Ash

Take Me South

I PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT

BY RYAN O’CONNELL

I probably shouldn’t have dated a nice guy. They’re a terrible bunch,  truly awful, and I vow to just never go down that road ever again. When people describe someone as “nice”, you can usually translate that to: “Their personality is like watery oatmeal on a colourless Sunday afternoon.” I hate oatmeal and I hate you, Mr. Nice Guy.

You’ll meet a nice boy at a bookstore or in your feminist studies class or maybe even a house party, and think they could be a nice fit. They treat you with kindness, they don’t play mind games and they always text you back, so why wouldn’t you just give your love to them? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because once the novelty fades and you feel sufficiently loved and cared for, you’ll be stuck with a really boring person. One day you’ll be sitting with your nice guy on the couch, watching the television, and you’ll look over at them - I mean, really look for the first time - and a quiet anger will start to rise inside of you. In a panic, you’ll move closer and start kissing them hard on the lips, hoping it will spark some feelings of passionate love, but no such luck. Their lips will taste like rice cakes and you’ll suddenly realise the horrible truth: you’re in a relationship with someone you’ll never be able to love. Oops!

The Nice Guy will drive you insane. You’ll discover very quickly that they have pudding for a backbone (you can say whatever mean thing you want to them and they’ll take it all with a sheepish expression on their face), their opinions are changeable (“I love this movie! I mean, unless you don’t like it - in which case, I hate it too!”), and they’re absolute bores in bed. When it’s all over, you’ll barely remember the sex. It’ll become a blur of muted moans, short staccato blasts of annoyed sighs, and lacklustre orgasms. You won’t remember the taste of their cum - it probably tasted like organic vegan gluten-free tofu anyway - or the size of their penis. It’s like someone took a Men In Black memory eraser to your head and deleted all the sex you had together.

The whole time you date a nice guy, you’ll be overcome with guilt. Every time they do something sweet or tell a joke, you’ll recoil and feel a swirl of embarrassment, shame and disgust. Unfortunately, the more you pull away, the more likely The Nice Guy is to become interested in you. They thrive on distance. That’s the dynamic: you pushing them away and hating yourself for it while The Nice Guy asks you for another kick.

You’ll want to scream and shake them asking, “Why do you love me? What will it take for you to reach a breaking point?” The irony about dating a nice guy is that it forces you to be everything but. You’ll become a terrible version of yourself, someone who is forced to carry all of the weight of opinions and sassiness. There’s no balance. The Nice Guy becomes more and more pathetic as your behaviour becomes more and more ugly. No one wins.

That is why I probably shouldn’t have dated a nice guy. It revealed how cruel I could actually be and it also made me hate someone for loving me. (Oh my god, the whole thing sounds like a Dashboard Confessional B-Side.) But like with most things you probably shouldn’t have done, I don’t regret any of it. Because now I know that when I meet a guy whose chief characteristic is “nice” or “sweet”, I should run away screaming. Besides, if I’m really craving something inoffensive or bland, I can just order a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and watch a Sofia Coppola film.