Introducing: Mr. Nice Guy

Gut Feeling with Mr. Nice Guy

Dating a “nice guy” isn’t always nice…sometimes it’s a crash course in trusting your instincts.

Not all Nice Guys are nice. In fact, I believe that most of them aren’t. If you haven’t heard about toxic nice guys, let’s do a quick overview. They’re nice but at a cost. They expect you to behave a certain way in exchange for them being nice. When you don’t act accordingly they lash out or become passive aggressive. 

I’d rather a man be direct. Tell me the truth even if it stings on impact. I don’t want to be sold a pretty lie. 

Mr. Nice Guy and I met four years before we actually got together. 

I was instantly smitten with him. 

On the heels of my breakup with my high school not-so-sweetheart, I was in a space where I wasn’t sure what was next. 

We had been off-and-on for eight years. The cycle prolonged solely by fear of not having the comfort of each other despite having outgrown it. 

It was at about the time in my breakup cycle where we usually ended up going back to each other when Mr. Nice Guy and I locked eyes across the bar at a local dive in our hometown. There was an instant connection. It felt magical. I hadn’t felt that spark since I was fifteen. I didn’t know if I could feel like that for anyone else. 

He came around the bar and started chatting with me. Being in a small town, it was no surprise when we had a lot of mutual friends. Talking with him felt natural. Conversation flowed easily. The way he thought was creative and unusual. He was a dreamer. We stayed in the same spot just sharing our hopes and dreams until the bar shut down. 

He was really cute. His eyes overflowed with warmth. Framed by thick long lashes that moved when he smiled. A smile that came from his core. His energy was welcoming and comfortable. 

And he liked me too. 

We were drawn to one another. And with both of us in town for the holidays, it was a whirlwind month flowing from “instant crush” to “actually like.” 

Then the holidays were over and so were we. 

Out of nowhere, he’d ended it. No explanation. It hurt. 

But he’d given me the courage to stay firm on my breakup this time. I knew there was better for me out there than what I’d accepted for so many years. I wasn’t going back. 

Despite the pain of an ending that I didn’t understand, I always remembered Mr. Nice Guy fondly. 

So, when he moved to LA and hit me up, I was instantly brought back to that excitement from four years prior. 

Somehow Mr. Nice Guy always managed to come into my life when I needed a reminder that good guys existed.

I was picking up the pieces of my heart after Mr. Trust Fall. It had only been a few weeks since the life we shared had imploded.

I was fragile and he was patient enough to handle me with care. 

We went on dates and said goodnight. He didn’t even try to hold my hand until I was ready. He kept showing up. 

I was afraid of falling in love again. I had just taken a leap of faith and had a crash landing. But he wanted to show me it was okay. 

If anyone could be safe to give my heart to it would be Mr. Nice Guy. Right? 

He loved his family. He loved his friends. And he wanted to find love with me. 

I wasn’t the same person as I was when we’d first met, though. And I was still hurt that he’d dropped me when the holidays were over our first time around. How could I know that it wasn’t going to happen again? 

When I asked him about it, he brushed it off. But it was important to me to understand why he ended things so abruptly before. 

Finally, he told me. A girl I was close friends with at the time had told him to. She and I were no longer close for a number of reasons, one of them being her habit of inserting herself into other people’s business and manipulating situations. The fact that he’d let her do that to us gave me pause. She just told him to and he did? No questions asked? That wasn’t very reassuring. I needed a man who was strong enough to do what he wanted. Not someone fair-weathered who would sway with the opinions of outsiders. 

We kept seeing each other but there was a newfound pit in my stomach. I enjoyed his company but I was starting to wonder if there was actually anything real here. 

One night he told me he didn’t want to be a rebound. I understood his concern so tried to reassure him while still staying true to where I was at. 

I told him “rebound” felt flippant. I’d cared about him for years, and that’s not how I would describe him. But I was also clear: I was so fresh out of a relationship and not ready to go full-send into another one. I told him I didn’t really know how I felt. 

He said he understood but a few minutes later started flipping on Bumble. 

I didn’t know what to say. I may not be ready to commit to someone but to pull out a dating app in front of them felt audacious. 

Somehow, I knew what he was doing and didn’t want to play into it. He was pouting. He wanted a reaction that would prove his point. And I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. 

So I let him flip on Bumble and drove myself home. We never spoke about it. 

I started to wonder if his niceness came with terms I hadn’t agreed to. If he was really as nice as he acted or just nice until he didn’t get his way.