‘Happy’ people

Misanthropes have no problem with the concept of being happy. Feeling good is a human experience that happens; expectedly and unexpectedly. Job satisfaction, financial rewards and other life experiences all bring about the feeling of happiness. The problem for us here at the misanthropy blog is chronically happy people. There is probably one reading this blog right now, maybe even sitting in your chair. Don’t stop reading just yet; I’d like you to see our side of the story.

Chronically happy people are often naïve. Naïve because they just ‘go-with-the-flow’. That is a perfectly good way of life if you are a canoe but as a human being living among other (unpredictable, unreliable, un*, etc) people, you cannot be chronically happy and not get taken advantage of. Among all the ‘uns’ are unscrupulous people and they hide in plain sight masquerading as friends waiting for that one chance to get you to do something because you and they are ‘friends’. Once you get on that rollercoaster, you are stuck on it for a long time, because being chronically happy and saying no to a friend is just a big no-no (no pun).

A lot of chronically happy people are also stuck with the idea that “People are inherently good”. People are actually inherently bad and will always take the opportunity to better themselves at the cost of you. “Dog eats dog world” is what you should remember. Always looking for the best in someone might not be a bad idea, but would you still look for the best in a serial killer? A child abuser? No, you won’t because these types of people have committed crimes that are punished according to societal standards. Yet if your friends (or boss, or work colleagues) keep on abusing your trust, you see your misguided loyalty as “I’m helping my friend” or “I am doing them a favor”. To a misanthrope, a discretion is a discretion.

The last thing worth mentioning about chronically happy people is the theory they love to propagate: “the world is what you make of it”. Valid point if you think about it because each of us are a world unto ourselves. You have an ‘eco-system’ around you and this one interacts with others, similar and different. And that is the problem with the theory, you can influence your sphere but the people around you also have an effect on your sphere, whether you like it or not. In a misanthrope’s opinion a rose-colored glasses outlook on life will only bring unwanted troubles. If you lie down with dogs you will get fleas.

Note: We do NOT condone serious stuff like child abuse. That is wrong in any one’s reality.

‘Unhappy people’

You can assume a person is happy by looking at certain external characteristics. A smile or laughter. So what makes an unhappy person? No smile or laughter? Thing is, you can’t really tell happiness or unhappiness just be looking at a person. It is just a perception you have. And many happy people have the wrong perceptions about misanthropes (read ‘unhappy’ people).

Words often associated with misanthropes: depressed, unhappy, withdrawn and rude. Some of them are true and depending on the misanthrope all of them could be true because these feelings are caused by the thing(s) misanthropes tend to avoid: people. And when dealing with chronically happy people these feelings become even more apparent.

So you, chronically happy persona, are probably thinking how can I make someone else feel all these things? How can I, being my joyful self, be the cause all these negative emotions. Let me explain.

Misanthropes tend to be more open-minded about humanity. Aware of it’s failings as a species and aware of the results that these failings can bring. If we are unable to find a person who share these sentiments, we prefer our own company because mixing with people often (if not always) leaves a bad taste with us.

Here are a few myths about misanthropes:

1. Misanthropes are always depressed. No more depressed than normal people. Being depressed happens from time to time to everyone, even the chronically happy. Just because we keep to ourselves and don’t mix with every person we meet doesn’t make us depressed, it makes us selective with who we interact because some people will make you regret meeting (and talking to) them the minute they open their mouths. So if you know a misanthrope who looks depressed, don’t bother them. You just might be the problem.

2. Misanthropes are always unhappy. Again, not more than the average person. There are no definitive signs that can tell you someone is unhappy, unless they say it outright. I might be quiet and withdrawn but that makes me happy because I don’t like talking. You might enjoy a drink now and again; does that make you an alcoholic?

3. Misanthropes are mean people. If you don’t like hearing the truth then I guess I am mean. The phrase ‘tell me the truth’ is an oxymoron for many people because they don’t want to hear the truth; they want to hear their truth out of your mouth. An example: ‘Does my hair look good?’ + No = Upset person. Why? It’s because people want to hear the ‘truth’ but if they get it, they cannot accept it. And if you do lie (and disregard your own morality) you will hear about it somewhere down the line.

These three points tie in perfectly with misanthropy because by avoiding people, you avoid judgement. There might be assumptions about who you are, there might be stories about what you do but there are no facts to indicate you are indeed any of the above. Misanthropes stick together and in that way we know that the people we do associate with are like us – open-minded, logical about things, realistic about people and this makes us chronically happy, although we don’t always show it.

