Should You Be A “Jerk” Or A “Nice Guy?”

Bisquick1 had this interesting post on mASF about striking a balance between being a Jerk and a Nice Guy.

Bisquick1 writes:

I notice this relates to not just picking up women, but making friends — lasting friends at that: Finding the balance between being the “Jerk” and being the “Nice guy”

After making, keeping, and losing friends or women I began to understand how those processes were happening. However, I’m having a difficult time trying to calibrate each situation!

If I make a friend/meet a girl, I will either lose him/her because I am either: Worried about not offending or annoying the other person, thereby leading me to be boring and they move to someone more fun.

Or I’m too much of a jerk. I’ll get annoying, and be too crazy/funny to the point where it is like “Enough already!” and lose him/her because of that.

On rare instances I’ll keep the friend/girlfriend if I play the cards right, but I just don’t know how!

I’ve tried newbie methods to meet new guy friends and potential girlfriend, but it is taking too long to just CLICK.

When and how will it just CLICK? Its been too long!(2+ years of recurring situations mentioned above)

Now, I’ve dealt with this “Nice Guy” vs. “Jerk” dilemma before.  I think too many guys make the mistake of thinking that being a Jerk means being a mean prick to everyone, and somehow that is preferable to being a “Nice Guy.”  In the case of this poster, he wants to strike some type of balance, as though he can oscilate between being a Jerk and being a Nice Guy when the situation suits him.

To me, this is a bad idea – for a multitude of reasons.  Not the least of which is that when you do things like this, you’re not being very genuine.  You’re putting on an act, so when people become attracted to you, they’re not really liking you for who you are, they like the act you put on.  And ultimately, you just can’t sustain that.

If you’re the type of guy who thinks that you have to be a jerk to get women attracted to you, then you’ve been mislead.  You don’t have to be one or the other – a nice guy or a jerk.  Both of these labels have positives and negatives about them.  it is possible to be a nice guy who attracts women just as well, if not better than, jerks do.

Here’s the thing you got to remember about “Jerks”…

The reason Jerk’s are so successful with women (in general) is because women often mistake narcisism & sociopathic tendancies for confidence.

Jerks are people who only care about their own pleasure. They have no concept of other people’s feelings, and because of that, they don’t get nervous or take into account how they may be coming off around other people.  They focus on getting what they want because they feel they deserve it. This can seem like confidence, mixed with a healthy dose of persistence, to people who have weak frames and get caught up in the Jerk’s bravado. But those are really the two things anyone needs to be successful with women at a most basic level – confidence and persistence.

So I don’t think its really about finding a balance between being a Jerk and a Nice guy, its about having the right amount of confidence so that you can get what you want no matter the situation.

I like to think I’m a pretty nice guy, but I have developed a certain amount of inner strength that helps me to attract women and not come off as Beta or AFC. That’s really what we’re talking about here – if you can be self confident enough to be fun, interesting, and engaging around others and still get what you want, you don’t have to worry about playing the roll of a “jerk” or a “nice guy.”

So it comes down to this – are you able to focus on doing and achieving what makes you happy, while still being able to calibrate how other people around you are feeling and adjust your behavior appropriately?

The best skill you can learn in pick up is being able to read the people you are with – be they men or women. If you know what you’re doing is upsetting someone or pissing them off, then you need to be able to adjust your game accordingly.

If you’re able to do that, you can CONSISTENTLY be the type of man people want to be around, without having to worry about “switching” your roles and playing two different parts that really don’t reflect who you are.