a house, a means to provide, some assurance for her parents– and then he got to marry her, and only then were they allowed to be intimate. (Of course, with those arranged marriages you also didn’t have to worry about not getting the guy or girl, since it was already taken care of, but I digress…)
Even in the days of courting, the man had to do things like ask the father for the woman’s hand, and make some sort of provision. And even in the late 1800s and early 1900s there was at least the understanding by the culture as a whole that sex was only inside marriage.
How does this apply to nice girls and guys? All girls were nice and had high morals. All guys had to wait to get close and kiss or touch nice girls. This restraint evened the field. Now, websites are seriously asking the question of whether someone should have sex on the first date or wait until the next one. They’re discussing the justifications for cheating sexually on one girlfriend with another. They’re talking about how short a time before you should move in together.
3. Nice Girls think that they have to do the same thing.
Nice girls now, to get the guy that they want, think that they have to be like the loose women that he sees in order to get the guy they are crushing on. They look at him, see that he can have all of the “good” parts of marriage without having to form the bond of a relationship and therefore they choose to either allow to have their own treasure plundered and become as empty as the other girls, or to stand at a distance hoping that they guy that they are crushing on will notice the faithful friend by their side.
4. Nice Girls misunderstand Nice Guys.
Nice guys, on the other hand, are generally not the most attractive guys. They’re the guys of principle. They’re the guys that not everyone likes to hang around with, because they are “square” (pardon the old term). These nice guys tend to form good friendships– and you probably view them as only a friend as well– but they probably are wondering about something more.
Nice girls think that nice guys are strange. They miss them in the halls, because they aren’t busy gathering attention to themselves.
5. Nice Girls don’t always want Nice Guys.
Nice girls seem to be stuck on the guys that they can’t have. They want the guy that everyone else has a crush on, and that bad guy only would look at her like a conquest. The problem is, the bad guy is not deep. He’s shallow. And the nice guy is deep, but invisible. Just like the nice girl– the nice guy struggles with the same things. Take it from a guy who is a nice guy and married a nice girl.
Women, stick to your purity. Celebrate your morals. Form good solid friendships and look for men that are more than flashy. Look for one with a solid background, love for the Lord, and that will treat you like the “princess” you are.
Min, something is terribly wrong with this page’s code. It shows strangely both in Firefox and in IE 7.
Thanks for the catch– check it now.
It is fine now 🙂
This is an excellent post. I was listening AFR the other night and this woman was on talking about this very subject. Girls are becoming even more sexually aggressive shutters* than the boys.
She had mentioned that a girl she was counseling, not sure, I caught the middle of the program, was very upset because the boys had posted grades on the PE locker room door, on who was the best in bed. This girl received a “D” and was very upset with the grade and wanted to know what she had done wrong? I shutter at how she is going to improve her grade.
Sometimes I wish the 60’s era had never occurred. It seems that it changed everything for women.
Wonderful thoughts.
I found my nice guy, as you well know :biggrin: . I grew up as the girl “you don’t date, but that you marry”. I guess that means that after you date all the girls that will “put out” for you, you marry the one that you know won’t be “putting out” for others once you are ready to settle down. I take that as a compliment, backhanded though it may be, and marry the guy who was willing to do the same for me :wub: .
Sadly, even among nice Christian kids (I know alot of them) who are not sleeping around, still the guys play pairing up with the flirtatious girls, and just want to be friends with those who are really interested in standing for a godly life. I tell my daughters that it is not a bad thing, but sometimes they fear that they will end up having to marry flirt’s rejects.
I don’t really agree with you that the nice guys aren’t the best-looking. Ultimately, though, good looks or charisma or whatever shouldn’t be what the young ladies are looking for. It’s the character of Christ in the person, and what position in the young man’s life does the Lord occupy?
Statistics show that even among Christians, the number who wait until marriage to have sexual relations is quite low. There is something very wrong with a society that constantly gives out a message that sex is just something adults choose to do when they become adults, and that marriage is irrelevant to this.
If you speak out and say that sex is made for marriage, the current retort is that these are just “middle class values” that we are “imposing on others”.
Of course, middle class has nothing to do with it, but it is a good smoke screen. These are Christian ethics.
At some point I intend to write a post about the “middle class values” thing – as though values based in morality can somehow be ignored because of imagined class distinctions.
But for now, I note that output from TV programme makers sometimes casts young people as willing to wait for sex early in a series, but they usually give this up by the end of the first series or so.
I actually find some Christian theology in this. If we are given a completely free choice to do one thing or not, and we continue to revisit that choice, then inevitably we will eventually do it. In TV programmes it is the young person who eventually decides to have extra marital sex. In Christian theology it is Adam and Eve.
Adam had free will and freedom of choice. He could partake of the fruit or not, but inevitably he would eventually do so. In this the fall was inevitable, and yet at no point dod God cause Adam to fall. God created the world knowing we would fall, and that Christ would have to die for our sins. He proceeded with this knowledge – never once desiring that we sin, but knowing that it was inevitable.
With the whole entertainment perspective, Stephen, I find that the entertainment we ingest is continually “ahead” of where the culture is. They were featuring the single mom before it was popular. They were featuring the gay character before the gay marriage push. Each time they do this they “validate” the concept and make people in these situations assuage their guilt while having those outside view it as normal.
It’s now assumed that you go out on a date and have sex– the question now is “how soon?” A day? A week? A month? And then, how soon will you move in together– not how soon will you get married.
Society is encouraging a self-destroying lifestyle. They question is, when will they learn the value of restraint and commitment, and will it come before the society ceases to exit.
