“Nice guys.” The kiss of death. “You’re a ‘nice guy,’ but…” Then the lie pretending to be a reason. I stopped with the bullshit years ago. I’m 61 years old, been there, done that. Don’t dwell on it anymore, but whenever I see something like this, I must rebut. There’s no such thing as a ‘nice guy.’ There are good guys, decent guys and 50 other kinds of guys, but the ‘NG’ doesn’t exist.

A couple years ago, I was talking to a young woman. I gave her some advice which I hope she took to heart. I told her, “Don’t ever call a guy ‘nice.’ Call him ‘good,’ ‘decent,’ ‘caring,’ — whatever, but not ‘nice.’ It’s like calling a woman ‘handsome.’”

Also, there’s this, from “Good Will Hunting”:

Sean: [in a gentlemen’s bar] Hey, Gerry, In the 1960s there was a young man that graduated from the University of Michigan. Did some brilliant work in mathematics. Specifically bounded harmonic functions. Then he went on to Berkeley. He was assistant professor. Showed amazing potential. Then he moved to Montana, and blew the competition away.

Lambeau: Yeah, so who was he?

Sean: Ted Kaczynski.

Lambeau: Haven’t heard of him.

Sean: [yelling to the bartender] Hey, Timmy!

Timmy: Yo.

Sean: Who’s Ted Kaczynski?

Timmy: Unabomber.

[Lambeau winces as he realizes the point Sean is making]

Many years later, we found out that, in graduate school at the University of Chicago, Kaczynski dated a fellow student and she rejected him. That is, of course, an extreme case, but still. Rejection hurts and stays with you forever.