David McElroy

There are some lessons that I have to keep learning over and over again. It seems as though those are the life lessons which constantly break my heart.

I’m an idealist at heart. I can’t help it. I want to believe the best of others. There’s an ideal world that I see in my mind. Everybody gets along. Everybody is reasonable. Nobody uses force to get his way. We’re all free individuals, understanding that others should be allowed to make their own voluntary choices.

But ugly reality keeps intruding on my idealistic visions. People don’t understand those who don’t think or look or act like them. They band together in primitive tribal groups to oppose one another. They’re willing to use force — even to kill others — to ensure that others obey what they believe is right.

That idealistic part of me grew up believing that I could use reason and persuasion to show others the value of what I believed. But I was wrong. The tribes hate each other. The last thing they’re interested in is understanding one another.

And I’m broken-hearted each time I realize this — and again when I understand what it means for my future.

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I just found out that an ex-girlfriend got married — and I’m jealous.

I haven’t spoken with her for a long time. Several years after we split, we reconciled enough to at least be “Facebook friends” for awhile. Then she told me she missed me and wanted to start talking on the phone again. But I said, “No.” Not long after that, she blocked me.

I hadn’t thought about her in a long time. We still have a mutual friend on Facebook and something about her came up there. (I’m not posting on Facebook these days, but I still have to log on every now and then to make changes regarding this page.)

Since I could see her account, she must’ve eventually unblocked me. But then I noticed she had a new last name. And there she was — still as strikingly beautiful as ever — standing in wedding photos with a new man.

I felt a stab of jealousy. Maybe envy is a better word. It’s hard to name it. And it’s even harder to explain it.

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I’m as nice to people as their behavior will allow me to be. But I’m not a “nice guy.”

All my life, I’ve heard men complain that women don’t like them because they’re too nice. In a few rare cases, this is even true. In my early 20s, I dated a woman a few times and things didn’t work out. Her best friend told me the woman was so accustomed to being abused by men that she didn’t know how to accept the decent way in which I treated her.

But in most of the cases when I hear this, I quietly judge things to be very different. These guys might think they’re “nice,” but I can think of better words.

Weak. Uninteresting. Subservient. Even loser.

I have this on my mind lately because of a situation I’ve watched play out involving a man and a woman. The guy is “nice.” The woman is strong-willed and aggressive. She’s the sort who you would see as a winner in all that she does.

He’s crazy about her. She really wants a good relationship with him. He meets a lot of her objective criteria. But she can’t get past something she has trouble putting her finger on.

He’s weak. He’s a “nice guy.” He’s a loser.

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