In Which Introspection Is Attempted

I don't consider myself a nice guy.

I consider myself an amoral bastard who emotionally manipulates people to breaking point without raising his voice. Still, Lore Sjoberg's article on nice guys struck close to home. So I might as well go through it point-by-point.

Conflating "nice" with "devoid of sexual energy"

If by "devoid of sexual energy" you mean cleavage-induced Stendhal syndrome (in fairness, it's twitching, not hallucinations).

Resenting anyone who does actual flirting

I'm not actually around people flirting that often, so all I have to say is this: if whenever the girl you're dancing with turns her back, you tell me she's a mole and you're only there in an effort to get your dick sucked, you are a jerkface, in my opinion. Keep it to yourself, at the very least.

"What women want"

I long ago realised that it's not that I don't understand women, I just don't understand people. Mammals. Lifeforms. Whatever.

Having crushes on friends for three years

Continually improving here, but never been as bad as three years. Tends to be about one. As an aside, between high school and uni I managed to get over every woman I'd ever been interested in. Didn't last, but the effort was there.

Not knowing many women

Yes, next point.

Assuming women are interchangeably broken

Again, I assume people are horribly damaged under the surface, I'm just more interested in the specifics with women. Yes, I have a history of going after some messed up women, some of which I probably treated like Manic Pixie Dream Girls, and I didn't get as far with any of them as with the seemingly happy girls I meet once and never again. So empirically, I should be approaching 'happy' people, but I still don't see it working out well.

Chivalry

Hell yeah. I've never actually said 'prithee' in conversation, but now I kind of want to. I'm the kind of guy who will hold a door open for 20 women in row. And I've got the warrior poet credentials to back it up (black belt/published poet, if you got here by a wrong turn at Albuquerque). At this point though, it's more of a compulsion than a conscious attempt to impress.

Switching between laser focus and obliviousness

On the one hand, I don't get a lot of social interaction as is, but yeah, I listen to people's problems if they bring them up, and I share cool links with people a lot. In fact at the moment I have no regular interaction with available women. Huh. On the other hand, I honestly enjoy listening to women. I would rather spend time listening to a woman talk about her work or her hobbies than dance with her. How did dancing become society's single courtship metric anyway?

Confidence

I was getting better at this. I was being invited to lunch by beautiful women.

Then, as often happens, an assumption of reciprocity collapsed, there was fallout, my personal growth took several steps back.

I've beaten two periods of chronic depression, anxiety, and stress. Tranquil acceptance I can manage. Like the fact that no being has ever found me attractive.

Confidence is still a way off though.

The kicker is, even my bad side is an omnicidal maniac with no attractive qualities.

So what's step one? Work out what's been a constant trend, and what is the result of specific incident. Or keep pretending i'm tragically misunderstood. Either one.