Women Are Sharing Their Creepiest "Nice Guy" Stories, And It's No Wonder Women Constantly Feel Unsafe
If you're a woman who dates men, chances are you've been unlucky enough to encounter a "nice guy." And if you haven't, Urban Dictionary defines a "nice guy" as a man who "thinks he's entitled to date or have sexual relationships with women simply because he sees himself as a 'good person.'"
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And if you don't believe that this is pretty much a universal experience for women, Reddit user u/TheAmericanWay1597 solidified it when they asked women to share their creepiest and most cringeworthy nice guy stories. Here are the responses that'll hopefully make you think differently about what women deal with on a regular basis.
Warning: This post discusses sexual and verbal harassment, stalking, and sexual assault.
1."In high school, a guy I barely knew tried to convince me to tell my parents that I was going to a friend's house, but really go hang out with him. I was normally rebellious, but got the feeling that my parents would be right in telling me I couldn’t spend time with him. I politely rejected his offer and blamed my parents so it wouldn’t be awkward, and he retaliated by covering my dad’s car in dyed tampons."
2."He wanted to impress upon me what a good guy he was, and he was also too scared to ask me out like a normal person. So he killed two birds with one stone by having his 'split personality' tell me it really wanted to kill me, but his 'nice guy' side was bravely holding it back because he liked me so much."
3."I watched two guys get into a fist fight at an office Christmas party over who was going to 'help' an intoxicated 27-year-old married woman get home. I managed one of them, and subsequently found out that he'd sent her 80 emails in one day, with all that 'why won't you talk to me,' 'we're friends,' etc. stuff. He was fired but couldn't see how he had done anything wrong."
4."My good friend from college and I, along with other friends from our program, went out to a bar to celebrate finishing our degree. He kept feeding me shots, but I figured everyone just wanted to be drunk and have a good time. The night was coming to an end, and I was quite incapacitated. My 'good friend' frantically approached me, saying that he'd just seen a guy put something in my drink (which I'd just finished). He told me that I would soon be unconscious, and it was best that he take me back to his apartment so he could take care of me. Being heavily drunk and also quite scared, I agreed and he helped me back to his apartment. After making me something to eat and giving me some water, we set up camp for the night on his couch."
"He put on a movie, and he said he would sit and watch me sleep to make sure I didn’t throw up or anything. As I started to doze off, he started touching me, first on my feet and knees and then my upper thigh. I confronted him about it, and he said after everything he'd done, he felt he deserved 'compensation.' I laughed it off, but after he tried to make a move again, I got angry and we began fighting. He exposed to me that no one had put anything in my drink, and it was all a ploy to allow him to make his move. After some more arguing, he decided it was best I left, and he kicked me out of his apartment at 3:00 a.m. while I was still considerably drunk. This was someone who I'd trusted and spent four years being friends with."
5."I met him at a party, gave him a ride home, and after belting out 'Don't Stop Believing' together, he asked for my number. We went on one date and texted for a week. Then, Saturday morning, I woke up to 50+ texts that started with asking what I was doing (sleeping because I worked in the morning) and went all the way up to, 'I should just kill myself since no one wants to talk to me.' I told him that was unacceptable, as I'd already told him I worked Saturday morning, but even if I hadn't, there was no reason to text me over 50 times. He whined about being so nice, and how good he was to me, and blah blah blah. Thankfully, when my friends asked why I was ignoring such a nice guy, showing them the texts was enough for them to drop it."
6."Some guy messaged me online and seemed nice enough. He asked if I'd like to meet up with him. I said sure. He told me the address of a Starbucks between our places, and said he'd see me in 30 minutes. I was like, 'Whoa, not right now, it's 10 p.m.' He said OK, but he'd like to keep talking to me if it was alright. A few days later this exchange happened over messenger..."
"'Him: Hey what's up?
Me: Nm, how are you?
Him: I'm good.
Me: Good :)
Five minutes passed, so I assumed he was busy for a sec.
Him: Well if you don't have anything to say you fucking bitch, don't lead me on and let me think that we can be together. You're nothing but a fucking whore anyways. Only whores lead nice guys like me on. Fuck you, you fucking whore.'
Yep, he was such a nice guy."
7."I had a date with a guy I met through a dating site. When he found out that I was (at the time) writing erotica for a living, he put his hand very gently on mine and asked, with all the sincerity in the world, 'Who hurt you?' No one hurt me, guy. I got paid money to write stories about people dickin' each other, and I had a whale of a time. He absolutely would not believe that I enjoyed my job, and that I wasn't lashing out as a result of some obvious sexual trauma I'd had in my past that he could somehow 'save' me from. God only knows how actual sex workers cope on dates if that's a common approach to people who aren't terrified to openly discuss sex. There was no second date."
