The "Nice Guys" of Love Is Blind

How to overcome nice guy syndrome.

I read those words on a reddit post the other day. A young man reached out to the online community in desperation, begging for answers. I rolled my eyes at most of the responses, but I was pleasantly surprised by one.

“Stop being nice, be good instead.”

Be good, instead. I felt that deeply.

As an avid reality TV watcher, I am constantly bombarded by the nice guy trope. I even read, recently, that the Love is’ Blind producers claim it’s hard to find “nice guys”, and want to cast more nice, authentic men. So maybe that’s where they’re going wrong; looking for nice guys, rather than guys that are good. The dichotomy of good and bad don’t typically exist within humans. Good and bad can also be subjective. But I do think that the respondent on Reddit brings up an important point. So much of what we know as being “nice” is based on how we’re viewed by others, whereas I believe he’s saying-or at least how I interpreted it- is that being good is based on how aware we are of how we make others feel. So thinking of the Love is Blind producer’s struggle to find authentic men, what does that say about our societies that it is so hard to find men who are honest, transparent, and safe?

Through many of the shows I watch, it seems that over time, the nice guy trope has really just become a way to describe men who don’t do what we know most men, statistically, would. A way to describe men who made a choice to not abuse or harm women in their interactions with them. A man who, in the face of rejection, didn't go on a smear campaign and call the woman names or threaten her life. A man who is the slightest bit thoughtful or considerate of others. When it comes to the foundations of what a good man is made of, the collective social bar is in hell.

Reality TV, despite the reality part, isn’t meant to be the most authentic version of the people in it. Producers create characters and storylines that we, as the audience, want to invest in. Knowing that each cast member in the Love is Blind series is moulded into a character, that means that the “nice guy” character is one created for us to resonate with, too. I decided to dig deeper into the nice guy trope and break it down based on my observations on the men from the Love is Blind world. Not only the way they were on their season but also the way they were portrayed, and the way the audience saw them.

The nice guys we root for at the expense of women’s ability to choose

Demola, Season 2, Love is Blind UK

Disclaimer: because I know how hard the Demola fans ride for him and y’all not about to come for me. This nice guy trope isn’t actually about Demola’s behaviour at all, it’s about us. The viewers. It’s about how we used the pedestal we put Demola on to metaphorically stomp on Katisha and her choices.

I’ll be honest, I was annoyed with Katisha throughout season 2 of Love is Blind UK. I was annoyed that she couldn’t see through Javen’s bullshit. I was annoyed that she didn’t slap the taste out Sophie’s mouth. I was annoyed that she went as far as to tell Demola her mind wouldn’t change about him, only to choose someone else 24 hours later.

I was not, however, annoyed at the fact that she didn’t choose Demola despite him being seemingly nice to her. As a reality TV character, with what I saw of Demola, I liked him. He came across the screen as funny, handsome, and cool, dare I say he even came across as quite genuine. But none of these things changed the simple fact that women are not required to entertain men who are nice to them. Katisha should not have chose Demola just because he was nice to her, even though the internet has been telling her otherwise. Niceness should not be enough to make a decision as big as choosing your life partner. Demola chose to handle rejection with class and decency. Which is great, but also doesn’t make Katisha any more obligated to choose him.

The self-proclaimed nice guys

Edmond, Season 9, Love is Blind

My mom's always told me, nice is a basic requirement. It is to be expected in human interactions. It is not something that folks get a gold star for, especially those you’re in romantic partnerships with. Nice is easy. At first glance, I've interacted with many nice men. Some of them turned out to be the most dangerous I’ve encountered. So when I witness men do the I don’t ever get what I want because I’m too nice bit, it always gives me the heeby jeebies. This type of nice guy believes that being nice is a currency, and that they should be compensated (usually with coochie) and rewarded for displaying it.

The “nice guys” whose niceness is conditional

Sam, Season 1, Love is Blind UK

Ugh. This may be my least favourite type of “nice guy”. Okay so picture the scene. This is the dude that melts in your presence as you walk by on the sidewalk. He is ready and willing to drink your bath water and already thinking of venues for your future wedding before even knowing your name. He’s smiling with his eyes. He’s laying the compliments on thick. He asks you for your number. A hug. A smile. Then it happens. You shut him down. “I’m not interested, but thank you.” Thinking that’s the end of the interaction, they do a classic Jekyll and Hyde type switch. There now seems to be a dark cloud over the entire moment. As you keep walking you feel the heat stinging on the back of your neck, a harsh dagger from his lips to your ears: “you ain’t that fine anyway, bitch!”

This is conditional niceness - men who think they have permission to not be nice to women they can’t get anything from. The moment they realize she’s not going home with him, or giving him her number, or saying yes to the date, his kind ways quickly disappear. Remember Sam from season 1 of Love is Blind UK? The second he understood that Nicole had chose someone else, and ended things with him, the way he treated her - specifically when she wasn’t around- changed entirely. He even went as far as to pull her new fiance aside and try to get him upset by giving a low blow about how Nicole recently tried to sleep with him (allegedly).

Once it was clear to him that he and Nicole were over, he could no longer find a reason to continue being nice to her, which tells me it was never genuine in the first place, and makes me wonder: how nice is a nice guy if he’s only nice to you?

The overly agreeable nice guys

Stephen, Season 7, Love is Blind

Remember season 7’s African King, Stephen? He was portrayed as the ultimate nice guy throughout the first half of his season. His character was seemingly just a sweet man learning about his newly found African ancestry and wanting to smile and agree with anything his fiance, Monica said. He understood the formula he thought he needed to be portrayed as nice, and incapable of causing the kind of pain he did.

When Monica asked if he had still been texting the woman he was unfaithful with, and to see his phone, he responded that he deleted the message because he “didn’t want to look at it either.” The language he uses matters in his attempt to uphold the imagine of nice and agreeable, because it makes his red flags look a little less red. It seems like his poor decisions have to be a result of incompetence, never malice. Even in the pods, when asked, he told Monica he “technically holds the title of being a cheater".

In their final moments as a couple he still chose to play the same role, and respond to confrontation (as a result of his actions) with only two words: you’re right, until Monica called him out on it, saying “I know I’m right, say something else.”

For Stephen, it seemed as though it was easier to be seen as sorry than to do the self-reflective work required to take true accountability.