This is a tribute to the nice girls. To the nice girls who are over looked, who become friends and nothing more. This is for the girls who provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story they’ve heard a thousand times. This is an homage to the girls who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in anything they want to wear, who care more than they should for guys that don’t deserve their attention. This is for those girls who have watched other girl’s time and time again fake up make up and fuck up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for the girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from “there are plenty of fish in the sea” to “time heals all wounds.” This is for the girls who have left sad song lyrics in their away messages, who have tried to make someone understand through a subliminally appealing profile, who have time and time again dropped their male friend hint after hint only to watch him chase after the first blonde in a skirt. This is for the girls who have been told they’re too good or too smart or too pretty, who have been given compliments, who have been confident on the outside but breaking on the inside. This one’s for the girls you can take home to mom. This is for the girls who have been led on by words and kisses and touches, all of which were either only true for the moment, or never real to begin with. This is for the girls who have allowed a guy into their head and heart, only to discover that he’s just not ready, he might never be. This is for the girls who believed and waited. For the nights when you’ve returned home alone, for the nights when you’ve seen from across the room him leaning in a little too close, or standing a little too near, or talking a little too softly for the girl he’s with. This is for the “I really like you, you’re my best friend” comment after you read more into a situation then he ever intended. This is for the hugs you’ve received from your female friends, for the nights they’ve reassured you that you are beautiful, intelligent, amazing, loyal and truly worthy of a great guy. You have endured what he was giving because at least he was giving something; this is for the stupidity of the nights we’ve believed that something was better than nothing, though his something was nothing we’ve ever wanted. This is for the girls who have been satisfied with too little and who have learned never to expect anything more: for the girls who don’t think that they deserve more, because they’ve been conditioned for so long to accept the scraps thrown to them by guys. And last but not least, this is for those of us who have grown up and realized that it’s all bullshit, and that we are worth more.

This is what I don’t understand. Men sit and question and whine that girls are only attracted to the mean guys, the guys who berate them and belittle them and don’t appreciate them and don’t want them; who use them and think little else than where their next conquest will be made.

Men complain that they never meet nice girls, girls who are genuinely interesting and compelling, who are intelligent and sweet and smart and beautiful; men despair that no good women want to share in their lives, that girls play mind games that girls love to keep them hanging. Yet, men, I ask you: were you to meet one of these genuinely interesting and intelligent and sweet and beautiful girls were you to give her your number and wait for her to call…and if you were to receive a call from her the next day and she, in her truthful, loyal, intelligent and straightforward nice girl fashion, were to tell you that she finds you intriguing and attractive and interesting and worth her time and perhaps material from which she could fashion a boyfriend, would you or would not immediately call your friends to tell them of the “stalker chick” you met the night before, who called you and wore her heart on her sleeve and told the truth? And would you or would you not, refuse to make plans with her, speak with her, see her again, and once again return to the bar or club or party scene and search once more of this “nice girl” who you just cannot seem to find? Because therein lies the truth, guys: we nice girls are everywhere. But you’re not looking for a nice girl. You’re not looking for someone genuinely interested in your intramural basketball game, or your anatomy midterm grade, or that argument you keep having with your father; you’re looking for a quick fix, a night when you can pretend to have a connection with another human being which is just as disposable as the condom you were using during it. So don’t say you’re on the look out for nice girls. Maybe nice guys finish last in the race they’re running, but they’re chasing after the whores and the sluts and the easy-targets…the nice girls are waiting at the finish line with water and towels and a congratulatory hug (and yes, if she’s a nice girl and she likes you, the sweatiness won’t matter), hoping against hope that maybe you’ll realize that they are the ones that you want at the end of the silly race. So maybe it won’t last forever. Maybe some of those guys in that race will turn in their running shoes and make their way to the concession stand where we’re waiting; however until that happens, we still have each other, that silly race to watch, and all the chocolate we can eat (because what’s a concession stand at a race without some chocolate?)…sometimes the nice girls get sick of waiting.
-Jessica Leigh Griffith