In conclusion

These are the opinions of a few misanthropes and the experiences they have. It might not be a reflection on society as a whole.

I have recently been plagued by a slight pang of guilt. Why? Because I stopped being a nice guy. A nice guy to people around me, who don’t appreciate it anyway and assume that me being nice is an invitation for them to use me as a doormat. A stepping stone for them. Well, fuck it. I have had it with that bullshit so now im not a nice guy anymore. I sat browsing the web for ‘nice guy’ articles and found this interesting piece of net-litrature. Find this fascinating piece of fecal matter at the url below.

http://www.themodernman.com/nice_guys.html

Below is my running commentary on this subject.
“When asked what she wants in a man, a woman will often say, “I just want a nice guy…someone who cares and who listens” but she will then do the OPPOSITE and date a bad boy, a jerk…or a guy who doesn’t treat her well. What’s going on there?! “
Someone who cares and who listens. Hmm. I read : Someone who does what I tell him to do, when I tell him to do it, and when he doesn’t get it right (because no man ever will please me in any way) I tell him what an asshole he is. Someone who sits and listens (yeah, listen as in he can’t get a word in edgeways) to me talking incescently about how bad my day was. Then I tell him what a jerk he is because he doesn’t understand me and never listens to a word I say even though that’s what he has been done for 3 hours.
Onto the next lie…piece of information
Are women LYING when they claim to want a ‘nice’ guy? No. When a woman says, “I just want a nice guy” she really does mean it. However, most guys confuse ‘nice guy’ with being really, really nice to a woman…and that’s where the problems begin and why nice guys finish last with women.
Most guys confuse ‘nice guy’ with being really, really nice to a woman…and that’s where the problems begin…Damn fucking straight that’s where the problem begin. That is the start of being walked over, the start of being fucked around because these days it’s frowned upon to hit women. And women know that, so they exploit the situation by pushing their luck. Nagging and nagging till their boyfriend, husband snaps and knocks some stfu into them.
But wait, it gets better, a lot better. Below is a list of reasons (which I think of as excuses so women can have the best of both worlds. Date the bad boy (not the geeky, nerdy nice guy, as is the misconception that all nerds, geeks are nice guys and vice versa) then, when the bad boy breaks her heart she can say that she wants a nice guy but also (conveniently) adds that nice guys must adhere to a certain set of rules set by women which are impossible to meet as women constantly change their minds.
List of bullshit

You see, when a woman refers to a nice guy she is NOT referring to a guy who:

