Nice Guys Don't Get Laid

In conclusion, I would check this book out (it's a quick and easy read) and I would supplement it with other books. I think the best way to approach self help books like these are to purchase several books approaching the same subject and look for the overlapp, or the areas that sound most reasonable to you. If you just read this book and take everything at face value, you are still going to be dating your right hand.


At best, a starting point for the clueless   June 4, 1999
The book is humourous and good for a laugh. The grammar is terrible, the author is pictured wearing black in front of his "cool" car, the book starts out talking about him and his partying buddies -- ALERT ALERT: EGO MANIAC IN THE BUILDING!

The basic conclusion is: Be a jerk to attract women.

But wait! Holy Batman! He goes into detail explaining what happens to Jerks and their women. Eventually, after 10 years of miserable marriage, endless fighting agony, petty pointless manipulation, the woman either: leaves (to some Women's shelter), kills herself, or becomes a terrified neurotic depressed zombie. Leaving the jerk desperately trying to find a substitute for that "thing", but instead, dying a lonely depressing desolete death.

Hmmm, I suppose if you're after a neurotic woman, it might work initially. But don't let the behaviour become a life long habit (and that might actually be a condition to keeping the woman!)

Any how, NOT worth the money, but if you see it in a used book store for 50 cents, or you're just complete clueless with money to waste, why not?


Rarely accurate picture of nice guys & dating   June 1, 1999
It's true that Meleton doesn't give prescriptions, but nor does he emit the stupid criticisms I've heard elsewhere: that "nice guys" are boring, too nice, or basically, not macho sexists. His picture of nice guys' situation in dating is painfully on the money, as many of us know and few seem willing to discuss. Whether to laugh, cry or become a jerk is not clear. I can make a strong case that dating is sexist, even that male initiation of and paying for dates is linked to rape (I call dating soft-core prostitution). Whether to remain the sensitive but lonely "nice guy" (who I assume is a feminist), or sell out and become the more successful "jerk" is a question I'm sure many others are also struggling with--and that no author can answer for you.

Though it's overdone, see also Warren Farrell's _The Myth of Male Power_. Or Muehlenhard and Linton's study, "Date Rape and Sexual Aggression: Incidence and Risk Factors", found in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1987, Vol. 2, p. 186.