The Guy
women think "nice guys" on the apps are dangerous (and they're right)
tldr: The nice guy and the good guy are both being transactional. She feels the sub-communication that every polite text is a chip you're planning to cash in for engagement. The Guy having actual success has no agenda and no follow-up question, and that's what makes him safe.
So you did everything right.
You were respectful. Thoughtful. You referenced her bio. You asked a considered question. You didn't say anything offensive. You proofread it.
What, did you want a cookie?
There are three types of guys on the apps. The nice guy, the good guy, and The Guy. If you clicked on this, you're almost certainly the good guy. And it's quietly sabotaging your entire experience.
what's the difference between a nice guy and a good guy?
The nice guy isn't nice. He's transactional and he knows it, even if he'd never say it out loud. His politeness is a strategy. The thoughtful questions, the compliments, the patience. He's accumulating chips. He's being nice so that eventually he can cash all that niceness in for something. Engagement first. Then more.
That's not niceness. That's manipulation with better manners. That's probably not you.
The good guy is different. He's not manipulative. He'd be offended you even suggested it. But he's still performing. He's operating on a hidden belief that if he's polite enough, thoughtful enough, respectable enough, then she owes him a response. That his good behavior has earned him engagement.
That's still transactional. It's just transactional with a clean conscience.
Then there's The Guy. No agenda. He's there to entertain himself and let things go where they go. He's not tracking chips because he's not keeping score. This is Signal Inversion Theory in one sentence: the traits that make you a great candidate on paper are the exact traits that read as a threat over text.
why do women feel danger from a "nice" text?
Because she can feel the transaction underneath it.
She doesn't consciously think "this man is running a strategy." She just gets a vibe. The text says one thing and sub-communicates another. Over the apps, it's not what you say. It's the emotion the words evoke. And a good guy text evokes a specific one: this guy is being nice AT me, and there's a bill coming.
That's the danger. Not that you're cruel. That you're performing kindness and expecting to get paid. She's been paid-with-kindness before. She knows how that story ends. I wrote more about why nice guys actually get ghosted and it's not the reason most guys assume.
Let me show you instead of explain.
what does a nice guy text look like vs The Guy?
She sends you a short one. "lol nice."
HER: lol nice
NICE GUY: haha glad you liked it! so tell me more about yourself, where are you from originally?
The Guy: don't laugh at me
Read the nice guy version again. Translation: I made you laugh, now you owe me engagement. Here's a question to make sure you keep talking to me. It's a debt collection notice with a smiley behind it.
"Don't laugh at me" does none of that. No fishing. No follow-up question. No agenda to keep the conversation alive. It's just a guy being funny and letting her come to him. That's hot girl energy. She doesn't chase because she doesn't need to, and I wrote about how to text like a hot girl and land more dates using exactly this move.
The absence of the question mark is the whole thing. The nice guy can't let a text sit without appending a reason for her to respond. The Guy trusts the text to stand on its own.
she went quiet for a day. what do i send?
Conversation was flowing. Then nothing for a day. We've all been here. I've been here. I have personally sent this next text, so I'm not lecturing from a mountain.
NICE GUY: hey! just checking in, hope you're
having a good day :)
The Guy: i'm choosing to believe you were kidnapped and not that you're ignoring me
The check-in text translates to: I am cashing in every niceness chip I've saved up in this chat, please respond. It's needy dressed as considerate. The smiley is the tell. It's you softening a demand.
The Guy version has zero neediness. Zero butthurt. Pure absurdity. It's fun, it's flirtatious, and it gives her an easy way back in without guilt. She's not walking into an awkward "sorry I've been busy" confession. She's walking into a bit. This is why the double text everyone's scared of works when it's playful and dies when it's a status check.
One more.
she said "you seem sweet." what do i say back?
HER: you seem sweet
NICE GUY: aw thanks! i try haha. you seem really great too
The Guy: i am absolutely not sweet. whoever told you that is getting sued
The nice guy answer translates to: thank you for validating my performance, here is validation back, please continue. He accepted the label. He absorbed the compliment like it was the point of the whole exchange.