8."The one that was the most upsetting was a guy who'd been my friend for years, who I was close to and confided in, telling me my boyfriend at the time had cheated on me. I wanted to confront the boyfriend, and this 'friend' kept dissuading me, telling me to just drop contact with him, and trying to comfort me with physical contact. Obviously, I still confronted my boyfriend. He said no such thing happened. And it turned out, my 'friend' had made it all up."
9."A guy at a bar bought me a drink — even though I really tried to not accept it — and he asked me if I was single. I told him that I was dating someone, and he took the drink back and called me an 'ugly whore.' Uh...OK."
10."I went on a casual first date with a guy. It wasn't terrible, but it was obvious that we didn't really click that well. He did the typical 'nice guy' stuff during the date where he talked about how he was different from other guys, knew how to treat a woman, some talking down on 'gym bros,' etc. I ended the date pretty quickly, as I wasn't really feeling it, and I'd just gotten off of a midnight shift, so it was past my 'bedtime.' He insisted on walking me to my car and opening the door for me. Fine, whatever. Then he hugged me, and when we went to break apart, he tried kissing me.
"I turned my face, and he immediately got agitated, blocked me from entering my car, and said, 'What?! No kiss?!' I'm a pretty easygoing and tolerant person, but that was the first time something like that had ever happened to me, and I immediately felt a slight bit of fear, as the guy was blocking my car and was about 6'4", so much larger than me. I immediately put on my super-serious face and said, 'No, sorry. I really need to be getting home now,' and luckily he moved. I took a bit of a break from dating after that."
11."This guy kept trying to hug me. Like, every time he would see me. I'd never hug him back, yet he kept trying. I was a work study then, and he'd go to where I worked just to see me. I'd be walking down the hallway with a professor, and they'd watch this guy five times the size of me open his arms to hug me as I walked by him."
12."I was on a dating website but hadn't logged on in a little bit. When I did, I found two messages from the same guy. The first one was telling me that he thought my profile was great, he had a dog, and loved hiking. OK, cool, I enjoy those things. The second one came two days later, saying, 'I guess you don't want something real, bitch.' His first message was actually decent, so if it wasn't for his crazy 'nice guy' follow-up, I might've given him a chance. Dodged that bullet!"
13."I married my high school sweetheart. So, in college, we'd been dating for three years very solidly. One day, two of my closer male friends came to visit me at my on-campus job, and both were really odd and kind of pushy about us hanging out later. My boyfriend/future husband was in school about 30 miles away, and was very secure in our relationship. He had no problem with me having male friends. So I went to hang out with these guys, and they got really sweet and over the top with compliments, making dinner, etc. I got really weirded out and said, 'I’m going to get going. Me and my boyfriend are hanging out later.'"
"Suddenly, the feeling in the room shifted, and one of the guys said, 'Why are you going to see him? I thought you broke up.' It turned out, some other girl with my name broke up with her boyfriend that day, and they both thought it was me. So they decided to have some weird competition to be my next boyfriend. Or they wanted a threesome?! I have no idea. I booked it out of there."
14."I was sitting at the bar by myself, and this guy in a fedora came up to me, and we just start talking. He seemed OK, we got into some casual conversation, then he started talking about how he thinks women should be nice to him if he does something nice for them, i.e., open the door for them or buy them a drink. I tried for a solid half hour to get him to understand that a woman was not going to fall head over heels for someone who thought that opening the door for them meant that they were a knight in shining armor. I tried very hard, but he just kept talking over me."
15."Some weird guy was grinding on me at the club, and I was clearly uncomfortable, so a 'nice guy' swooped in to save me and told the other guy I clearly didn't want it. I was pretty grateful initially. Ten minutes later, he proceeded to grab my waist and started grinding on me. I told him I had a boyfriend, and he said I didn't have a right to 'friendzone' him after he saved me from the other dude, and that I was probably lying about my boyfriend. I had to show him Facebook proof for him to drop it, and then he called me a bitch and walked away."
16."I started talking to this guy from a dating app. We agreed to go on a date together, but when he arrived at the bar we were meeting at, I realized he'd catfished me. I called him out on this, told him it wasn’t going to be a good idea for us to date, and left. The guy proceeded to call me once a day for the next week, claiming we had such a good time that night, and we could be friends. After that first week, he started leaving nasty voicemails, telling me that I don’t deserve such a nice guy like him. By week three, he just started screaming into my voicemail that I belonged to him. I kept the messages for a month in case the psycho ever found out where I worked or lived."
A little note to the all the "nice guys" out there, and also men in general: Women don't owe you shit. Not when you're polite to us, not when you buy us a drink, NOT EVER. Stop feeling entitled to our time and our bodies, and maybe we won't have to keep commiserating with creepy stories like these.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can speak to someone by contacting RAINN at 800-656-HOPE (4673). And here are sexual assault helplines outside the US.
