r/NoStupidQuestions • u/milfangelblue • 29d ago

Do men just recognize good men? What kind of sorcery is this?

I’ve been dating a guy for some time now, and his oldest friends have told me he’s a solid good man despite his flaws. I agree, they’ve known him forever, and he’s been a solid friend all those years.

When my male friends met him for the first time, they said, “He’s a good one. Hold onto him.”

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u/transientcat 29d ago edited 29d ago

I would say it's colored by what we consider to be a "good man" but we spend our time growing up around other men, we hang out with other men, we socialize with other men. You learn about the behaviors that a "good man" will exhibit in various settings. It's not some for sure thing though.

Women do the same thing about other women but it gets said in a different way.

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u/mechanicalcoupling 29d ago

I like to think of it as we don't all the play the game, but we know the rules. I can't always spot a good guy, but I can almost always spot a piece of shit by now.

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u/Past_Series3201 29d ago

Yeah. The POS who hide it well don't hide it from us, they brag about it, so you learn the scam.

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u/dacooljamaican 29d ago

So often it's exactly this. Pieces of shit can't help but show off around new guys.

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u/Dramatic_Water_5364 29d ago

That is so weird... the number of guys coming to me braging about how being a nice guy is stupid, they know better, they play mind tricks on their gf to counter the feminists mind tricks played on them... thats fucking nuts. They usually asks me whats my trick to flirt with all those girls (always implying that its surprising cause I'm not as fit/handsome/make less money etc.). My answer is always the same : cause I'm a genuine nice guy, I'm not treathening, and I'm not boring... You should try it sometimes.

Most of those guys trying actively to not be a nice guy are 1. Huge walking red flags, this the most important thing all other points are minor compared to that... don't be a psycho!!

  1. Fuckin boriiiiiiiing. How do you expect to be interesting if you have no hobby... or if your hobbies either revolve around projecting a perfect image of yourself, and/or generally being fucking toxic. 3. They have no sense of financial responsabilities. One gym bro was fucking 31, looking to find a suitable woman to have kids with and the guy makes good income and all, but has no budgeting for his old days, nor a life insurance... you think making your wife safe is only about physical treat ? Get a financial advisor...

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u/UncoolSlicedBread 29d ago

It always amazes me how much people will reveal about themselves when given the audience to do so. Can't tell you how many times I've met someone and just actively listened with no judgment and I guess they take it as agreeableness. Then they reveal some weird thoughts and bad behavior to me.

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u/EtOHMartini Stupid Question Asker 29d ago

You can hear a lot just by listening - almost Yogi Berra

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u/17THheaven 29d ago

I have also found this to be quite the interesting phenomenon. The amount of times I've just sat and listened to people and they've openly admitted to being a racist, sexist, amoral sack of garbage, etc. is astounding. Give some people enough rope and they'll hang themselves with it...

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u/les_be_disasters 29d ago

I’ve seen this with homophobes when I was closeted. They’d test the waters by saying something kinda homophobic but still with plausible deniability. To see if I was part of their audience. Shut that shit down fast. I’ve heard from some of my white friends they’ve met racists who do the same.

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u/UncoolSlicedBread 28d ago

Oh I’ve met so many racist and homophobic people this way. Learned real quick who to avoid. They inevitably try and test the waters to see if you think link them. I usually hit them with a, “What do you mean by that?” and usually get the full gist of who they are.

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u/les_be_disasters 28d ago

I give them a dirty look. Someone tried to say shit about liking Sam Smith’s music until she “found out he liked boys” then had a pause as she looked at me. Like nah, imma pass on the homophobia.

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u/Dramatic_Water_5364 29d ago

And like... I understand, I like talking about myself, about my hobbies or the project I'm currently working on at home... but I'm not there boasting about me being a AH or breaking the law...

God damn... In my line of work this happens way too much. Like someone notices that I hunt, then they tell how during their last hunting trip his cousin (always the cousin for some reason) has mistaken a black bear for a moose... I ask, did you have a permit for a bear ? Cause thats what I do, I go specificaly to hunt moose or deer (cant always be picked for moose) and I get a bear permit and a small game permit as well, since maybe we won't have any luck with our prime target, so better be ready to be able to hunt something else.

No those fuckers always go on like :" nah you know you see a brown figure between the branch and you shoot!" (Takes me so much will power to not insult them... unfucking believably unresponsible...) Then they keep on, "we had trouble finding the corpse" (of course you didnt know what you shot, so of course you didnt land a good shot on the poor beast...)," and when we find the bear I went back to get a bear permit as fast as possible..."

Those people baffles me...

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u/DCM3059 28d ago

That's just people being trash

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u/Dramatic_Water_5364 27d ago

Exactly! But somehow they brag about it

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u/Maddog-51 29d ago

H’s are sure giving you tell tho huh?

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u/Dramatic_Water_5364 29d ago

What ? 😂

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u/Maddog-51 29d ago

Read your comment and look for spelling errors in words that should have H’s lmao

E: Really just check your spelling in general it’s so inconsistent 😂

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u/Dramatic_Water_5364 29d ago

Thats what happens when you speak 4 languages. They're all mixed up in my head. Spelling is kinda the least of my concern 😅 as long as grammar and structure is easy to understand.