The Guy rejects the frame entirely. He doesn't accept "sweet." He turns it into a threat of litigation. He's not grateful for her approval because he wasn't performing for it in the first place. That's the difference and she feels it instantly.
why does being an impressive, successful man hurt me here?
Because you're texting her like you're sending your boss a calendar invite.
Everything that made you good at your life is working against you. You learned to be thoughtful. Prepared. Considered. You learned that effort earns reward and politeness gets doors opened. In a performance review, that's a promotion. On Hinge, it reads as a man running a bid for approval. This is why six-figure earners get zero matches, and it makes no sense until you see the inversion.
My co-founder and I built The Guy App because we kept noticing the same thing. Guys we knew who were good-looking, stylish, put-together, genuinely successful. We'd ask if they were on the apps. Yes. How's it going? Terrible. No matches, and the ones I get don't respond.
These are men who should be cleaning up. And they were getting nothing. Every time, it was the text game. The exact traits that made them win everywhere else were sinking them here.
I was the worst offender. I'm 28. Think about every mistake you've made with women, then multiply it by ten. My old chat threads were disasters. I sent the "just checking in :)" text. I asked where she was from originally. I gave validation back like a reflex. It was only after I made these mindset shifts that I saw responses triple, sometimes quadruple, mostly measured in women I actually met offline.
The fix isn't learning to be mean. The nice guy thinks the alternative to niceness is being a jerk, and that's a different failure. The alternative is having no agenda at all. There's a reason the guy who texts with the least strategy wins, and it's the same reason the guy who texts like a virgin with zero outcome attached gets the date. No score being kept means no chips to cash means no transaction for her to feel.
Stop being nice at her. Stop keeping the ledger. Send the text that doesn't ask for anything back.
try The Guy at asktheguy.app. paste your conversation, get the version that actually works.
video transcript
So you did everything right. You were respectful, you were thoughtful, you didn't say anything offensive, you referenced her bio, asked a thoughtful question. What, did you want a cookie or something? Guys, we need to talk about how there are three main types of guys on the apps here. There is one, the nice guy, who is not very nice, and we'll talk about him in a second.
That's probably not you if you're watching this video. Then there's the good guy, where goodness is used as a strategy, even if you don't realize that just yet. We'll talk about that. That is most likely you if you clicked on this video, and it's sabotaging your entire experience on the dating apps. And then there's just the guy, who we'll also talk about as well.
And this is very important because what you have to understand is that both the nice guy and the good guy are transactional. The nice guy is using his politeness, his thoughtfulness, his, you know, asking thoughtful questions, all that type of stuff. He's using that as a strategy to get engagement from a woman.
And once he gets that engagement and continues to be nice, quote-unquote, he's eventually gonna cash that in for a cookie, or sex in this case. Now, that's probably not you, but that's not, that's not actually nice, as you can imagine. That's actually very manipulative. Guys, it's very windy out and there's some construction.
Hopefully you can't hear it, but we're gonna have to go on regardless. Now, then there's the good guy trap, where you're not being manipulative. You certainly don't consider yourself that. And... But you're still performing. You're still in this mindset that if you're thoughtful, if you're polite, if you're respectable, that she deserves, or you deserve for her to engage with you.
And then there's just the guy, the guy who is having a massive amount of success on the dating apps. The guy has no agenda. The guy is just there to have fun and entertain himself and let things go where they may. Now, that's enough theory. I wanna actually give you some concrete examples 'cause I think you're gonna see the patterns yourself in the text game.
And before we get into it too much, guys, I was the guy making every single mistake I talk about in this video. I am 28 years old at the time recording this video. I have probably made... Think about all the mistakes you've made with women. I've probably made 10 times the amount of mistakes. But it is because of those mistakes, paradoxically, that I'm now here on camera providing you this information.
Um, so it is only because of the failures that I'm actually able to provide you this philosophy that me and my co-founder have developed via The Guy app, which if you're struggling on the apps, check it out, link in the description, take a screenshot of any new matches or any conversations that have run dry, get an analysis of where things went wrong, and then ultimately get three curated lines to move forward.
So let's, um, let me give you some before and after examples here. So, um, say you get a short response. She says something like, "LOL nice." Sirens again, I apologize, guys. And then she says A nice guy would say something like, "Ha ha, glad you liked it. So tell me more about yourself. Where are you from originally?"
