This is an exaggeration; my brother Sean, in fact, just got married to a woman with three kids and is just as happy as a hog in a wallow to suddenly go from having one adopted son to five kids (my adopted nephew Hunter, Erica’s three kids from her previous marriage, and their own first baby, Austin).

But Sean’s a rarity (and now, ladies, he is firmly taken, so drop those nets and tranquilizer dart guns and sit back down). Most guys don’t want kids at all; we have to be eased into the whole idea over a long period of time, at least, if we have any say in the matter, we do. (A lot of times, I’m aware, guys don’t.) Still, even the idea of spending the next twenty years being massively inconvenienced by our own damn DNA incarnate in hyperactive rug rat form is enough to make most of us go a whiter shade of pale. Accepting that level of comprehensive annoyance on behalf of some competing male’s genetic code? Oh HELL no.

Or at least, that’s my analysis of what is, in most guys, and yes, in me, simply an instinctive negative response to a come-on from even the comeliest of women, when she arrives shackled to one or more grubby little goddam urchins. They may be the cutest kids in the world and have the disposition of little angels (although, y’know, that never actually happens, they’re always monsters, at least, when mom’s new boyfriend is in the house), but still… Other Guy’s Kids. Nuh uh.

Beyond that instinctive NO!, though, I think there are more intellectual and logical reasons why guys – or at least, I – shy away from the Instant Family. And my primary one is simply that I’m looking for a relationship with someone who is going to put me first in her life… ahead of her career, ahead of her friends, and, yes, ahead of her family. My psychology is, when I’m dating someone, my girlfriend is the most important thing in my life, and I expect to be the most important thing in hers. If I have free time, she gets it… or at least, she gets first refusal on it; if she wants to go out with her friends that night or something, fine, I'm a free agent. But I check with her first, and I want a woman who checks with me similarly. And let’s face it, with a single mom, that’s not going to happen. She’s going to put her kids first, and I don’t blame her… if she weren’t the kind of person who put her kids first, I couldn’t possibly have any respect for her.

However, I’m just not the kind of guy who is patient with a lot of ‘well, I know I said we’d go see a movie, hon, but I forgot Emily has a Brownie meeting tonight, what can I do?’ The answer that particularly non-musical question is, ‘date somebody else, sweetie’, but that’s an answer best served before the relationship ever begins. So my dating profile firmly says ‘NO DAMN KIDS’, and, well, that’s absolutely not negotiable.

The are other very practical reasons for this, too. I’m not one of those guys who finds virginity to be attractive (frankly, I prefer someone who already knows her way around a little bit), so I can deal with the notion that whoever I’m dating is going to have an ex or two (or, in the case of one of my ex-girlfriends, 19 or 20…). However, when you’re dating a single mom, at least one of her exes (the father of the kid[s], or fathers, if you really know how to pick ‘em) is probably still going to be part of her life, and he’s got a legitimate entrance, too… you have to put up with the sonofabitch, and constantly overrule the more typical and perfectly reasonable response you want to take to any guy who has slept with your current amour and who insists on continuing to hang around with her on occasion, namely, to beat him about the head and shoulders with a thick phone book or heavy piece of sculpture until he perceives his lack of welcome in your living room and wanders dazedly away.

So… other guy’s DNA on pudgy little legs, screaming in your ear every time your new babe gets snuggly. Ex boyfriends wandering through her living room pretty much at will that you’re not allowed to throttle, or even tell in your best alpha male voice to get the hell outta your CRIB before you take a hockey stick to his sorry dumped ass. And last but not least, all your plans with your new squeeze are tentative, because at any moment, li’l Chuckie might start throwing up and then you’re sitting at home by yourself with a Chevy Chase video instead of in a hotel suite with your punkin, watching her try on that new negligee you bought her for her birthday.

No, thank you. I may have kids someday (I admit, it doesn’t look good at this point, but as my mom would wistfully point out, You Never Know), and I assume they’ll be little monsters like everyone else's kids, and they’ll contort my life into a massive knot of inconvenience and emotional trauma, and it will be worth it because they’ll be my damn kids, so I’ll deal with it.

But someone else’s kids? Oh NO. Sorry, hon. I feel your pain, but I’ll do it from over here, thanks.