Hmmm conditions conditions. Lets analyze here, the qualities for a NOT nice guy

1. Is nervous around women. – Nervous because you never know when your attempt to greet a woman (assuming this takes place in a bar, club) will be met with disgust (yeah, many women think their shit stinks.), outrage (again, many women think their shit stinks) and sometimes they will turn to their boyfriend or particular asshole who they may be calling ‘honey’ at that particular time, in order to have him exercise some form of punishment on you because my god you DARED to greet her. I’d be nervous.
2. Is shy in social situations. – Shy, wary, careful, unfamiliar. Not every ‘nice guy’ is loud mouthed, in-your-face asshole. No, that role is fullfiled by the bad boy. Nice guy’s will look at the situation, carefully looking for the woman who is NOT with someone (therefore avoiding situtations in point 1), will NOT approach a group of women because groups of women are notorious for belittling men when they attempt to approach them. I wouldn’t use shy so liberally in this context.
3. Is intimidated by women and feels like he needs to impress them – For intimidated see point 2. Need to impress? Of course the nice guy has to impress a woman. Does the bad boy with his motorbike not impress a woman? Does the beefcake jock with his sixpack and arms like tree trunks not impress a woman? Is first impressions last not concrete proof that you need to impress someone when you meet them for the first time?
4. Doesn’t know what to say to women (usually linked into trying to impress women) – So I should lie just to get the conversation going? That is really going to impress her even though I am not doing it to impress her, im just doing it to have something to talk about. Or I could start talking about my job and bore her to death or more likely, send her running into the crowd.
5. Is too nice to women, like he would be to his grandmother. – There just is no pleasing women. Too nice, too shy. If a man walked up to a woman and said, “What up bitch?” would that be ‘not nice’ enough? Would that get me in? Because clearly normal “Hello, how are you?” and “Can I buy you a drink?” is coming across as “too nice”. I don’t have different personalities for each of the women in my life. I treat the situation and the women in that situation with the respect they give me. I get dissed, im dissing you back.
6. Calls women too often, not allowing them to miss him. – Not allowing them to miss him? What the fuck. As soon as a relationship starts, most people cannot get enough of each other. Hour long phone calls, texting, emailing. How can the amount of time apart (or lack of communication) determine the amount of longing? I could then attempt to apply this theorem to the following : Man meets woman. Man calls woman after one month. In theory the woman should be madly inlove because the amount of longing has by this time increased exponentially and to such an amount she cannot live without this man. In reality this man will receive a rude answer which might include the words “Fuck” and “you” (quite possibly in that order).
7. Tells women that he has ‘feelings’ for them too early. – Society is perpetuating a construct that a man should only admit his feelings after x amounts of dates and women only after x+3 amount of dates. Stop reading bullshit woman’s magazines written by woman who clearly have a bone to pick with men about some arb issue or who are feminists and advocates “Girl power”. Bad boys don’t stick around long enough to develop feelings, they just want a piece of tail and then they are out of there. Nice guys develop feelings, and that usually doesn’t happen overnight and 8 out of 10 times, it’s a sure thing for them.
8. Behaves submissively or weakly around women. – Back in the day of cavemen when a caveman wanted a woman he dragged her back to his cave by her hair. Today that is frowned upon. So when a nice guy is being ‘submissive’ or ‘weakly’ he is trying not to offend the woman and he is not trying to be jerk, because a nice guy cannot pretend to be a jerk and get away with it. Also “Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?” isn’t such a good pick up line.
9. Tends to accepts a woman’s demands, just so she will spend time with him or continue talking to him. – Don’t women always complain we don’t spend enough time with them? “We don’t do stuff together anymore” Heard that one before? And, don’t women also complain that men only want sex? So in terms of what you want, but don’t get, you should be extremely happy to find a man that wants to talk to you, and one who accepts you demands. Do you know of any bad boy that will meet your demands (let alone listen to them) and just sit and continue talking to you?
10. Becomes a ‘doormat’ for women and puts his own needs aside. – Again society with it’s popular romantic theme of “I will die for you” has created a mould that the nice guy attempts to fill, but never can. Isn’t the whole basis of a relationship about sacrifice? Giving up your time to spend with someone else? Doing things together, even though you hate pottery? If a man only focused on his own needs, he would be labelled “Selfish bastard” very quickly.
11. Listens to all of woman’s problems and discusses them in the way her girlfriends would. – Ties in with point 9. “We never talk anymore”. Make up your fucking mind, do you want me to talk or not? This point is also counter-indicative of what a woman wants, and I quote “I just want a nice guy…someone who cares and who listens”. I have had the following from a former female friend : “You talk to me like on of the guys”. Again, counter-indicative.
12. Gives away his power to women, and allows women to become the ‘boss’. – Society (thou heartless bitch) is constantly spewing feminist propaganda on our tv’s, radio’s, magazines etc. Yet when a man concedes some form of power, normally because he has been nagged to death by his girlfriend or wife, it is considered weak, but when he doesn’t, he is an asshole. Note to women reading this: An asshole (read bad boy) will NEVER give you an inch.
13. Always seems to ask women what they want to do, instead of being a man and taking the lead. – Err…this is called being polite. Taking an interest. Aren’t women so fixated on men talking to them? Oh yeah, that’s right, women don’t LIKE nice guys who listen and talk. This point is also directly in conflict with points 10 and 12.

I myself am laughing my ass off as I read that information. This is exactly how nice guys are. Not like their obnoxious counter-parts the bad boys. Nice guys always place the woman on a pedestal (and that is part of the problem) and always treat them with the respect they deserve. So what is a nice guy to do? Well you become a bad boy and start treating women, how they want to be treated.

Back to the article, the next piece is full of inaccuracies, double standards and general constructs created by society, movies and other sources of information which are dubious at best.

