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I made a similar post a couple of years ago, but I think it's time again after seeing a few nice-guy/incel posts here. So, guys who have made it to the other side, what would you say to your previous self? I'll leave my own personal answer in a comment below.

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[-] jaycifer@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago

No, over text they might sound similar, but in person it's easier to see that the difference is between being performative in his niceness as a means to have friends/a girlfriend versus being nice as a means toward being his better self, with friends following naturally from that.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 7 points 3 months ago

Thanks, yeah it's hard to state over text. The big thing was realizing I wasn't being nice - I was acting nice so that a girl would like me. Huge difference. You have to just be a good person, and many other things. Acting nice is very transparent. Being nice is a completely separate thing.

[-] rah@hilariouschaos.com -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

versus being nice as a means toward being his better self

No, OP said "which worked", which implies that his being nice was not just a means toward being his better self but also a means to get what he wanted from other people. Like before.

[-] jaycifer@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

I think I can forgive someone using the language of their past self when reflecting upon that past. In the context of the paragraph, I think it's fair to say that "which worked" means something more along the lines of "and things did get better." Maybe he could have improved his word choice in that instance, but I don't think that negates everything else said.

I can already hear you saying "but that's not what he said, and that was his choice of words." And to that, I point to one of the key lessons I learned in college philosophy: questions of meaning come before questions of truth. In this case where one short two word sentence does not fit the rest of what he is saying, I think it's best to ask what they could mean that would fit.

[-] rah@hilariouschaos.com 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

one short two word sentence does not fit the rest of what he is saying

I disagree. The two word sentence fits precisely everything else he said, which seems to describe exactly the same behaviour with exactly the same end goal as he had originally. There doesn't seem to be any difference between "before" and "after".

[-] jaycifer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Well, I guess I’ll just disagree. It very much reads to me as someone looking back and realizing they got everything they had been trying to get “by mistake” when they stopped trying to get it.

this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
210 points (96.5% liked)

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