Moving on to other things I noticed while I was dabbling in the online meat market:

I’d say 80% of the ads online from women looking to hook up (perhaps 100%, since an unknown but significant percentage of the ads aren’t actually real, they’re come-ons for adult websites or 900 numbers) include somewhere in them a variation of the phrase ‘tired of players’, ‘tired of head games’, ‘no head games, please’, etc.

The same percentage, in general, mentions, usually in pretty goddam wistful tones, the fact that ‘all I’m looking for is a nice guy… are there any left out there?’

And… well. Where do I begin.

Let's try this: one of the fundamental reasons why men and women have such difficulty communicating with each other, on nearly any subject, but especially on the subject of intimate relationships between the genders, is a very simple one: both men and women speak in code about this stuff.

I could write ten thousand words on why people do this, and maybe I will somewhere else, some other time, but it all boils down to, we speak in code to potential mates about our interrelationships because if we tell the truth about what we want, and what we're willing to give in exchange for it, we won't get it.

In other words, not only do head games work, but in point of fact, they’re pretty much essential. You won’t get anywhere telling someone you’re trying to get next to the truth about what you want from them, whether you’re a woman or a man. It’s just that simple.

Why? Because, for the vast most part, the two genders want to achieve significantly different things from their interactions, and the barter system whereby we exchange our goods for their services (and vice-versa) is always an uneasy one. If someone on one side of the sexual divide ever makes the foolish mistake of actually admitting what they honestly want, all negotiations immediately cease, generally because the other party just left the table in a big hurry.

If a woman wants to get to a spot where she can introduce a guy as her boyfriend without him boggling like Marty Feldman, doing a spit take, and saying "WHAT the hell are you talking about?" (always embarrassing in front of the girlfriends, much less the fam), and let’s not even talk about getting the poor bastard to marry her, she pretty much has to lie, at least, at the start, and ease him into the leg irons one toe at a time, usually over a course of months, weeks, or years. And, in general, if a guy wants to get laid, he has to lie too; generally, he has to act like he’s more interested in a romantic relationship than he actually is, in order to get the object of his desire to come across with some nookie. This is just the way things work (in free will relationships between the two genders; commercial sexual transactions and same sex relationships function by different parameters). Both genders play head games when dealing with each other. They always have, and they always will.

Imagine, if you will, the mythical 'guy who doesn’t play head games':

Entire teams of women from every race, religion, and social class are now cooperating in a skilled and dedicated effort to rapidly construct a working replica of a medieval catapult to fire that foolishly straightforward fellow out of… but let’s be honest, guys, isn’t that exactly what we’d say, if we really lived in a world where women rewarded a ‘nice guy’ who ‘doesn’t play head games’ with, you know, actual sex? Wouldn’t it be kind of a relief?

Relief or no, the simple fact of the matter is, that doesn’t work, so we tend not to say shit like that.

Similarly, let’s take a mental look at the girl who doesn’t play headgames:

Now, mind you, a woman would probably have written that paragraph significantly differently, and she can, too, on her own damn blog. But this one is mine.

My point is simple: it ain’t just guys playing head games, ladies. Y’all do it, too, and when the women play head games, they aren’t just looking for a bit of the old in-out. No, ma’am. They’re looking for a lifelong lockdown, where they get what they want (the Relationship) set to Always On position, and the guy gets what he wants (Sex, baby, just plain damn ol’ SEX)… well, once in a while, maybe, if he hasn’t pissed you off too much in the last 48 hours, and you really feel like it.

Mind you, I’m not a player… trust me, I know what a player looks like, one used to live across the hall from me, and I ain’t that guy. I’d actually like to have a relationship; I genuinely enjoy romance and holding hands and cards on special days and sending flowers and candy and eternal love and all that stuff. But, nonetheless, hopeless romantic and sentimental daydreamer though I am, I’d also like to get laid once in a while, and frankly, walking up to some hottie and SAYing that just plain damn does not work. So some ‘head games’ are inevitable to the success of any relationship, whether one is a ‘player’ or a ‘nice guy’. And women do it, too.

And, on the nice guy thing… what’s interesting is that, while both genders speak in code to each other about what they want from intergender relationships, women not only speak in code to men, they also speak in code to each other, and even to themselves.