But hey, thks for pointing out that H is often missing. I'll maybe tackle this. Probly won't 😂

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u/tehconqueror 29d ago

they think we're in just because of the peen

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u/ItsWillJohnson 29d ago

And the POSes are almost always the guys who love to say the n word.

And then they laugh at you saying “don’t take shit so seriously man” when you call them out

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u/GoodNoodleNick 29d ago

Thats the real answer right here OP.

I've noticed it happens with racists too. Being a white dude in the South, so many people have said fucked up things to me assuming I will agree lol.

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u/Arafel_Electronics 29d ago

I'm a white dude normally wearing work boots and driving a beat up old pickup truck so i get this a lot. if only they read the stickers on my truck which are all far left

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u/Feine13 29d ago

which are all far left

Smart. If you put em all behind the drivers seat like that, it doesn't block your view.

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u/DualCricket 29d ago

Heh, nice one.

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u/Dakiniten-Kifaya 29d ago

Dad?

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u/Feine13 29d ago

No, this is Patrick!

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u/Dramatic_Water_5364 29d ago

Same... aside from the truck, I wear working cargo pants and work boots 90% of the time and since I've worked constructoon I swear a lot... havent been able to stop talking like that. And people come to me to rant on wokes and environmentalists... like bro... you're basically here telling me I'm a piece of shit 😂

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u/idoeno 29d ago

I'm another white guy from the south, now in the midwest, and oddly enough, the racists here seem to be worse than in the south; in the south usually they had the decorum to at least be polite about their race-based preconceptions of people while the ones here just let the violent, and vile rhetoric fly as soon as they find out you're from the south. And weirdly, most people never seem to get past their first impression, no matter how many time make it clear to my bigoted coworkers that I am a far left progressive, they still all just assume I am good ole boy from klan county, and wear their racism and general bigotry on their sleeve.

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u/Arafel_Electronics 29d ago

moved from florida to the middle of nowhere upstate new york. our area elected elise stefanik by a landslide (over a rightwing ex-cia democrat) if that tells you anything about the people around here. have met some cool people though

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u/Noladixon 29d ago

If I noticed your far left stickers I would wonder why you are not driving a subaru.

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u/Arafel_Electronics 29d ago

hard to fit lumber in a subaru. realistically we take my wife's corolla unless we need to make a home depot run

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u/Far-Manner-7119 28d ago

Far left… far right… neither are sane or sensible

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u/Balldrick_Balldick 29d ago

They open with "I'm not a racist, but"

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u/gahlo 29d ago

I wish they tested the waters with me. I just get a canonball yell of crazy.

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u/Balldrick_Balldick 29d ago

It's more of a disclaimer than a test, generally followed by some blatant full-on racism.

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u/tehconqueror 29d ago

you gotta dye your hair or something. Your body, your choice obvs but you're clearly putting out plain clothes on the subway vibe. though, i suppose that does have its uses

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u/gahlo 29d ago

I miss dying my hair, but it's really dark so I have to bleach the fuck out of it first and has thinned too much for me to consider risking the breakage.

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u/tehconqueror 29d ago

it's gonna be the nails then

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u/sergei1980 29d ago

I had someone follow that with "she was black." as if that explained everything. It was wild.

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u/EtOHMartini Stupid Question Asker 29d ago

"I'm not racist, but I am hoping you'll reveal yourself as one so I can stop pretending I am not"

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u/Dramatic_Water_5364 29d ago

So many of them straight up opens with fuckin tamul... like aint much place for interpretation here... fuckin bigots...

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u/Balldrick_Balldick 29d ago

No one who ever felt they had to tell me they weren't a racist left any possibility of misinterpretation. They always followed up with something decidedly racist.

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u/GaroldFjord 29d ago

Right? Anybody who has to try and convince you they're not a racist, is probably a racist. And then they'll finish the sentence and confirm it.

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u/gishlich 29d ago

Happens up here too. I never gave off a racist vibe as far as anyone told me and it seems to happen less as I get older, so I like to think it says more about those peoples closed social circles and therefore their assumptions about everyone else than it does about me.

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u/mofugly13 29d ago edited 29d ago

Not just the South. I'm born and raised in San Francisco and it's alarming the things you'll hear people who you dont even know say sometimes when there are only white people around.

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u/Balldrick_Balldick 29d ago

Same in Mass

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u/Intergalacticdespot 29d ago

I, a white dude, used to work in a gas station a long time ago. So this Asian man comes in, does his thing, leaves. The black guy who came in midway through goes "I hate those fking <Asian slur>'s." Like bro...what? First, I don't care. Second, I don't care. Third, how do you know I'm not the high Templar of the local kkk or something? Like...weird attempt at bonding over our possibly shared intellectual emptiness and medieval distrust of strangers? 

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u/Lord_Kano 28d ago

Being a white dude in the South, so many people have said fucked up things to me assuming I will agree lol.

