Page 3 | The nicer he is the farther they run. .

bridie69 · 2015-10-19T20:04:58+00:00

DS is 27, handsome, intelligent, good job etc. He just moved to Dublin with work. He really loves Ireland and his new life there. But he hadn't had much luck romantically. I think he is just way too nice. I as a feminist Mum take some responsibility for this. Ideas?

anothernumberone · 20/10/2015 08:00

Sorry that posted too soon but the relationship board has people of all ages, not just 20 something chasing after loves young dream. I studied engineering in university 20 odd years ago and met hundreds of naice young men aged 20 something, and plenty of bad uns, I think you are the one generalising on experience. Plenty of them were able to regularly find nice women to match up with and still do from what I see with my own students. There are good uns and bad uns every where and there are people who want good uns and bad uns everywhere you are talking shite.

RedMapleLeaf · 20/10/2015 08:10

How does he feel about it?

Penfold007 · 20/10/2015 08:33

OP you need to seriously keep out of your adult children's social lives.

HeighHoghItsBacktoWorkIGo · 20/10/2015 08:41

OP, you write, "he just moved to Dublin."

A lot of us need time to meet people, get to know them, and form relationships. I'd leave him to it. This is one of those things you cannot do for him.

F0xChat · 20/10/2015 12:07

IrishDad the NUMBER ONE REASON THE 'nice' MEN have no luck with women is because being so 'nice' and all, they completely disregard the least attractive 75% of the opposite sex.

Obviously statistic there pull out of my size ten ageing ass, but it is and always HAS been true. Nice is code for shy. Or it's code for boring. Any 'nice' men who have the self-awareness to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror will have no luck finding a girlfriend.

I'm so sick of reading this bullshit. If you're an 'irish dad' you'll have heard of rollercoaster and theres a similar self-pitying whinge from a 'nice' single dad. I could bet an internal organ that most of the single women are invisible to him because there's no shortage of single women.

F0xChat · 20/10/2015 12:09

ps, the last date I went on was with an English man actually and his english accent wasn't doing him ANY harm.

F0xChat · 20/10/2015 12:13

mimmishimmis that's a very outdated perception. There is actually a surprisingly high number of English people in Dublin, you'd wonder why sometimes but they tend to fit in instantly. There are so many polish, philippino, chinese, latvian and millions of other nationalities besides in dublin too now, that the english barely raise a eyebrow.

Scremersford · 20/10/2015 12:19

If he's only just escaped from home at age 27 he's hardly going to walk straight into a relationship and marriage, is he? He needs time to find his feet and probably to work on his social skills, he will probably be a bit behind in development terms. What does it matter if he finds a girlfriend now, at 32, at 37 or never? Whats the reason with the obsession for getting him paired up?
You need to back off and respect proper boundaries. If he does get a girlfriend, if you carry on the way you have on here, its going to drive her away if you aren't lucky.

brokenhearted55a · 20/10/2015 12:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Imgivinguponyou · 20/10/2015 16:12

The last two men I went out with describe themselves online as 'genuine nice guys' and they believe it too.

No 1.
Possessive
Jealous
Angry
Controlling
False laugh
No friends

No 2
Chain smoker
Alcoholic
Smelly feet
Unemployed

F0xChat · 20/10/2015 16:15

and the self-labelling "nice guy 1" that I tried to go out with was a bit boring, fairly reserved and grudging his xw her future share of his pension (even though she gave up her career to raise their children)

the most recent nice guy I went out with, he started to repeat back to me things I'd said and done and give them a more negative interpretation than the true one.

F0xChat · 20/10/2015 16:16

ps, It's an interesting subject and one that deserves its own thread. I feel bad that all of these interesting points are on the thread started by a mum who's worried about her son.

2rebecca · 20/10/2015 16:33

You seem to associate him "being happy" with him "meeting someone nice". Why? Is he unhappy? If he's depressed or generally miserable that won't be attracting people to him. If he's happy in his life and doing stuff he enjoys he's more likely to meet someone. maybe he has and just doesn't want you to know about his private life.
My student son hasn't mentioned any girlfriends to me and I don't want to pry. He is happy though with a group of friends and plenty of interests.
26 is still quite young.
If you think he's not happy maybe concentrate on seeing if you can help advise on that (you probably can't do much if he's abroad though). Otherwise maybe concentrate on your own life and love life and just be there for him and stop wishing domesticity on him.

