Nice Guys,
Freaks & Creeps:
a Dating Memoir
Jennifer Knightstep
Published in 2011. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-1463790134
For my mother, who gave me the best dating advice ever: if a boy likes you, nothing in the world will stop him from calling you.
Introduction
At some point in my twenties, I began to wonder why arranged marriages had become passé. After a series of disastrous dates, it seemed that my family might have better luck selecting a mate for me than I had, and other than the idea of spending my life with a complete stranger, the concept was vaguely appealing. Dating seemed, in some ways, even more bizarre than the idea of my father haggling with some guy’s parents over the number of roosters in my dowry and whether or not I was a virgin.
I thought I was a good catch — reasonably attractive, gainfully employed, not extra kinky or too conservative. And I wasn’t being too picky about who I would date. My standards were forgivingly broad. He had to be male, between the ages of 25 and 45, and not currently be incarcerated or married to someone else. I would have preferred someone who spoke English fluently, and who shared my passion for books and listening to NPR, but if someone asked me out, as long as he appeared to meet my basic standards, I would usually say yes.
Thus, during my twenties, I went on hundreds of dates with dozens of men. Most of the time, it was fun, and I met a lot of interesting, generous, compassionate, and truly nice men.
Of course, there were also the men who made me seriously consider arranged marriage.
Here are some of their stories.
Author’s Note:
Memory is a faulty and subjective thing. I don’t purposefully forget details or smear someone’s character unfairly. I have, in the telling of these stories, changed names to protect the identity of the nice guys and the creeps alike. Perhaps I will also embellish some small details, but that’s what the best story-teller ever, my father, taught me to do in the pursuit of the fine art of story-telling. Believe me, the truth is far stranger than anything my mind can concoct, so I’ve tried, with few exceptions, to tell the tales exactly as they’ve happened. But I fear my active imagination and defective memory have made the nice guys more charming, the freaks more weird, and the bad guys more dastardly, though I don’t know how, in some cases, that’s possible.
Part One:
Nice
Guys
Famous Nice Guys
1. Lloyd Dobler from “Say Anything”
2. Colonel Brandon or Edward Ferrars from “Sense and Sensibility”
3. Jake Ryan from “Sixteen Candles”
4. Farm Boy (Wesley) from “The Princess Bride”
5. Jon Bon Jovi
Famous Creeps
1. Any of Jane Austen’s cads, Wickham and Willoughby especially
2. Glenn Guglia from “The Wedding Singer”
3. White Goodman from “Dodgeball”
4. Tiger Woods
5. My old boss, Marshall (he’s not famous, but he is a creep)
Nice is a four letter word
Ask any nice guy, and he’ll tell you dejectedly: girls don’t want to date nice guys. They want to date jerks. I don’t think that’s true. I think we women just have a hard time telling the nice guys from the jerks — in the beginning, nice guys and jerks look and act exactly the same. It’s only over time we discover the nice guy we thought we had is really a freak or a creep (or a really freaky creep).
And what is it with that word, “nice,” anyway? I’m not sure I’d want to be thought of as a “nice girl,” nor am I sure I’d want to date a guy who could best be described “nice.” Thoughtful, funny, smart, kind, sweet, generous, quirky, whatever. But nice? The word evokes, at best, mamby-pamby vanilla, bland and boring and without any fire. I’m not sure when “nice” became a near-insult, but if we women really don’t want to date nice guys, that’s probably why. Perhaps nice guys need to start branding themselves a little, touting what sets them apart from the other nice guys.
One Niche of Nice could be the thoughtful, kind-hearted guy. He’s the one who helps out at the animal shelter, delivers Meals on Wheels, or sends birthday cards. Actual, paper birthday cards, in the mail, close to someone’s actual birthday. He’ll give his seat to an elderly or pregnant woman on the bus, and he’s always got a smile on his friendly face. If he has any bumper stickers on his car, they probably say “Mean People Suck” or “Give Peas a Chance” or “Obama/Biden 2008.”
Another sub-set of Nice could be the laid-back, feel-good guy, the one who does yoga or tai-chi in the park and who always has a kind word, since he’s worried about reincarnation. He’s eco-friendly, proudly drinking tap water instead of bottled water, with a compost pile in his back yard and home-grown tomatoes to die for. He doesn’t have any bumper stickers, because he doesn’t own an air-polluting, gas-guzzling car. He has a bike.
Though perhaps not quite as desirable as the other Nice guys, the mama’s boy is another niche, the guy who still lives with his parents because he loves them. He’s tidy, but not fastidious, and the biggest compliment he can pay you is introducing you to his mother. You’ll never have to worry about him disrespecting you, or anyone else, because he was raised properly. He doesn’t have any bumper stickers on his car, because he can’t find one that won’t be offensive to someone, somewhere.