Translation: I made you laugh, now you owe me engagement. The guy would just say something like, "Don't laugh at me." That's it. No fishing for extra engagement, no follow-up questions, just a guy being funny. And that right there is hot girl energy, actually. Just the no desire necessarily to continue the conversation with a question mark, simply letting them come to you, that is how you wanna be texting, which The Guy app will fix for you automatically.
Now, say she doesn't respond for a day. The conversation was flowing and then she doesn't respond for a day. We've all been there. The nice guy would say something like, "Hey! Just checking in. Hope you're having a good day :)." Now, I will admit, I am guilty of, of sending that exact text message myself at some point in time.
The translation here is, I'm cashing in all my niceness chips that I've accumulated in, in this chat. Please respond. Now, the guy would probably just let the conversation die or have the woman come back to him. Or if he really wants to follow up, the way he would do it, with zero neediness, zero butthurtness, just pure absurdity, would be, "I'm choosing to believe you were kidnapped and not that you're ignoring me."
Now, you can see, just absurdity. It's fun, it's flirtatious. She can respond back and not feel guilty and not make it into an awkward situation Last example. She says something like, "You seem sweet." The nice guy would say something like, "Aw, thanks! I try, ha ha. You seem really great, too." Translation: thank you for validating my porfor- excuse me.
Translation: thank you for validating my performance. Here's validation back Now the guy would say, the guy who you should aspire to be like, should be texting like at least, would say something like, "I am absolutely not sweet. Whoever told you that is getting sued." Rejects the label entirely, doesn't accept the frame.
So that's what texting like the guy looks like right there. Which again, you can just have your text game automatically fixed for yourself with the link in the description. Free trial, you don't even need to sign up for an account. Paste in your dating messages and start texting like the catch that you are.
Because it is all of your good guy traits, everything we've been talking about here, the traits that made you successful, the traits that made you a confident, smart, intelligent, productive citizen of the world, all of that is what's holding you back on the apps. 'Cause you're texting like you're sending your boss a calendar invite, essentially.
And she can feel the energy. That's what it really comes down to, guys. It's not the text itself, it's not what the words say, it is the sub communication of the words. It kind of goes back to like it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Over the apps, it's not what you say, it's just the vibe or the emotion that it evokes.
And so if you're a successful guy who has your life together in every other area but you are not having the success you want to have on the apps, which is the whole reason why me and my co-founder developed The Guy app. We literally fell backwards into it. Trust me, six months ago I did not think I would be in the middle of this park making this video about some of the most ridiculous topics that I could be talking about in terms of how to text women on the dating apps.
Especially if you were to look through my chat thread, you could see disastrous at a certain point in time. It wasn't until I started making all the changes and the mindset shifts most importantly in this video that I'm talking about, where I really started to see probably like a triple to even a quadruple increase in the amount of responses I would get primarily from me- meeting women offline.
So guys, if you wanna get the text game fixed, 'cause like I was saying before I got sidetracked, my co-founder and I just came to the conclusion we knew too many guys who were successful, good-looking, stylish, and then we would ask them, "Are you on the apps?" They would say yes, and we'd be like, "Oh, well how's that going?"
And they would say, "Terrible. I don't get any matches. Or when I do, they don't respond." And we were like, "Why?" 'Cause you would think this guy would be cleaning up on the apps, but he just wasn't. And it's because of the text game. It's 'cause all the traits that made him successful in every other area of life are what sabotaged him on the apps.
So guys- Long story short, if you wanna fix the text game, if you wanna get an analysis on your text game, maybe you're not convinced, maybe you still think, "No, no, the way I text, this is the right way. It's actually the woman's fault. That's why I'm not having success in the apps." Guys, there's one way to find out.
Check out the guy, link in the description, free trial. You don't even need to sign up for an account. Paste in your messages, get honest analysis of where you're going wrong and how you should start texting going forward. Any questions, drop a comment. We will get back to you. Otherwise, thanks for watching, guys.
I'll see you tomorrow, five videos per week, Monday through Friday. Talk to you next time.
Bye.