Following up on yesterday’s post on teenage boys and love, Amy comments below my post:
Guys who accepted the “emotional aspects of their identity” also often still accepted the myth that most guys only want sex and nothing else. As a result, they’d believe they were special and uniquely able to be the emotional guy that they were taught every girl wanted. They saw it as their advantage in the dating scene.
Is this where we ask for the show of hands? How many lads have ever said to a woman in whom they were interested, “You know, I’m really not like other guys”? How many women have had that line laid on them a time or ten?
Amy’s on to something important. The SUNY Oswego study makes clear that most adolescent males aren’t nearly as sex-crazed as we popularly imagine. The study provides welcome reinforcement to the notion that boys as well as girls are interested in love, romance, and relationship. But of course, the conclusion is counter to what our culture teaches us about masculinity. And among the many victims of the discourse about what a man is — and isn’t — are boys themselves.
It is axiomatic that in American adolescent culture, it is dangerous for boys to be too open about their feelings and emotions. The fear of being labelled a “faggot” or a “pussy” is as prevalent for today’s young men as it was in their fathers’ and grandfathers’ generation. (A point ably demonstrated by C.J. Pascoe in her magisterial “Dude, You’re a Fag”.) As a consequence, those boys who don’t feel as if they live up to (or down to) the masculine stereotype may well begin to imagine that they are unique.
Speaking from experience (my own and that of many men I’ve known), it is immensely painful to go through adolescence as an ostensibly “sensitive” boy. Particularly in junior high school, I endured my share of phyiscal and verbal assaults by the more popular boys, most of whom were in the traditional business of proving their masculinity through their willingness to engage in (or at least threaten) constant violence. I understand how tempting it is for a boy who is being victimized to begin to believe that he is fundamentally different from his tormenters. (Trust me, I’ve known a heck of a lot of shy, smart, unathletic, artistic fourteen year-old boys walking around with low-grade Messiah complexes.)
Because “boy talk” in American culture so rarely focuses on romantic love, a large percentage of teenage guys who are romantically as well as sexually inclined may begin to flatter themselves with the notion that they are “unlike all the rest.” They do what all teenagers do: they compare how they feel on the inside to how others look and behave on the outside. Inside their hearts, some of these boys see passion and an intense longing for emotional intimacy; in their peers, they see bravado, posturing, and vulgarity. It’s not so hard for an anxious lad to start to tell himself “I”m not like the others.” Perhaps, like many teens, he mingles together a sense of masculine inferiority (”I’m not as tough”) with a sense of grandiose superiority (”I’m so much more enlightened and sensitive.”) And as Amy points out in her comment below yesterday’s post, this is the genesis of the Nice Guy(tm).
Because the sensitive boy imagines that he is rarer than he actually is, he may be inclined to over-estimate his value to the girls he befriends and dates (or tries to date.) The classic scenario for such a Nice Guy works like this: Nice Guy gets very close to a girl. They become good friends, so much so that they are teased by their peers. Nice Guy starts to fall in love with his friend, while girl thinks of Nice Guy as “just a pal” or “more like a brother”. Eventually, Nice Guy confesses his love; girl rejects him. Nice Guy sulks or flies into a rage, usually saying something like “Why don’t you love me? Why do you like those jerks who only want to use you? I’m the only guy who understands you and values you!” Nice Guy, if he’s not careful, may begin the slow slide towards adult misogyny at this point. His own frustration at women (rooted in his sense that his unique gifts go unappreciated) may grow more toxic, as he starts to believe that “women don’t know what’s good for them” and they “always go for the bad boys” instead of who they “should” be dating (me).
For a long time in my adolescence, I did believe I was uniquely insightful. I did think of myself as a traitor to my sex; I did imagine that I was one of only a tiny handful of the be-penised who had a rich vocabulary for my own emotional terrain. I flattered myself that I was incredibly sensitive. And while I may have been a little bit more verbally dexterous than your average teen boy, it turns out that I was far less special than I imagined. It took years of men’s work — years of connecting with a lot of other adult men who carried with them the scars of adolescence — to realize that I wasn’t nearly as unique as I had thought. As it turns out, while the sixteen year-old Hugo fancied himself as extraordinarily perceptive, so too did a lot of my male peers. And to my chagrin, I discovered years later that many of my high school peers thought of me as arrogant and cynical rather than gentle, insightful, and sensitive. My sense of my own terminal uniqueness was sustained by my own unwillingness to communicate with other males, and my understandable inability to see who it was that they really were behind the anxious posturing.