Then there’s the wicked smart nice guy, the one who teaches English as a Second Language and helps kids with their algebra. He’s a vault of useless knowledge, the best Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy player in the entire world, but he’s never smug about it. He uses the power of his massive intelligence for good, not evil, and is always willing to lend a hand (and his brain) to someone in need. He has a bumper sticker on his car, but since it’s in Latin, you don’t know what it means.
Still a fifth nice guy could be the one I have yet to meet, the perfectly balanced combination of all of these nice guys. The one who makes my knees weak, the one who volunteers his time instead of writing a check, the one who loves his mother and treats her with respect whether she deserves it or not, the one who grows amazing tomatoes, the one who knows the quadratic formula by heart. If you meet him, ladies, either keep him, to prove the other nice guys wrong about our dating inclinations… or send him my way.
The Lie
Sam lied to me. Normally, that would land him in the “Creeps” category, but lying was, in his own words, necessary for me to even consider dating him. And, he pointed out, he never actually told me a lie — he just failed to mention something that he knew would prevent me from dating him, presumably making both of us miserable, though that’s what happened anyway.
I met Sam at work, a horrid waitressing job at a private, snooty equestrian club in a private, snooty ZIP code. My first day on the job was his last day on the job. While I was being berated by my new boss for my lack of charm and the wrong color panty-hose, Sam sat at the bar, drinking what appeared to be mixed drinks. He flirted shamelessly, and I resisted, assuming it was something he did to all the new waitresses.
Over the next few weeks, Sam persisted, and the other staff assured me this was unusual — Sam hadn’t ever been known to hit on anyone, waitress or customer. He was funny, sweet, and cute as a button. I found myself blushing for no reason when I had to walk by his place at the bar, where he had become something of a weeknight fixture. He’d bring a textbook and sit there, joshing with the bartender, offering me sweet smiles when I dared look his way. He would draw smiley-faces and hearts on the thin, cheap bar napkins, and leave them for me to find.
I was smitten.
I decided that the next time he asked me out, I would say yes. Encouraged by the other waitresses, who thought he was a catch, I smiled back. I rolled the waistband of my uniform green polyester skirt to make it shorter, and unbuttoned the top button of my short-sleeved, white oxford shirt. How could he resist?
On a slow Wednesday night, he asked me to see his band play, and I said yes. The show was cancelled at the last minute, so we drove around in my battered Reliant K until the wee hours, then watched the sun come up at the run-down, deserted marina down the street from my apartment. I dropped him back off at his car, and because neither of us had a pen, he said my phone number aloud over and over until he memorized it, then he gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek and promised to call me later. By the time I made it home, my phone was ringing. Of course it was Sam, asking if he could come over, and when he arrived, smiling broadly with a handful of semi-withered dandelions, we crawled into bed and slept for hours, all arms and legs and messy hair.
He stayed for ten weeks.
Those ten weeks were heaven. Sam was flawless, a singular savory boyfriend in the dating wasteland of my early twenties. Suddenly the world, including my grey industrial speck of downtown Detroit, was all sunshine, rainbows, and candy hearts. He swiped my black Chuck Taylors and wore them daily; I prepared meals in my previously barren, ridiculous red-and-yellow kitchen. He introduced me to all of his friends, and my friends wanted to date them, hoping they’d be Sam-like in their romantic inclinations. Sam was clever, funny, handsome, everything a man should be if he can help it. I was hooked on him, he was hooked on me. Swoon!
One night we had an impromptu party, where two dozen of our friends converged on our tiny apartment all at once, unannounced. We listened to Jeff Buckley and Radiohead, drank cheap beer, and ate everything we could get our hands on from the Mobil gas station mini-mart next door. By the end of the night, there was a comfortable pile of our sleeping friends scattered across the living-room, on the couch, the papasan chair, even on the hardwood floor. Sam and I tumbled into bed, exhausted and happy, and when he left for school the next morning, I ran a bath, woke the troops, and sent them packing so I could clean. As he was leaving, one of Sam’s friends asked what I had planned for Sam’s birthday. What? I didn’t know when Sam’s birthday was, and the friend wasn’t sure either. What kind of girlfriend was I, I wondered, that didn’t even know her beloved’s date of birth? I vowed to find out.
Luck was on my side. As I put the cushions back on the sofa, I found a wallet. I peeked inside to make sure it was Sam’s before I did too much snooping, and peered at his driver’s license. Ha! His birthday was three days away! Good thing I checked!
Wait.
I looked more closely at the birth-year on his license, and re-did the math in my head.