NuckyS · 20/10/2015 16:39

One of my friends at college claimed she found 'nice' guys boring - the trouble was she would only ever go for guys who were obviously complete tossers, then we'd have to wait for the inevitable implosion. Sympathy became pretty limited after a while.

F0xChat · 20/10/2015 17:39

What does nice mean............... to your friend it meant boring.

To me, it's code for decent, responsible, self-aware, respectful, generous.

brokenhearted55a · 20/10/2015 17:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Gabilan · 20/10/2015 18:15

If he's only just escaped from home at age 27 he's hardly going to walk straight into a relationship and marriage, is he? He needs time to find his feet and probably to work on his social skills, he will probably be a bit behind in development terms. What does it matter if he finds a girlfriend now, at 32, at 37 or never? Whats the reason with the obsession for getting him paired up?

This, really OP. My mother was rather over invested in my love life. At family weddings she would line up potential men for me and gambol over, pointing them out. If their dad was there, that was even better as I could see what this man would be like when he was older. The result was that I simply never told her anything about my love life and didn't until I was well into my 30s and she had calmed down a bit. If I mentioned a man's name she'd run out and buy a hat, she was that bad.

Interestingly though she didn't think the problem was that I was too nice and that the nicer I was the further they ran. She thought I was too picky. The one time I stopped being that picky was in part to please her and I bitterly regret it. That particular man was the biggest mistake of my life (not my mother's fault, I take responsibility for the decisions I made).

Just back off him, OP. He's shy, he's just moved out. So long as he can forge a life for himself and be happy, there's no reason for either of you to get hung up about his love life.

GashleyCrumbTiny · 20/10/2015 18:16

Hmmm. This thread seems to have run away with itself a bit.

OP, if your son is shy - shy and only just out of home on his own and getting used to adult life - then he probably just isn't too adept at meeting/talking to/showing his niceness off to women yet. He needs hobbies, friends, and a social life - to meet lots of people where the pressure is off and he can just be himself. It'll happen, but if he's shy and retiring it won't happen quickly.

Sorry you're getting a hard time on this thread. Think your initial post inadvertently pushed a couple of inadvisable buttons!

IrishDad79 · 21/10/2015 01:52

Foxchat, I actually had to look up "rollercoaster" when you mentioned it as I'd never heard of it. I don't actively go around cruising for parenting sites.

Anyway, you're completely misinterpreting what I said. I never said that women don't like "nice guys" (for want of a better description) or can't find nice guys attractive or desirable. What I said was that there is a proportion of women who, for whatever reason, find themselves attracted to assholes/bastards. I've seen it here in these very pages where women say they keep falling for the wrong type of man, they can't help it even though he treats them like shit, it's an addiction, "limerence" etc etc. There's no point having a go at me about it when it's all there in black-and-white for anyone who wants to read it. I didn't fucking make it up!

stargirl04 · 21/10/2015 02:33

Agree with Irish Dad. I am one of those women that went for bad boys in the past - and I have many friends who've done the same.

We all live to regret it, of course, but hindsight won't stop that phenomenon. My sister openly admits she likes bad boys because she thinks they're more exciting. I'm showing my age now, but I remember some comedy series in the 80s starring Linda Bellingham in which she said: "Women like bastards."

There is undoubtedly a ring of truth to it. Irish Dad is right.

I also feel for you OP, as you sound lovely. You've had a very hard time on here which is totally unwarranted and which actually makes me feel ashamed that some members of my gender can be so utterly unkind.

I think they would do well to remember:
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

OP, your son is young and has plenty of time to meet the right person. I personally believe that men are better off settling down later anyway - ie well into their thirties. Try not to worry about him too much - he'll be fine :-)

xxxx

F0xglove · 21/10/2015 07:30

Well at least you acknowledge it is a small proportion... slightly less annoying than the "all women like bastards" we are sick of unattractive boring shy men telling us this.

F0xglove · 21/10/2015 08:19

As for "cruising for parenting sites" wind your sarcasm back in. It is hardly a proposterous idea that you might know it.

Cerseirys · 21/10/2015 08:40

Agree Foxchat - there are threads on MN about women who are always attracted to the wrong sort of men but then that's the sort of thing people post about, isn't it? Nobody starts a thread about how they always go out with wonderful men! So it easy to think that it's a large proportion of women who are like this when in reality it isn't.