One of the reasons why I love working with teenage boys today is for exactly this reason. While it would be a stretch to say that every sixteen year-old has the soul of a tortured poet, I’ve found time and again that the most outwardly callow and thuggish lads frequently do have depths that they keep remarkably well-hidden. Sometimes, they succeed in hiding those nooks and crannies of what used to be called “sensibility” even from themselves. Teenage girls have long suspected that inner recesses of profundity and passion exist, which is why so many idealistic gals spend so much time trying to dig beneath the surface of their often silent and uncommunicative boyfriends. (For many girls, it’s an ego thing; many young women love to flatter themselves with the idea that they are so extraordinarily loving that they — and they alove– can transform a tormented and outwardly dense ‘bad boy” into a prince.) But experience makes clear that it’s not a lover’s job to do for you what you must do for yourself.
Studies like that done at SUNY Oswego may, to some, be reinforcing the obvious. But what may be obvious to the feminist blogosphere or to those steeped in gender studies work is not always obvious to the public at large. Particularly, it’s not obvious to legions of young men who grow up in this country, generation after generation, with the impression that to be a “real man” means to be emotionally unavailable and concerned only with sexual conquest. To a few boys, perhaps, this news will be a mixed blessing. While it may be a comfort to realize that they aren’t alone, it may well be ego-deflating to discover that in their desire for emotional connection and relationship, they aren’t nearly as unique as they had believed!
i have a pattern of nice/shy guys, because well, i(and they) buy into the notion that the nice guy would be sensitive and charming and sweet, and wouldn’t be as hurtful as the so-called bad boys.
i’ve learned very quickly there really is no guarantee with a nice guy or a bad boy. boy is a boy, each one is different. the so-called nice guys do pride themselves on their “unique” status like you said, and a lot of my nice guys have taken that claim to heart and start believing in their supposed superiority, and they become arrogant and no longer the nice guy i thought they were. and then it’s all downhill from there.
write an entry on the bad boys, i’d like to see how much they have in common with “nice guys”
Hugo, I can’t believe you just created the adjective “be-penised.” You’re my hero, man.
Oh, it’s not mine. I first read it at Pandagon, and I assume it was Amanda Marcotte’s. But it’s very fine.
I’ll try for something on bad boys, theverycold…
I’ve fallen into the ‘NiceGuy(TM)’ trap a number of times. I can’t count how often I have raged that a female friend would be so much better off if she would only date ME, and not some LOSER bio-male arsehole. :)
For me, this bitterness didn’t begin in adolescence, cos I had no female friends back then.
I think that my unique position as male minded, female bodied, meant that I was more aware of the inner life of many of my male friends though. (They’ll open up to a ‘mate’ who is a chick). So many of them had soft caramel centres! Even if my mother called them ‘thugs’. (And insisted they were all after one thing)
It would have been so nice to know back then, that we were all ok. That none of us were freaks for sitting in that tin shed that night, and crying together. We all had problems that we tried to bear like ‘men’ but couldn’t, because we were children. We never mentioned it again, and our group disintegrated not long after that, under the pressure of masculinity and denial.
I’m not even in touch with any of them anymore. That, I am ashamed of.
I wonder if the Nice Guy, in this particular etiology of NiceGuy-ness as related, arises from the sensitive guy who never learned to stand up for himself, maybe even to throw down once in awhile if need be, and put women up on a pedestal as the Holy Grail to fix all of that. It seems that all the stories and descriptions of “Nice Guy” I’ve read, at heart and particularly in that “Jekyll and Hyde” aspect, deal with guys who would or who would try to rely on women to salve whatever emotional or social damage or baggage they’re carrying, whether due to ostracism from peers or whatever reason, rather than dealing with it himself.
I went on a several dates with a “NiceGuy(TM)”…geeky, nonathletic, shy as hell…and he raped me on the first date. He continued to do so on later dates. I finally stopped taking his calls, though I wasn’t sure why the thought of him made me feel so sick at the time as it took me two-ish months to identify what happened as rape. The whole situation sorta put to rest any slight notion I had that still had left that “nice” guys were safer/better than “bad” guys.
I’m still working on trusting guys, but there are a few I do trust. Ones who are outspoken feminists are good bets. Ones who call out others on how rape “jokes” aren’t funny are another. Ones who have held me as I cried. Ones who’ve taken care of me when I accidentally drink too much. I know it’s not like guys who have done these things can’t turn around and rape me…but it’s better than basing my trust on ridiculous societal myths.
Oh, my. Ouch. Hugo, you have just exposed my entire high school romantic career. I vividly remember proclaiming loudly and often (and getting angry when events proved to contradict me) that I was “not a typical male.” It seems that I was, but not in the way I thought. I was on the downward slide to Nice Guy(tm)-ville. I’m recovering at this point!
I also like that you point out that the way in which stereotypical masculinity twists not only the boys who don’t play at tough (and thus think they’re unique) but also the women who think they alone can find the emotions buried in the stereotypical masculine male. It does explain to me why “being a jerk” can come off as being a challenge to a woman. That’s one old Nice Guy(tm) lament that finally makes sense, when viewed from the woman’s POV.