FACT: When used in combination, those things KILL the attraction that women feel for you. So what are women referring to when they talk about a ‘nice guy’? It means a guy who:

1. Is confident around women – Chances are that as a nice guy you have been burned at least once while being “confident around women”. Once bitten, twice shy. How is a nice guy supposed to be confidant around women when the level of confidence is perceived differently by each female? Something one woman sees as confident might seem over-zealous to another woman. Confidence by a nice guy might contradict the following points in the previous session : 5 – 13.
2. Is confident around other guys. – Confidence among other males is often perceived (by these other males) as cocky, arrogant and 9 out of 10 times the alpha male in the situation (always the biggest guy with the smallest brain) sees you (the confident nice guy beta male) as a threat. Be it a concious move on his part or part of his reptillian brain it will not end well for the nice guy. Don’t women hate men ‘fighting’ about them? Isn’t there always someone preaching that violence isn’t the way? Ill remember that if an alpha male tries to pound my face in.
3. Knows how to flirt. – Again, as with point 1, the definition of flirting will differ for every woman that you meet. Something your girlfriend finds where sexy, you might find repulsive. There’s just no pleasing you is there?
4. Knows how to behave like a ‘challenge’. – You mean play hard to get? Sure I can do that. Then you will probably complain about me being uptight or a jerk which is weird because you normally go for jerks, except if I am a jerk then im really a jerk…etc..etc…ad nauseum. And if a nice guy plays hard to get (or behaves like a challenge, haha, I think I might use that phrase on someone) how long does he keep the interest of any woman?
5. Takes on the masculine role in an interaction, on a date or in a relationship. – Contradictory to points 12 and 13 in the previous section. Sometimes when employing this “masculine role” as a nice guy you will hear “Im a woman, I can do everything you can, I don’t need you to open a door for me”. Similar remarks when a nice guy attempts to pay the bill, pull out a chair for a woman. Feminism has killed off chivalry but as with so many things, women cannot decide definitively on whether it has lost all use or whether it should be employed. Note to feminist bra-burners : Me pulling out the chair, opening the door for you has nothing to do with your ability or inability to do them for yourself, im trying to be nice.
6. Respects women and enjoys their company, but also gives plenty of time and attention to his life and what he’s achieving/trying to achieve. – This reminds me of a quote that Al Pacino uses in the movie “The Devil’s Advocate”, it goes something like this “look but don’t touch, touch but don’t taste, taste but don’t swallow”. Here I ridicule the logic behind this, because a nice guy, no matter how much time he devotes (too little, too much, just enough) never does enough, as with so many other areas, a nice guy (or man in general) can never please a woman.
7. Uses humor in an attractive way. – What, you don’t like my dirty jokes? Im just trying to negate point 11, god forbid you see me as one of your ‘girlfriends’.
8. Confidently makes conversation in an interesting way with women. – Not only in conflict with point 11, but also directly contradictive. All these points are direct opposites of their respective counter-parts and that is slightly misleading as you will not achieve the desired result by appling the direct opposite of what you should not be doing. Example if I talk to a woman and she says ‘You talk to me like one of my girlfriends” my changing my tone and cursing will only earn me a “You are such a pig”. These matters require varying nuances which are unknown to even women themselves.

And finally, the coup-de-grace, the final bit of insult to the ‘nice guy’ mentality.

If you can relate to the nice guy traits mentioned above, then today is the day to stop making those mistakes…and begin transforming yourself into the man that every woman is desperately looking for.
Nice guys finish last with women because they don’t spark attraction. You can still be a nice guy to women, but you need to know how to attract women and allow them to feel the sexually-desirable emotions they are looking for when interacting with a man

I can relate to the nice guy traits, but I am not making mistakes, not these or any other. The problem seems to be with the female species who continue to date and marry ‘bad boys’ then have the balls to complain about their situation. I don’t mind talking to you like on of your girlfriends. I don’t have a problem with listening to your problems. I enjoy letting you take the lead in certain things. What I don’t like is you seeing me as a weakling or second best when I am actually a nice guy.

Therefore, I am stopping to be a nice guy. I won’t be your shoulder to cry on because you had your shot with me. I will not let you keep me up for hours listening to your problems because you don’t appreciate it anyway. I will not drop what I am doing to help you out because as soon as I am not needed anymore you leave without saying thank you. And although a nice guy will just sit back, swallow that and say “Can I have some more?” I am not a nice guy anymore. I treat you as an equal, and if you don’t like that, well that’s your problem.

To end off my rant, I am quoting someone from another ‘nice guy done in’ site I found. I think it aptly conveys my message

“Girls aren’t looking for nice guys… they say they are but they’re not. They are looking for the perfect asshole, but there is NO SUCH THING as the perfect asshole.”

Why is there this innate need among certain people, to change what they do not understand? What makes you tick? You are entitled to your opinion but that doesn’t make it a religion to be believed by everyone.