Part of the problem is that the assumptions of the society become so fully internalised, that at no point do we step back and think that maybe our attitudes and assumptions may be wrong.
An example of this was on an episode of a programme I watched some time back called Stargate. I think the series may still be running, but I only watched a couple of episodes, because the major premise of the series was that the galaxy was filled with backward planets of English speaking humans, who despite having managed to develop identical languages on far flung planets, had adopted more “prehistoric” attitudes to domestic relationships.
The “heros” therefore strode incuriously into these planets and taught all the women folk how to stand up and be equal, and young people should reject arranged marriages and how all societies must be good democracies. It failed at any point (that I was watching it) to evaluate whether there was sufficient merit in any of these views to impose them upon these backward alien cultures.
And that is how too many people think of those who do not share our assumptions: backward and alien. That is how school friends of mine thought of me when I said that I would save sex for a marriage relationship (those who believed me. At least one of them was adamant that I must by lying!)
But our response should probably be twofold:
1. We should work hard to discover our cultural assumptions and challenge them and
2. We must avoid the temptation to think that someone is backward simply because they do not share our own assumptions.
Stephen, those are such good points. We always need to be challenging our own assumptions, comparing what we believe to the Word, and looking for our own blind spots where we may have just adopted the culture’s assumptions. And there are many areas where we do that, even as Christians.
We would do well to discuss the things we disagree about, but unfortunately I am usually afraid to bring them up.
While I don’t disagree that we must both confront the society with the truth and stop pre-judging societies based on our own, I think that the core of the response we need to have is to witness and pray. You see, we cannot change someone’s heart– and for the most part what this is is a heart problem rather than a logical one.
You don’t know how many times I’ve seen someone argue that it was ok for people to be this way because “It’s My Body” or “it’s fine as long it is between consenting adults. We’ve gotten to the point that we evaluate things, not against a standard, but against whether there’s a perceived impact on someone else right now.
That’s the biggest trick I think that Satan’s effectively using now– our short attention span. He makes us think that things are acceptable because things don’t happen as repercussions right that instant. “I didn’t get hit with a lightning bolt, so I must be ok.” We don’t think about the effect our action may have for the long term: the STDs, the families that are broken apart, or the effect of the fact that we have become desensitized to our conscience’s nagging. We make ourselves calloused because we outweigh the long term for the short term. What other explanation is there for a society that has more debt and less savings than a generation ago.
Only with a change of heart and desire are we going to see a change in society. That’s probably the reason why God knew so much about Sodom and Gomorrah before sending the Angels there. Your outside reflects your inside.
Rebecca– it is hard to discuss what we disagree about, especially with someone that we respect or when we think we are out numbered! The best thing to do is to be prepared with what you are going to say in advance and make sure to pray!
I think you are quite right to point out that prayer is key. As to witnessing – I think that it is an important part of witnessing that we do not prejudge someone based on cultural assumptions rather than biblical truth. This is particularly important when witnessing to people from other faiths and cultures, where a failure to do this will make it look as though we do not care enough about these people to understand them.
The “its my body” argument doesn’t really work for Christians of course, as our bodies are God’s temple. But for those who are perishing, we should not start from their sin. Jesus told Zaccheus that he was coming to his house. No doubt the issue of repentance came up over their meal, but Christ didn’t start with the man’s sin. When Christ did start with talking about sin, he did so by forgiving the sin.
So for the unsaved, we start with relationship, listening, understanding. We never compromise our own beliefs, but we don’t pick on their sin. But when they are ready, we can speak of Christ who has power to forgive sin.
Regards,
Stephen
Rebecca, I agree we do well to discuss what wer disagree about – as long as we are careful to do so gently and in a loving spirit. I agree with Min that this can be hard – particularly if we feel we are outnumbered, and perhaps not certain of our ground. Part ofthe loving spirit should be allowing people to quietly drop a topic if they choose to do so.
Certainly we have to reach out in the realization that they are sinners and to some extent do not know any better. We need to be praying that the Holy Spirit will do His work to alter the hearts in preparation for the Gospel.
I’ve long thought that Christians focus too much on the wrong people. By that I mean that we tend to focus on those that seem to have it all together, that are moral, and that do not believe that they have a need when we should be focusing on those that know that they need a Savior. In that case, we have to get over our prejudice and pride and reach out to those that are trapped in sin.
There are so many problems with this ‘willow’s’ view, that it is difficult to even go into them all! I think so much of the young people’s problems today are based on the Hollywood culture again, that has been discussed here many times. They hold that up as the ideal and these actors and actresses, models are idols in their lives. Very few people, even Christians use the Bible for their guidebook in life. They use Hollywood, peer pressure, etc. as their guidebook. The Bible lays it out pretty clearly on most issues, especially where pre-marital sex is concerned. Woe to us that want to throw it away and lead ourselves! I married a ‘nice guy’ after dating a couple that weren’t so nice, but popular of course. What a difference…a gem among thorns! I’m training my two oldest daughters, one away at Bible college, to look for the ‘nice guys’!
Well, part of Willow’s view must be clouded by a recent action– I find we’re always over dramatic “in the moment”, but you’re right. Society shows us that we should want the best looking even while saying that looks don’t matter. It’s a “do as I say, not as I do.” Very rarely is the nice guy or girl in our entertainment anything but the model guy/girl. If they do go to show the guy or girl as ugly, it’s just before they transform them into a prince/princess.
So, you’re right, Deborah, it’s a continual barrage that we need to recognize and show our children what’s going on in these shows.