On Nice Guys Finishing Last

"Nice guys finish last." We've all heard it; those of us who have occasional moments of holier-than-thou hubris have probably thought it at least once. It's the ultimate self-satisfying cliché for self-described "nice guys".

And... That's kind of the problem. I don't know if the aphorism is true or not; for starters, quantifying "nice guy"-ness would be difficult at best. But true or not, it's a stupid excuse used to vent anger at the supposed unfairness of the world.

Let's start with confirmation bias. The world is flooded with reports of "I'm a nice guy finishing last", with almost none of "I'm a nice guy not finishing last". This obviously leads to a general impression of nice guys finishing last, but think about it; the nice guys who don't have the problem have nothing to complain about; it's common sense that we would hear less from them.

Now, to be honest, it wouldn't surprise me to find that nice guys do finish last. After all, being nice kind of implies having morals, and a lack of morals makes a guy much more comfortable with manipulating girls, and fellow guys, to get what he wants. Depending on your definition of "finish", that goes a long way towards explaining bad guys getting a head start. On a more benign level, a nice guy would probably do his best not to get involved in a relationship that would end badly for the girl; thus, fewer relationships; thus, "nice guys finish last".

So yeah, maybe nice guys do finish last. You know what? Deal. If your morals are really bugging you that much, drop them and do what you want. Being a good person has drawbacks. Surprise! Did you expect your morals to get all the girls? Like I said, it's up to you.

More importantly, did you really expect being nice to be, in and of itself, the only thing you need to bring to the table in a relationship? Come on, guys. Of course being a decent person is a good thing, even an essential thing, in a relationship, but you can't build a relationship solely on that. Grow up a bit and find something you can actually contribute to relationships, and then you might have the beginning of a basis for complaint about the unfairness of the universe.

Then, of course, we have one of the fundamental pillars of my personal philosophy: Yes, life is unfair. Way the world works. Deal with it, or... actually, yeah, dealing with it is pretty much your only option. All you can change is the amount of time you spend sulking about it beforehand.

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This post was the result of a long chain of thought that was either begun or accelerated several months ago by this article. It's a pretty good read, and it expands pretty nicely on that last sentiment I wrote about.