Perpetual Smile

One night when I was at Tyla’s, we got into the Nice Guy discussion.

“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d dated that perfect, cookie-cut guy.” You know, the one who always holds the door for you and is concerned about your feelings? The one who works three full-time jobs and wants to get his Master’s degree? He’s got goals, he’s got heart and I bet he’d spend all of his money on your flower of choice if he so much as breathed wrong. That guy.

I’ve been courted by many a Nice Guy. One was fourteen and already on his way to becoming a police officer or EMT. He was my best friend and was the first guy to call me beautiful. He asked me out several times and my dumb thirteen-year-old self turned him down. I still can’t explain why. He was funny, smart, driven and called me beautiful when my then-boyfriend managed to forget to tell me that he had a girlfriend in another state who was pregnant with his twins.

This Nice Guy stopped talking to me shortly after we started high school. To this day, he still refuses to speak to me, even though we’re buddies on several social networking sites.

I met another Nice Guy when I first started college. I had just started dating Mike, who was indecisive and made me want to put my head through a wall. (Yes, he still has trouble making up his mind, especially when we’re at a restaurant and the waitress asks us if we’d like to order. Heh.) He listened to my every word, let me cry and blubber on his shoulder when I talked about my miscarriage and the Brand-X Daddy who’d ditched me shortly after. He held doors for me, made me laugh and bought me lunch. Even when Mike unceremoniously dumped me — no babe, you’re never going to live that down — this Nice Guy continued to try to make me swoon.

And yet, all I talked about was Mike. MikeMikeMike. I’m sure Nice Guy was getting ready to hunt down Mike and put a bullet in his head so that he could have my full attention. When Mike and I got back together, Nice Guy still tried to court me, but I think he started to realize that I was in love with the bad guy guy I was inexplicably attracted to. Nice Guy continued to be my friend but as soon as he left the state to attend a highly-esteemed university, he cut off all contact with me.

A wise woman once said:

First, I am not a tease. Or a trollop. Befriending someone is not being a tease. Being open with someone is not being a tease. Letting someone get close to you is not being a tease. Telling someone that you care about them as your friend is not being a fucking tease.

Why do I have to be held accountable for someone else not being able to distinguish between friendship and romance?

Each time I encountered the Nice Guys of the world, I made it clear that I just wanted to be friends. (Well, minus one time. But that was during my I-just-got-ditched-after-losing-Brand-X’s-baby stage, so I think it’s excusable. Maybe. I’m sorry, Nice Guy. Really, I am. Especially since I tossed him aside like a used condom once Mike came into the picture. Yikes.) The Nice Guy is not only cookie-cut but also persistent. They don’t understand the word “no.” They can’t grasp the concept of friendship.

They also totally lack reckless abandon, dangerously good looks and the ability to crush your heart with the right choice of words. They don’t know how to break or refuse to make plans. They don’t oversleep or hesitate to pay the bill. They pick you up on time. Nice Guys deserve the world, but I’ve always had trouble giving it to them. Not when I’m in senseless love.

How do you explain a love that makes no sense? I can list a million reasons why I love Mike and still can’t explain why I am in love with this tattooed and sometimes pain-in-the-ass man and not some cookie-cut guy.

Still, Nice Guys need not give up. The first Nice Guy I mentioned is now an EMT and engaged to a beautiful woman who deserves him. Even though he won’t respond to my congratulations, I’m happy for him. I believe there is someone for everyone.

This post is secretly disguising another issue at heart. For the last year I’ve been asking myself how to tell when someone is The One. I finally came up with an answer the other night, and I hold onto it even when I have my doubts — AKA cold feet.

I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life feeling like a black sheep. Just when I think I belong somewhere, I discover I don’t. With Mike, I feel like I fit right in. It’s so easy to be with his family, as if I’d always been a part of them. He gets my jokes and can instantly tell when I’m upset. He also drives me utterly crazy sometimes but when he works third-shift for weeks and I have to look at photographs to remember what he looks like, I miss him. I miss every annoying moment, and if that isn’t true love, I don’t know what is. Each of the bad moments strengthens the good, and vice versa.

If you don’t believe me, just ask Incubus. They know how love rolls.