When people look back at how Bush was undone, yesterday will be remembered as the day the wheels flew of the cart and the BS wagon dumped its load in the White House Press Room. People will not soon forget White House Press Pool Boy Scott McClellan as he struggled to stay above water in an unscheduled match of political water polo. Rove was the ball the press threw by him constantly scoring point after point. It was both ugly and stunning to see.

[snip] Scott McClellan has passed the point of no return. The press no longer attaches any credibility to his words. And if as McClellan says, he speaks for the White House, then the White House has no credibility on Rove, on Plame, on Wilson, on yellowcake, on Downing Street, on the run up to the war in Iraq and the lies that got us there. It all attaches the McClellan first, it attaches to Rove, and it attaches to Bush. What is it? It is hubris, the political rope by which once mighty men hang themselves and then hang around too long for people to see. Cut those bodies down please. You are frightening my children.

However, guys who attribute their dating failures to niceness per se are often being self-serving. It’s comforting to attribute to excessive niceness what might be better explained by shyness, awkwardness, or other less flattering interpretations.

[snip] With certain notable exceptions, nice guys don’t feel compelled to tell you how nice they are.* In my experience, most of the men who explicitly attribute their romantic failures to their own niceness are playing some sort of unendearing head game.

[snip] At worst, self-proclamations of niceness come across as vaguely menacing. The logical inference is that the speaker doesn’t believe that women want to be treated well and that he might just drop the whole nice act. After all, if he thinks women like being treated badly, he might feel entitled to give them what he thinks they want.

Just writing to say that I felt naked after reading this post. I’ve always pitied myself for being the “nice guy” and bemoaning all the jerks that get girlfriends, but upon reading your post, I think the truth is more like you described (too shy and awkward, and while the ones who rejected me liked me, they just weren’t that into me) [. . .] Seriously, ouch. Put the mirror down, it burns us. I suppose I will now have to do a bit of introspection and re-evaluation about this little lie I tell myself. Yeah, that’ll be fun.