Prof. Schwyzer, I’m with verycold. I’d like to see you post about the “bad boy” syndrome too.
I’m definitely one of those girls who has a very hard time being interested in nice guys (genuinely nice or Nice). As friends, fine, but as you said in class one time, they “don’t make my socks roll up and down.”
Yeah. Guys are interested in one thing.
I was a fraternity grad adviser for a year and a half, which put me in the same house for about five years altogether. Saw the same guys for three or four years, some of them.
I can guarandamntee you nobody got depressed about losing a shot at bedtime with some girl. Some of the guys got nearly suicidal at the emotional loss when a relationship ended.
About that time, I had a female friend-only relationship with a girl who was a senior. She told me she was interested in a guy who worked at the same part-time campus job, but couldn’t get him to move.
She as much as said, “I practically push my [substantial]chest in his face, and…nothing. What’s wrong?”
I’d met the guy briefly. Physically impressive, socially apt, cheerful. Three biggies accounted for. What else? Didn’t know.
So I had no answer and didn’t try to speculate.
The peripatetic nature of our lives at that age moved the guy away shortly thereafter, then me.
A couple of years later, catching up, I happened to call the girl and asked what happened with ol’ Fred.
Seems they’d talked on the phone at one time or another, while time zones apart.
The question arose.
What the hell?
The answer was that the guy had thought of making a move but couldn’t figure out what about him would even faintly interest her. So he didn’t. And, therefore, whatever she did could not possibly be interpreted as her interest in him. Since she could not be interested in him. He had had no idea about himself or about her.
According to her, he’d started making a quality life for himself. He really had it together. But he didn’t know it.
There is a whole lot more of this than of the Nice Guy schtick. A whole lot more than the jerk.
Problem is, even a quality guy who doesn’t know he’s quality hasn’t much of a chance.
While somebody who has confidence–justified or not–does seem to have the key to the candy store. Even if he’s a bozo.
It’s not up to women–not up to my friend of forty years ago–to build guys up so they can be loved and loving. But it would be nice for folks pontificating on the whole thing to remember ol’ Fred and his jillion brothers.
And, therefore, whatever she did could not possibly be interpreted as her interest in him.
I’m pretty sure if she’d said, “Would you like to go out on a date with me?” he would have understood what he was being asked, and even if he didn’t, once she showed up with flowers and kissed him goodnight, he’d get the pictures. “Shoving your chest in his face” may be fun for all concerned, but does not count as an unambiguous pass.
She as much as said, “I practically push my [substantial]chest in his face, and…nothing. What’s wrong?”
Well, jeez. Is that how boys flirted with her and asked her out? Pushing their chests in her face? I have to say, that wouldn’t have worked on me either. The guy in the story doesn’t sound like the one with the problem here, with confidence or anything else. Oblivious, maybe, but that’s easily remedied.
Problem is, even a quality guy who doesn’t know he’s quality hasn’t much of a chance.
Sure he does. Unless you treat “confidence” as something that only guys can have or don’t have. Shy “quality guys” get snapped up sooner or later by confident girls.
Sophie.
I gather he did. But not by my friend.
The point, though, is that even if she’d asked him out–not done so much in the late Sixties–he’d still have been wondering.
He was oblivious for a reason. That is, the most likely interpretation of her actions was closed off because that would have required him to think she saw something in him, which he could not conceive.
The remark of about chest-pushing was hyperbole, born of, “what do I have to do?”
Thing is, if a girl is interesting enough, on whatever level, it was presumed the guy would move. So, sexy, cute, rich, personally interesting, whatever. If she had it, he would go for it.
But ol’ Fred’s view was and is pretty common. What does she see in me? If I–ol’ Fred–can’t think of anything she could see in me, what would happen if I make a move?
I get busted, is what happens.
I think, I may even be right, that guys eventually grow out of this, but some, like our mutual buddy Fred, not until after they ought to have.
Now, to give Fred his due, this girl was exceptionally attractive, exceptionally bright. She had a double ration of common sense–except for the moron she eventually married–and perhaps Fred was intimidated. Which would only be a subset of the original issue–what is there in me to value?
To stretch this further, this may be why guys DO, rather than simply BE. Because they have to be seen as valuable and they aren’t, personally. So they have to have fun dates, get good jobs, do nice stuff. Otherwise it’s all about who they are and that’s not good enough.
IMO, there are too many guys like this to write off. It is not the job of a woman to build him up, as I said earlier.
But to try to convince a twenty-year-old that he’s a great guy and that’s enough would be a hard sell. Except for those who already believe it. And I don’t know about those guys….
You might be right, however I think there are definitely different personalities and some people are more sensitive than others. It is true that some are more courageous than most in their expression of sensitivity in front of their male peers. However, it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of guys are shallow as a puddle, especially during childhood and adolescence. For some, their depth increases with age and experience.