How to Stop Being a Nice Guy

A kind man helps because he wants to. A Nice Guy, in therapist Robert Glover's sense, acts the way he thinks people want so they will like him and meet his needs. Glover described the pattern in his 2003 book No More Mr Nice Guy, drawing on his own recovery and the men he saw in his practice.

Psychologists draw a similar line. Caring about other people is not linked to distress. Caring about others to the exclusion of yourself is, partly because it ties your self-worth to their approval and leaves your own needs neglected.

So the fix is not less kindness. It is kindness that doesn't depend on getting paid back.

Glover's core idea is that Nice Guys run three unspoken deals, which he calls covert contracts. In our words: if I'm good, I'll be loved and wanted. If I meet people's needs without being asked, they'll meet mine without me asking. If I do everything right, life will go smoothly.

Nobody else agreed to these deals, so they rarely pay out, and the Nice Guy ends up frustrated and resentful. Glover's prescription is to set boundaries, face conflict, put your own needs on the list, build friendships with other men, and live with a purpose of your own.

His goal is what he calls the Integrated Male. That doesn't mean becoming not nice. It means accepting all of yourself, including your ambition, your rough edges and your mistakes, instead of hiding them to stay liked.

Watch for resentment after a favor nobody asked you to do. Mental-health guides on people-pleasing describe the same chain: say yes when you mean no, and resentment builds toward someone who did nothing wrong.

The motive is often invisible until you look for it. One forum member did a lot for a stressed girlfriend to free up her time, partly hoping she'd want sex again. Looking back: "I didn't set out with this motivation but when I examine my motivations I can clearly see that this was the case."

Mostly no for relationships, partly yes for casual sex. In a survey of 165 university women, more than half said nice guys have fewer sexual partners, and more than half also said they'd choose a nice guy over a bad boy as a date.

In two experiments, college women read a script of two men competing for a date and picked the kinder one more often, mostly for serious relationships. Looks mattered more for casual ones. A later study found the flip side: less agreeable college men had more casual sexual partners.

In another set of three studies, women rated kind, helpful men as more attractive and more desirable as dates, and being dominant without being kind did not make men more attractive on any measure. In a BBC survey of about 218,000 people, kindness and honesty ranked among the four traits people wanted most in a partner.

Say you're interested, out loud, and suggest a plan. Waiting to be noticed while doing favors is the first contract in action: be good enough and she'll eventually want you. Telling her lets her give you a real answer.

Then make choices on dates instead of deferring to her on everything. "Whatever you want" sounds easygoing, but it hands her all the planning and hides you. A clear suggestion she can say no to shows her who you are.

If she says no, thank her and move on for real: no extra favors, no waiting it out. Timing and wording for the ask itself, by text or in person, are in our guide on how to ask a girl out.

Say the true thing and stay warm while you say it. Harshness isn't the opposite of people-pleasing. It is just a different act, and it probably comes across as one.

Start with low stakes: a real opinion about dinner, a real reaction to a plan you don't love. Small honest moments make the big ones feel normal.

Your fear of how it lands is probably inflated. In one set of studies, people consistently underestimated how much a new conversation partner liked them, and the gap lasted for months.

A hint protects you from a no, but it is easy to misread. One forum member ended a warm email to their wife with a hint about time alone together. In their words, "the line I put in at the end made her stressed out", and she wondered if the whole email was a lead-up to sex.

Direct asks work better than you expect. In studies of help requests, people underestimated by as much as half how often others would say yes. Dates are a different question, but we'd guess the same fear is at work: you expect a no more often than you'll get one.

A useful shape for a bigger ask, from one university counseling guide: show you see their side, state what you need in one sentence, and propose what happens next.

Keep it short, warm and honest, with no long apology and no invented excuse. A clinical guide on assertiveness recommends thanking the person for asking, giving one reason at most, and owning the choice rather than claiming you can't.

The guilt usually overestimates the damage. In recent studies on turning down invitations, people expected the other person to be more hurt and angry than they really were.

Saying no at work, or to someone who keeps asking, takes a few more tools, covered in our guide on being more assertive as a man.

No. Keep helping people, just stop sending an invoice afterward. A member of the forum put it simply: "You can still do all those things, but don’t do them with the expectation that you will then get something back."

Change slowly. Cleveland Clinic's advice on people-pleasing is to start small, and to notice when saying yes stops feeling like a choice and becomes a way to keep the peace.