And the particular piece of female code we're going to look at (see, you knew I'd bring it home again eventually) is 'all I want is a nice guy' or 'there aren't any really nice guys left', or any of the various other typical wails that desirable, yet still somehow single, women ululate to themselves and each other (and occasionally, when feeling especially embittered, to their male co-workers, as if it's OUR fault), to represent their enormous dissatisfaction with the fact that, contrary to Homer Simpson’s favorite song, it is in no way, shape, or form, raining men.

At least, not the kinda guys these li’l fillies are looking for, nohow, noway.

And look, I don’t object to people being picky. God knows I could be coupled up with any number of women who weigh more than I do, or who are extremely pleasant sociopaths most of the time, or who happen to have two kids already and be pregnant with their third by the husband they’re now separated from. So getting in someone else's shit of either gender simply because they have some kind of standards and they’re going to stick with them and not ‘settle’ just so they can have a date on major holidays (however toothless, nicotine stained, or generally scrofulous that date might be)… no, that’s not my thing. You want to be picky, knock yourself out. I’m there for you, babe.

However, as a genuine Nice Guy who can categorically point to a personals ad which specifically identifies me as such and that received only three unsolicited responses in six months, and that got no positive 'sure, let's go out and see how it works' responses to the hundreds of emails I sent out to women whose ads I liked, I’m here to tell you, this particular bit of code has got to go. If you’re going to bitch about the lack of guys you want to jump on, fine, knock yourself out. But knock it off with this ‘I just want a nice guy’ crap. And I mean, now.

First and foremost, as indicated immediately above, this notion that there aren't any nice guys left out there who are single is, bluntly, horseshit. I'm still out here, and while I'd like to believe I'm the last nice single guy left in the world, I know it's not true. There are plenty of nice guys still out here, and honestly, if any single one of you babes who spend all your time bitching about how we don’t exist were to give us so much as a long lingering look, we’d fall at your feet and worship you like goddesses. However, since you tend to stare at us in distaste if not outright horror whenever we can contrive to actually get your attention, we never quite get to that particular stage.

The truth is, when babes say they want 'nice guys', well, that isn’t quite the entire truth. Sure, they want nice guys. They want nice guys who look like actors on a WB show, who drive XK-Jaguars, who are about to make partner in a ritzy downtown law firm, and who haul down at least six figure salaries.

Now, I'm not talking about some laughable ideal that we cherish in our heart of hearts but never realistically expect to get our mitts on. Yes, guys all want to be with Katie Holmes or Kristin Kruek, but unlike women who whine about the lack of ‘nice guys’, we're a little more realistic than that. Yeah, sure, we want a woman we're physically attracted to, no arguments there (no apologies, either… if I’m going to have sex, I’d like it to be with someone I find sexually attractive; why is that so hard to figure out?). However, most of us are aware that Halle Berry isn't going to get a flat she needs fixed anywhere near us at any point in our foreseeable futures.

So we fix our sights on more accessible women, and we're content with that. As long as, you know, they're babes, and they haven't been so injudicious as to permanently mingle their DNA with that of some other guy, and they laugh at our jokes, and they give us head once in a while, we're fine.

But women... at least, desirable women... honestly seem to think that they're going to walk out their door one day and bam! the Richard Gere character from Pretty Woman is going to pull up in his Lambourgini, peer out at them with his eyes charmingly befuddled beneath his wind blown, tousled locks, and ask them, pretty please, for directions to Presidio and Main. After which, Their Lives Will Never Be The Same.

And that would be fine, honest to God, if you chicks would just admit to it. Put ‘aren’t there any Richard Gere characters from Pretty Woman out there’ in your personal ads and I’ll have no objection. (I’ll point at you and laugh for being awfully goddam silly, but hey, that’s just gravy.)

And I have little doubt that the sheer absurdity of this proposition is exactly why women insist, not just to the Enemy in the Battle of the Sexes (us Evil Males) but also to each other, and even to themselves, that 'all I want is a nice guy, is that so much to ask'? Because on some level, they realize that in point of fact, what they're looking for... Prince Charming in a casual but expensive Izod lounging outfit, sitting behind the wheel of a Porsche, still single or, even better, recently divorced by some bitch he desperately needs to get over... well, this is not only ridiculous, it's pretty goddam shallow.

And 'shallow' is one of those words that women in our culture get to insult all us men with (and I don't deny it, we look for pretty before we look for anything else), so under no circumstances do they want to have to apply it to themselves. Hence, the code.

