When you finally learn to like the men who treat you well
Effort is attractive
There comes a point in a woman’s life when effort becomes attractive. You wake up one day, and suddenly the evasive “wya,” “wyd,” “Sorry I just saw this” guy is no longer appealing. You drop to your knees. Finally! God has heard my prayers!
You can never be sure when exactly this day will come—perhaps it’s a coming of age moment. But oh, are we waiting for it.
Ugh, why do I hate nice guys, a friend texted me the other day.
Or the infamous: He’s great on paper, but I’m just not feeling it.
To be clear, we want to want the stable, emotionally available, consistent men who treat us well. But for some reason we just…don’t?
In college my best friend and I had a term for this. We called them “brownies vs. broccolis.” The brownie, obviously, is the one that’s bad for you. The one that’s hot and cold, emotionally unavailable, detached, yet absolutely enticing. You never really know where you stand with the brownie, and you know if you eat it, it’s going to make you sick. But I want it! Just a bite! I promise I won’t eat the whole thing!
The broccolis, on the other hand, are the good guys. The ones who make the effort and state their intentions clearly. You know that eating broccoli for the rest of your life will result in good health, but it kind of feels like forcing a child to eat their vegetables. But I don’t wanna! you moan, pushing the broccoli around with your fork. You pick it up. Sniff it. Take a bite. Yuck!
There are some women who have never had this problem. To them, I salute you, both for your unwavering self worth and your outstanding relationship with your father.
For many women, unfortunately, their early years of maturation are marked with attraction to men who aren’t necessarily good for them.
It’s human nature to want what we can’t (or shouldn’t) have. We are hardwired for a challenge. But when we consistently choose low effort or unavailable partners, we believe on some fundamental level that love must be earned. That we must work for love. We are attracted to those who make us prove our worth, subconsciously reinforcing our self-limiting belief of not being good enough. All while tying our self worth to their validation.
The “women hate nice guys” trope exists for a reason. However I would argue this is a young persons game. (And by young, I mean emotionally immature. This could be at any age)
Whether they are aware of it or not, the emotionally aloof man (or woman) is a master at intermittent reinforcement—a behavioral psychology technique where reward is given unpredictably or inconsistently.
A study on intermittent reinforcement has been done on rats. When the rats pressed a lever, they would receive a reward. The research tested three different schedules of reinforcement: 1) getting a reward every time the lever was pressed, 2) getting a reward after a set number of presses, and 3) getting a reward after a random, unpredictable number of presses. The last group of rats, the ones who never knew when they would be receiving the reward, had the strongest and most persistent behavior. Even when the rewards stopped coming all together, the rats kept pressing the lever, hoping for a reward.
In dating, inconsistency creates a strong psychological attachment similar to the rats pressing the lever. Those butterflies we think are chemistry are actually anxiety. Those feelings we think are love are actually longing or limerence.
What we think is a crush is actually just a cocktail of attachment wounds, dopamine spikes, and a deregulated nervous system. And then we call the stable guy boring.
We met for coffee on a Wednesday morning. He drove thirty minutes over the bridge from Brooklyn. I took a cab down from 27th street. It was our fourth date, and we sat in a corner booth in the Lower East Side, huddled over two cappuccinos and a fruit plate.
“I posted a Substack note about you,” I said while sliding a grape into my mouth.
I handed him my phone. Immediately embarrassed, I then tried to wrangle it out of his grip.
“Show me!!” he laughed.
“I’m embarrassed!” I said while frantically clawing at my phone.
“I’m just going to find it later anyways. Show me!”
I dropped my head and handed him my phone.
We only had an hour. Our schedules were slammed, but we carved out 10-11am in our Google Calendar’s to meet for a quick coffee. He picked up the check and insisted on driving me to the train.
“It’s literally a block away,” I said.
“I know. I want those extra two minutes.”
We drove in circles around Orchard Street, turning two minutes into six. He said his day was going to be infinitely better now that he saw me. I said I felt the same. He dropped me off at the East Broadway station and I took the train to my meeting on 59th street. He drove back to Brooklyn.
It’s hard to say what exactly marks the shift where effort and emotional availability becomes attractive. Maybe it’s being burned too many times. Maybe it’s finally stepping into your worth. I think for me, it was a harsh reckoning and a lot of self work.
But the behaviors that once would have been seen as desperate, smothering, or overwhelming have now become essential. What I would have called “too much,” I now call “the bare minimum.”
So if you’re a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, please don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t get well received. She’s just not ready. Or she’s not your person.
Men, please don’t become cold. Please do not retreat. Please don’t be evasive and aloof because you think this is what women want. Please continue to show up with flowers, to make plans, to tell us how you feel. Please continue to call us. To be thoughtful. To be kind.
Men, please continue to be intentional. To be selective. To choose wisely. To choose. We so desperately want to feel chosen. Please meet us for a coffee just to say hello. Please park outside our house just for a kiss.
Please be vulnerable. Please lay it all out there. This is what it means to truly embody masculine energy.
It’s not pathetic, it’s not desperate, it’s not uncool.
It’s hot.
It’s so fucking hot.
xoxo
Lily
This doesn't read the way you think it does for man. This is not encouraging, or hopeful for a man who's willing to be honest, open, clear, direct, is effortful, romantic.
All I read is that the young and beautiful women I want prefer somebody engaging, fun, unpredictable, somebody that makes you feel something, somebody's whose heart and attention you never know is fully yours.
Why should I be enticed to be the effortful romantic, specially knowing being there will mostly get me a woman whose maturity was achieved from giving herself over to aloof guys enough times to make her flip the switch? Some women surely prefer the romantic off the bat, but not most.
This article just makes me disappointed at you, at women. With a tone of grief over the fact dating while young could be simpler, healthier instead of what we wind up with - games of attention, dishonesty, façade - do you understand that many of the problems women complain about are just second order effects of the behavior they themselves reward?
Your date sounds like green flags all around. So happy for you!