nice guy
English
[edit]
Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
[edit]- (idiomatic, euphemistic) An inoffensive adult male who desires romantic companionship but who is too bland and uninspiring to be attractive.
- 1999, The 'Nice Guy' Syndrome, Self-Help Informational Resources, The Counseling Center for Human Development, The University of South Florida [1]
- The nice guy, they say, finishes last. But in romantic relationships, the nice guy often isn't even in the running. […] The nice guy may have expressed an interest in dating you[...]. The nice guy is the person who you trust and feel comfortable with, but don't see as "fun" or "challenging" or really all that "interesting," other than as a friend, of course.
- 2002 May 3, Cecelia Goodnow, “What's wrong with being a nice guy? Plenty, according to a local therapist”, in Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
- "My frustrations were pretty typical Nice Guy relationship issues," he says. "Not feeling appreciated, not feeling sexually desired by my wife. I didn't feel like...I received as much as I gave."
- 2005 September 18, "Dirty D.", Lost Romanticism and the Manwhore, DiaryLand, at uberfrau.diaryland.com
- Nice guys are historically the grail of dating. […] As both Nora and I reminisced and compared how we were treated by the manwhore and by the nice guy, the manwhore always won out.
- 1999, The 'Nice Guy' Syndrome, Self-Help Informational Resources, The Counseling Center for Human Development, The University of South Florida [1]
- (Internet slang, sarcastic, derogatory) A man who pretends to be kind and polite with the goal of attracting women, often becoming hostile and misogynistic when their advances are rebuffed; someone affected by nice guy syndrome.
- 2016 March 12, Suzannah Weiss, “5 Signs Of Nice Guy Syndrome”, in Bustle[2]:
- Plenty of men will treat women kindly, but Nice Guys like to think that behaving kindly earns them a gold star. It doesn't.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see nice, guy.
Derived terms
[edit]Terms derived from nice guy