My opinion

It has to do with the person in question’s view of society. That view of society is determined by their inter-action with the environment and more specifically with people in said environment. It’s possible these people generalize and then without thinking (absence of logic) assume that they know everything about humanity. Being naïve is another quality this person possesses. Blindly ignoring facts and then once reality sets in they seem so surprised and cannot believe that humanity is fallible.

Option 2 is a complex*. A control complex. Always being in charge of their lives aren’t enough, so they start seeking outside their spheres of control. Excuses and interpretations are then used to try and justify the ‘intervention’. The length of this ‘brainwashing’ has no limits and once it starts, as with low-intensity warfare, it can continue for a very long time.

Once this rhetoric fails to find a hold on you, a label is stuck to you. From being selfish to misadjusted, the character assassination is unbelievable. It seems that not being able to change you is seen as a personal failure for them. The strange thing is that the person who wishes to change you never listens to logic reasoning. A logical approach to this problem is just not going to work as the person doesn’t operate on logic, or have the same logic reasoning system as misanthropes. I am not socially impaired in any way by my current misanthropic lifestyle; I get along much better because I don’t involve myself with people who will make trouble for me later on. This doesn’t make me anti-social, just selective about whom I associate with.

I don’t need to change because I don’t believe in ‘the goodness’ of my fellow man, because people are inherently ignorant. Humanity only works if applied equally and in broad strokes by everyone to everyone else. I choose the people I want to interact with on the basis of logic, observation and common grounds. I don’t behave like a loud-mouthed lout so I don’t congregate with them, and this has been my standpoint since I could first reason for myself. I don’t think that the idea of being associated with such a crowd is worth the risk or the illusion of a friendship that would result from such an association.

It is strange [yet ironically ‘normal’] that the ‘outsiders’ of the world are always expected to change and fit in with the ‘normal’ part of society. The status quo favors ‘normality and the expected’. This must be what the change is all about. Trying to make you fit in. There is a saying ‘why try to fit in, when you were born to stand out’. It’s almost how I feel. But I don’t want to stand out, not even among normal people. I like the ‘quiet’ life. I don’t like making waves where there doesn’t have to be any.

I observe people and how they behave. And in the observations I have made, only a few have been off the mark. I keep holding onto the idea that one day, the rest will prove me right.

* (psychoanalysis) A combination of emotions and impulses that have been rejected from awareness but still influence a person’s behavior.

Nowadays people make decisions without thinking things through or rather without using common sense in their decision making process. The result being that they create problems not only for themselves, but for people around them as well. Think about it, how many of the problems you had to resolve had its origins with something that you yourself had a stake in? Even if a problem has nothing to do with you, someone will try and make it your responsibility. Psychologists are of the notion that humans are social creatures. In my opinion that is the problem. People rarely consider responsibility for their actions, and whenever things get tough, they try to distribute the responsibility to ease the weight off of their own shoulders. They don’t care about how it inconveniences somebody else, as long as they get an easier solution. That selfishness and idiocy is why I prefer my own company. The less I deal with people, the less chances there are for them to make their problems mine. Now I’m not saying I don’t run into tight spots now and then, however those are mostly limited to my working environment(you can’t avoid co-workers or your boss in an office) and the rest that aren’t I have no trouble in dealing with.

The selfishness doesn’t just stop there however. Whenever you treat people with kindness and respect you paint a huge target on yourself to be stepped on. People today see kindness as weakness. They will never admit to themselves they are lowlife scum leeching off of other people’s good natures, however if there is something to gain the wall of morality is as thick and dense as the air we walk through. Be it in your workspace where your duties and workload keeps piling up but you never get that raise to accommodate the extra work, or family borrowing money and never paying it back knowing you are in need of it, even friends not taking no for an answer or disregarding the events of your life as if it is of no importance, it’s all because of being good natured. It’s like an open invitation for people to take advantage of you. Just because most people are pricks however does not mean that I am going to become an asshole myself. I have my standards and as I said, I expect the same standards from everybody I come in contact with. If they cannot live up to it so be it. I would rather live in isolation than reduce myself to a lying, selfish, arrogant, immoral level of existence in order not to be taken advantage of. In doing that I would be no better than most people and that would make me a hypocrite.

The reason for this particular article is as an explanation for all those people who can’t understand why I don’t like going out to parties, why I choose not to mix with people, why I enjoy being alone, why I can’t understand the reason for their need of acceptance from other people and ultimately why I don’t like people in general. There are a few people in my life who are decent, understanding and who hold dear the same values as I, and for them I will always be thankful.

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