There are any number of geek guys running around out there without the love and companionship that many people and all golden retrievers deserve. Sometimes these guys sit down and try to figure out why they're living a life devoid of love, romance, sex and discussions about whose hair it is in the shower drain.

They undertake a deep self-assessment, questioning all their long-cherished beliefs about themselves, and this is what they conclude: They're too nice. And that's hilarious!

Guys, you're not "too nice." That's like saying you can't get seated at an L.A. restaurant because you're too famous.

I know lots of nice guys, fellows who are much nicer than me, and nearly all of them have what '70s-era singer-songwriters call "special ladies." Seriously, even guys that in college struck me as the sort that would have trouble sweet-talking a hand towel and a bottle of lotion into bed are married with offspring that are, presumably, theirs.

I also know tremendous jerks with girlfriends, but that just proves there's someone for everyone.

I mean, let's concede right here that there are people of all available genders who are messed up in the brainpan and because of this are only into people who treat them poorly. These folks are, thankfully, in the minority. They're also not the sort of people you want to be dating. Self-loathing people are actually kind of a pain to be around.

Which brings us back to you! Given that nice guys get bedded and/or wedded all the time, you must have a more specific problem than that. Here are some specific behaviors I have witnessed in guys who think they're "too nice" when actually they're "unpleasant." Is this you?

For some reason, you think "nice" means "completely devoid of sexual energy." When you're attracted to someone, you treat her like you're her brother. Her brother the priest. Her brother the elderly Victorian priest who is actually a large stuffed animal. Then when some guy comes along and does a little thoughtful flirting and actually gets her attention, you think "Man, that guy's a jerkface."

When you say you're trying to figure out "what women want," you actually mean you're trying to figure out what this one specific woman you're friends with and have had a crush on for three years wants. (That one's easy, by the way. The answer is "not you." Now move on.)

You don't know many women. Having been passed on by the six or seven ladyfolks you see on a regular basis, you are now ready to assume that all women are deeply broken individuals who don't know what's good for them. Somehow you think that treating all women as freely interchangable mentally damaged goods is compatible with being "nice."

You're one of those guys who wishes he lived in the Arthurian era – which is to say an era that never actually existed – and who actually uses the word prithee. You practice some sort of demented Hollywood version of chivalry. When women are creeped out by this, you assume they don't like nice guys, rather than assuming more accurately that they have no desire to get involved with your little love-LARP.

You're not actually nice. Ask yourself this question: All these nice, thoughtful things you do for women you have crushes on, do you do them for your friends whose panties you don't want to chew off? Do you remember everyone's favorite pizza topping? Listen to them bitch about work? Tell them when you see something neat on ThinkGeek that you think they'd like? Getting extra attention from someone who's generally nice is flattering. Sitting under the laserlike niceness focus of someone who's usually oblivious is actually pretty unnerving.

Finally, the most common affliction: searing, blinding desperation. There's a big, inviting grassy area between being a schmuck and being an Alpha Jerk, and it's called "self-confidence." It's nice for picnics! Seriously, if there's any one thing that's universally attractive to men, women and intersexed individuals of any and all types, it's confidence. People like people who like being the people they are. The sort of guys who worry about being "too nice" don't want to be who they are. They want to be Someone's Boyfriend, as if that will solve all their personal problems. That's as off-putting as real, true niceness is attractive.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjoberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a player-hater, a hater-player and a washer-dryer.

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