Dear Nice Guy,
Hi!
Before you begin, if you are a nice guy, you should read the entire thing. If
you’re a girl who has met a nice guy before, you should read this too (Maybe
you’ve made the same mistakes I did.) And if you’re not a nice guy, you should
DEFINITELY read this. This apology extends to every guy out there who has been
snubbed by a girl for absolutely no fault of theirs. If you said a hello,
offered a seat in transit, tried to help out or be pleasant in any way, and the
girl acted like you did something abominable, I’m sorry you had to go through
that; that your chivalry was misunderstood. I am guilty too, of being one of
those girls with high airs, who acted aloof when a guy was genuinely being a
good person. I am sorry. There are a few
of you left, and I acted like a brat and drove you away. The thing is, a lot of
things have led me to acting the way I did. I am not saying I can make excuses;
I’m just trying to tell you why I did what I did, so maybe you can pardon me
then.
When
I was five, I held on to a stranger’s hand when I got lost on the railway
station, he told me he’ll take me to my mother. It’s a good thing I realised
what he was trying to do, before it was too late. When I was twelve, I was
going to my tuition which was three buildings away. On the way, I met men who
catcalled and said nasty words to me. I fastened my pace and got away from
there. I started to feel unsafe even three buildings away from home. Then I
reached teenage. I can’t talk about every time I felt unsafe or was eve teased
because that would be a huge list and this would just become a sob story. But
let’s just say, I started feeling unsafe inside my very home too. The
doodh-waala who delivered milk to our house every morning, was fired by my
mother because of certain reasons I don’t want to dwell into. I kept turning
older and the number of such incidents kept increasing, then one day I found my
voice and started retaliating and stopped a few of them from happening. But
I’ll admit it, I ignored quite a few of them, because ignoring seemed like a
better option back then. Basically what I’m trying to say is, at every walk of
my life, men made me lose all hope in them. I started growing cynical, and
started turning a blind eye towards the goodness left in the world. I told
myself, “All men are the same, I can never trust them.” So I started
generalising every ‘nice guy’ I met and judged him even though he had done
nothing to receive such harsh judgements from me. Then a few years ago, I decided
to gauge my perspectives and put myself in the shoes of a ‘nice guy’, and I
realised it is difficult for him too. In
a world where every day the newspapers talk about a minimum of five abuse cases, this nice guy
is constantly trying to prove his worth. He’s going out of his way to tell us
that not all men are bad. There are a few gems out there who respect women and will
even protect them if they can’t do it themselves. Several times I’ve acted like
I’m royalty in front of these guys and I’ve misinterpreted every gesture to be
one with ulterior motives. And I am ashamed of every time I did that. I cannot
overlook the beauty of a person just because in the past I have been walked
over. You ‘nice guys’ are the reason I still believe the world is a good place,
that our society has a lot to offer, no matter how messed up it is. So if you
are reading this, and if any girl has acted this particular way with you, maybe
it is because the world repeatedly told them that men are vicious. I am sure
she did not do that out of contempt (Some girls are actually rude though,
because high horse and all that, you know, but most are not.) I hope you can
forgive us. And more than that, I hope you can find it in you to let it go and
never stop being a nice guy. The world needs more of you; we girls need more of
you. Thank you for being who you are, give us another chance and we will turn
around. One day the society will only have nice guys and we can all feel so
much safer. I’m still pinning my hopes on humanity. Not all nice guys finish
last.
Love,
That rude girl who
is not really rude and is sorry about acting like that.