However, as should be plain by now, as a Nice Guy, I object to the fucking code. Let me put this as simply as possible: if a desirable woman wants a nice guy, I'm right here. And while I’m a pretty singular fella, I am not, in this regard, unique. There are plenty of nice guys left out there, ladies. Most of us don’t look a damned thing like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, and a lot of us don’t make much money, but still… if you’re seriously looking for Nice Guys, guess what… it actually is raining men. Get out your buckets.

The problem is, and again, this is what really annoys me as a genuine Nice Guy… women don’t want real nice guys. They want alpha males who also happen to be nice guys... successful Nice Guys, hopefully good looking successful Nice Guys, not too old (after all, they want to get a nice ride out of him) and, if possible, naturally color coordinated to make a pleasing aesthetic combination with themselves. (Yeah, I was a little surprised to learn that women think in these terms, but they really do. Guys want a hottie, but honestly, we don't care what the two of us look like together. Color coordination isn't a biggie with us. We'll stroll down the street with Tyra Banks or Reese Witherspoon on our arms, or hell, some green alien chick with antennae on her forehead if she's got a sweetly symmetrical heart shaped face, big dark eyes, soft pouty lips, and a body that stops traffic. If she's a babe we don't give a shit whether her colors clash with our colors, frequently we don't care if our pants clash with our shirts. But to women, not only is how their MAY-un looks important, but how he looks WITH THEM is important, too. I mean, for God's sweet sake, will no one help the son of a widow?)

And aside from being offensive to those of us genuine Nice Guys who couldn’t get a date with any of these babes without using hypnotism and/or outright blackmail, what this also is is just plain fricking stupid. Why? Because alpha males are never nice. At least, not on this planet.

Successful guys, pretty much to a man, are bastards. They’re pricks. They’re sand sharks, bad asses, mean motherfuckers who’d chew up and spit out a 9 year old kid if that 9 year old kid was standing between them and making partner in their prestigious law firm. The way you get successful in our culture (assuming you didn’t pick your parents right) is to successfully compete with all the other alpha males out there, which means you have to be a real whirling sonofabitch to claw your way up to that corner office, gorgeous sports car, and six figure salary. You do not get there by being a ‘nice guy’.

Hand in glove with this is that, as alpha males tend to be predators, so too do they tend to be liars, cheats, and yes, players. They are the guys who always have a wife and a girlfriend, and who are usually porking their secretaries two or three times a week in the copy room, too. If you want to date one of them, fine, but they will put their career ahead of you, they will spend more time with their buddies watching sporting events than they will spend with you, they will lie to you about where they are (or were last night, and who they were with), they will go behind your back, they will fuck your younger sister or your hot best friend (and eventually, maybe, divorce you for her), and you will end up, after a string of relationships with these assholes, maybe putting a personal ad in the paper or on a website wondering ‘gee, why do I always run into players’ and/or ‘aren’t there any nice guys out there’?

Baby, here’s the simple truth: if a guy is that damn sexy, he should have a girlfriend or a wife by now, right? Now, if he does and you go after him anyway, fine… if you shoot and miss, you’re embarrassed (and maybe your sister or your best friend isn’t talking to you any more, you go, girl).

If, on the other hand, you nail the guy, well, congratulations… you now have a male hottie that you know for a scientific fact will cheat on his girlfriend and/or wife (once again, you go, girl).

On the other hand, if he’s that damn sexy and he’s still single… well, you don’t think you’re the first woman who’s noticed how well he fills out those Dockers, do you? Trust me, if this guy is a male hottie, he’s had plenty of you throwing themselves at him in the past, and if he’s still single, it’s because he wants to be.

In other words, you want a male hottie? Fine. If he’s already hooked up, then either he’s going to stay with who he’s with, or he’s a slut. If he’s not already hooked up, he’s a player.

Do I have to say ‘you go girl’ one more time?

So, if some babe really wants a ‘nice guy’, here I am. If you want a rich successful guy, well, take your best shot, but if I were you, I wouldn’t expect him to be ‘nice’.

Either way, I don’t care. However, please stop asking if there are any ‘nice guys’ left out here, if you’re too goddam shallow to really want one.

Yeah, okay, that definitely rambled, and probably didn’t say much that everyone reading this (all six or seven of you) didn’t already know. But what the hell.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

Like it? Hate it? Hit me with your best shot.