{"id":2450464,"date":"2019-10-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=315180"},"modified":"2019-10-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T06:00:00","slug":"dont-be-a-jerk-just-learn-to-be-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/dont-be-a-jerk-just-learn-to-be-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t be a jerk, just learn to be yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Dear Lori and Jeff, <\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand women. I\u2019m in my late 30s, have a stable job and have great friends. I think I\u2019m decent looking, am active, and take care of myself. I don\u2019t understand why I\u2019m still single. I\u2019ve met a few really great women over the past year, but haven\u2019t been able to keep a relationship with any of them. I feel like I try to be a really great partner. I\u2019m always thinking about what my girlfriend might need and putting in the effort to let them know I care. But inevitably, after a few months, they say they think we should just be friends. Do I have to start being more of a jerk to keep a girlfriend?<\/p>\n

Signed,<\/p>\n

Nice Guy Finishing Last<\/p>\n

Dear NGFL,<\/span><\/p>\n

Lori and Jeff: Every relationship, even the short ones, can give us valuable insight into the blind spots we have about ourselves. This is even more true when patterns show up across multiple relationships. Instead of focusing on trying to understand women, take a minute to explore what these \u201cjust friends\u201d experiences might be reflecting about you.<\/p>\n

Lori: The unfortunate truth is that there are a number of females who are attracted to the thrill of capturing a bad boy. But most of them are in high school or college, and haven\u2019t quite grown into themselves as women just yet. If these are the girls you\u2019re chasing, it\u2019s time to update your picker. If, on the other hand, you\u2019re pursuing women who want a mature relationship, then we have to look at how you\u2019re coming across to the opposite sex. The challenge for most men who self-describe as the \u201cnice guy\u201d is that they tend to use this label to distract from other uncomfortable truths. To women\u2019s ears, it sounds as if you (and other guys in your position) think your niceness should make us overlook other significant things that aren\u2019t so great \u2014 things like insecurity, codependence or lack of motivation in life. Don\u2019t get me wrong; we all have our faults and flaws. But if you stick your head in the sand to them, and hope being the nice guy will be enough, you\u2019re going to be disappointed. It\u2019s like draping a cashmere throw over a steaming pile of dog doo. Even though it looks \u201cnice,\u201d sensible women can smell it from a mile away. In reality, healthy women want a relationship with a guy who is loving, thoughtful, kind and caring. But he also needs to feel good about who he is as a person, and know internally that he\u2019s lovable. He doesn\u2019t have to label or advertise himself as a nice guy, he\u2019s just him.<\/p>\n

Jeff: Early in my dating life, I remember being very disappointed in women who would fall for the \u201cbad boys\u201d and seemed less interested in more available and attentive guys like me. Not wanting to believe that this was what women really wanted, I doubled down on being the antithesis of the bad boy by becoming even more adaptable and accommodating, putting the needs of the women I dated ahead of my own. I did end up attracting more women, but it was the kind of women who wanted relationships that required me to give up a significant part of my own identity in order to play the role of \u201csuper nice guy.\u201d Needless to say, that didn\u2019t work out so well for anyone involved.<\/p>\n

What I recommend for you is to do what I eventually did: get to know yourself really well. What do you believe in? What are your values? How do you like to spend your time? What are you interested in and passionate about? As you build your stronger identity and become more introspective about who you are as a man, women will become more interested in the real you \u2014 the interesting, dynamic, authentic person who will be an asset to a woman\u2019s life, not a liability. If you are too compliant, accommodating, adaptable and flexible (too nice), you will seem too dependent and needy for a woman to want you in her life.<\/p>\n

Lori and Jeff: Don\u2019t be a jerk \u2014 just make it a priority to be the best version of yourself so can you attract the best version of a partner.<\/p>\n

Lori and Jeff are married, licensed psychotherapists and couple-to-couple coaches at Aspen Relationship Institute. Submit your relationship questions to info@AspenRelationshipCoaching.com<\/a> and your query may be selected for a future column.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lori and Jeff, I don\u2019t understand women. I\u2019m in my late 30s, have a stable job and have great friends. I think I\u2019m decent looking, am active, and take care of myself. I don\u2019t understand why I\u2019m still single. I\u2019ve met a few really great women over the past year, but haven\u2019t been able […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 11:11:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}