A Restatement Of Purpose
Nice Guys. Note the capitalization. Most people are able to get along with each other on a day-to-day basis. Most people move through their lives without wishing to harm anyone else. Rarely are they prepared to put others first. Then there are the Nice Guys – men who are honest and decent, and who go out of their way to make the world a little better not just for themselves, but for others as well. They do things like open doors for pregnant women, help random strangers carry things that would be too heavy for just one person, and smile at somebody having a bad day. Why? Almost always because they were raised with the genuine belief that doing the right thing was its own reward, and that others would respect them for their convictions.
By any measure, the Nice Guy, so called because everyone gushes over how nice and helpful he is, is the kind of man women say they want. Older folks in particular will frequently assure him that he's a man any woman would be proud to bring home to her parents. And yet, for some reason, the Nice Guy can never get the girl. He has a string of female "friends" for whom friendship is a one-way street wherein he goes out of his way to help her and she deigns to pat him on the head from time to time. Sure, he might have had romantic intentions towards them, but deeper relationships grow out of friendship, right? Oh, but he dare not actually express his romantic interest, because as soon as he does, torrents of bile pour towards him, telling him that if he were really nice he wouldn't feel "entitled" to sex with the women he's interested in just because he's nice to them. How dare he! Therein lies the catch.
Origins
This site was started by the eponymous NiceGuy back in 2001. Seeking an outlet for his frustrations with American women, he started keeping blog of his experiences both in the United States and abroad. NiceGuy's site attracted many readers who shared similar experiences with him via email. Moreover, visitors did not arrive because he had answers, but because he asked questions – questions that nobody else had been prepared to articulate in such a compelling and accessible manner.
The furious pace of NiceGuy's writings, along with his growing readership, eventually prompted him to revamp the site and start the informally-named Mancoat Forums in June of 2003. At that time, NiceGuy's Land of the Losers was one of only a handful of men's issues sites on the World Wide Web, and it attracted tens of thousands of visitors daily, much to NiceGuy's surprise. What had started as simply a way of processing his negative experiences with American women became a meeting point for men of many and varied backgrounds who found echoes of their own lives in his writing.
A Voice In The Chorus
By around 2005, discussion of men's issues online had started to gain serious momentum. Numerous sites began to dot the landscape, many of them started by Mancoat alumni. The philosophy of Men Going Their Own Way, given birth right here on the Mancoat Forums, resonated loudly with men who railed against the contempt with which western society seemed to regard them – mere disposable tools to be thrown aside when they no longer had any labor value.
With the clear emergence of the Men's Rights Movement online, and having found a measure of peace in his personal life thanks to the lovely Haruna, NiceGuy posted a final update on the site's main page in 2007 announcing his intention to ride off into the sunset. With NiceGuy gone, maintenance of the site was handed to a couple of trusted long-time readers and forum admins. Along with several other tech-savvy members, they worked hard to re-write the site's underlying code, and eventually relaunched in early 2009.
So Why Are You Still Here
How many times have you heard that woman want respectful men? Honest men? Nice men? Have you noticed that it's a complete pile of horse manure? For some reason, this cultural touchstone persists despite all evidence to the contrary. Genuine Nice Guys watch time and time again as Western women pursue narcissists, violent abusers, drug addicts and perverts because they are apparently "exciting", only to find themselves conscripted to provide a shoulder to cry on when things go "horribly wrong". The woman in question will frequently act like she couldn't possibly have seen her misfortune coming, only to administer a slap in the face to her earnest Nice Guy companion with the words, "Why can't I find a nice guy like you?!" The inherent absurdity of her words – that she, by her own admission, has met a nice guy, yet refuses to date him – rarely registers in her consciousness. Worse for the Nice Guy, this act of being emotionally supportive frequently earns him scorn from others. Why, he must only be doing it to get into her pants, and is therefore an evil manipulator. The possibility that he might be trying to demonstrate how supportive and nurturing he can be, and therefore suitable, stable, long-term relationship material seems entirely alien to the detractors hovering over the pair and lapping up the misery and drama.
You can only kick a puppy so many times before it turns on you. Any fool understands that. Similarly, if you reward loyalty and self-sacrifice with derision and scorn enough times, you'll damage the man trying to uphold those ideals. This appears to be entirely acceptable to most Western women. This site exists for those walking wounded – men who were brought up to be decent, honest and kind that have been chewed up and spit out for the apparent amusement of Western women. To let those men know that they aren't alone, aren't at fault, and aren't defective. To help them process their anger, patch them up as best as possible, and send them on their way, hopefully armed with a new understanding of the culture they live in.
Stay A While And Listen
If you're a man reading this and have found yourself wondering if somebody has been looking into your life with a magic mirror, you're in good company. There's lots to read and learn here. This site is not some wretched hive of misogyny that you need to flee from, and you aren't going to turn into a misogynist reading this. The community here - men and women - are reasonable people looking for answers and perhaps a measure of peace. Please do come and introduce yourself!
If you're a woman reading this and you're outraged and horrified, you should be. If none of what you're reading is familiar to you, then congratulations – you've just encountered one of the truths of male existence for the first time! If you like, you can type an angry letter about how awful this site is. It will no doubt be a source of great amusement for the other readers here. Alternatively, you could try to read and understand what some of the men in your life might have been through and gain a new perspective. After all, which is the more reasonable sex – the one that takes on board criticism and makes adjustments to its behavior, as men in the West have done for 40 years? Or the one that rears up at the merest request for a moment's introspection? We all know the answer, but until there's some kind of public acknowledgment by women at large of the notion that maybe men don't have it all their way, this site will continue to have a purpose.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Someday it will dawn on man that woman does not read the wonderful books with which he has filled his libraries, and though she may well admire his marvelous works of art in museums she herself will rarely create, only copy." -- Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man
Return to Niceguy's Land of the Losers Page
