Hands To Ourselves

Many good men are nice guys that grow up into a relationship. Nice guys are almost as hard to find as good men are, but they're probably hardest to find specifically because they kind of live under the radar. I didn't get the moniker "Just Friends Jim," which came with a sincere apology from the girl that gave it to me, in college for nothing. Incidentally, this girl was not one that I was trying to date: she was engaged to a great friend who she's now married to and who just so happens to be a good man on his own.

Nice guys probably have been taught to keep their hands to themselves at some point or another (thank their mothers?). While this is unlikely to be true universally, it's usually a fairly good sign that a man that you're dealing with is a nice guy if he seems to be waiting for something (like permission) before he makes any moves in a dating scenario. For me, I was taught to respect other people's personal spaces, and I've never really seen why that should be violated because of dating or other silliness. In fact, here's a short list of behaviors that you probably won't see a guy that gets the "nice guy" label:

1. Touching you in a new or more adventurous way without either a lot of build-up, liquid courage, or a direct invitation;
2. Grabbing at you in an embarrassing way;
3. Grabbing at you and trying to play it off as an accident;
4. Grabbing at you and calling it flirting;
5. Moving in for a first kiss unless he's absolutely certain that you want him to;
6. Similar stuff of the sort.

The reality is that nice guys, many of whom will become "good men," want to flirt with you, but many of them are going to respect you and your personal space too much to be quite overt with you. They'll often feel very daring and adventurous to do tiny things like brush your hand or touch your shoulder when it's more than appropriate. For me and many other really nice guys I know, it comes down to the idea that if you want us to touch you, then you'll make that clear. For me and many other really nice guys I know, it's come down to a great girl moving on to a jerk because we refused to accept anything but a completely overt invitation, and sometimes the most "obvious" clues aren't enough.

So, if you're looking for a nice guy that will probably treasure you and try to grow old with you with the notion that every day is filled with the same magic and romance as when you first started dating (or, really, more because he's probably kind of shy), then you might want to pay attention to this and kind of kick him in the right direction. Of course, if you're a "nice girl," which is probably what he wants, you're probably in the same boat, waiting for him to take the lead that you're too respectful and nervous (like he is) to take. That, of course, is speculation. I'm not a nice girl.