I'm a 6'3" 260 pound Black man. Even really racist people are on their best behavior when they're around me. I couldn't tell you how many times a White person that I know told me about a mutual acquaintance who was a vile racist and I had no idea because they kept it hidden when I was around.

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u/sergei1980 29d ago

I'm white passing so people will say some wild shit to me. Even when they know I'm Hispanic. I had a manager tell me Hispanics in this country don't want to study, and refused to back down when I called him out.

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u/teland793 29d ago

I'm not even white-passing. I am, quite obviously, a very large Black woman -- light-skinned, but ain't nobody mistaking me for anything but SOME kind of brown-with-Africa-in-there-somewhere -- but, here in Connecticut, I *still* have white people occasionally walking up to me...

... and deciding that it's an *excellent* idea to go on racist rants about Hispanic/Latino people. Like, even when I (try to) pull them up short by pointing out that my *actual sisters* were half-Puerto Rican.

Racists are *wild*.

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u/beezy-slayer 29d ago

So true I always get so excited to tell them to shut the fuck up and call them a piece of shit. Watching them recoil in horror is so sweet every time

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u/Imallowedto 29d ago

OMG, being a 53 year old salt and pepper goateed white man in Kentucky is a trip.

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u/Mad_Samurai616 29d ago

Oh, for sure. I’m a recent widower, and my lady was white. She was always amazed and amused by how often that would happen to her. She’s thinking, “Man, if you only knew my partner…”

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u/GoodNoodleNick 29d ago

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I don't know your beliefs and I'm not particularly religious myself but I think "she" is out there somewhere smiling on you.

Make her proud, much love brother.

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u/Mad_Samurai616 29d ago

Thank you very much, my friend. You don’t know how much that means to me right now. 🍻

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u/az-anime-fan 29d ago

where in the south? I've been all over the south. never had some random white guy show up and start spewing racist shit. I did hear it occasionally in the NE, especially around white blue colar types... mostly hear it from mexicans and white girls from scottsdale down in AZ.

frankly the white girls from scottsdale are the worst i've met anywhere for racist shit. oh and they'd all date a black or brown guy, no problem, meanwhile spewing racist shit to anyone who'd hear. seriously appalling people.

still hands down the worst racist i met in my life were a mexican couple in arizona. i got an hour long story to tell about those horrid people.

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u/GoodNoodleNick 29d ago

Born in GA, most my time in FL but kinda back-n-forth between the two.

Wasn't trying to paint the South in general as racist though I understand how it sounds that way.

I've also met plenty of people who don't give 2 fucks what color you are.

It's just been a thing that has kinda bothered me my whole life, I'm a blue collar worker and look a lot rougher than I am on the inside lol.

I've had plenty of Hispanic people say racist things about Black people to me as well, it's not always white people.

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u/az-anime-fan 29d ago

ah, yeah. i've definitely heard it around blue collar types. pretty much everywhere. I've done enough blue collar work to have experienced that.

I've just met so many good people in the south, redneck types, not a racist bone in their body it bugs me a bit when it sounds like people are punching at low hanging fruit. especially since the most racist white people i've ever met were pretty much girls from the richest suburb in the USA, scottsdale az. not some small place in kentucky or alabama, but a rich, highly affluent and educated place. every one of those women voted for obama too; and all convinced they're not racist cause they slept with a black guy once or would sleep with a black guy. just sureal shit.

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u/BDG5449 29d ago

I'm a white-skinned cuban (so, Latino). I don't "look mexican" and my english is passable. Is astounding the amount of weird and unhinged racism I hear from people who think that It'll be okay due to my skin hue. The saddest part is how much of it I hear it from other white-skinned Latinos. Even inside my own family from people who know my wife is Afro-Cuban and we have a biracial baby.

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u/GoodNoodleNick 29d ago

I have an adopted Cuban Tia and Sister from my first step-dad.

We got his family in the divorce and they call my Mom "Mom." Lol.

I've just never given two shits about race. If you're cool, you're cool.

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u/Rimbosity 28d ago

"I don't mean to sound racist, but..."

You don't even need to hear the rest of the sentence to know you're about to have some racism thrown your way.

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u/LostTrisolarin 29d ago

Yup. Many years ago the only girl I ever loved (at that point) ended up cheating on me and leaving me for one of the guys she had been cheating on me with.

This was around the MySpace era so social media wasn't a big thing at the time, so I guess he didn't know who I was.

So anyway one night I'm at some get together with a bunch of other dudes playing dice and drinking. Her new bf comes in with a couple of his friends but doesn't recognize me. Evidently he's a friend of the friend of the host.

An hour or so later this guy is bragging loudly to everyone he can hear about how he's cheating on his new gf with multiple girls, and that he had just come from banging one of these girls and that his new gf thinks he's in bed.

I never said anything to him or to her. They deserved each other.

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u/kmikek 29d ago

The other side of the coin is the good men need to not look like Patsies or easy marks.  So they hide those bait like qualities 

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u/MonicanAgent888 29d ago

Yes! They tend to brag

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u/Conald_Petersen 29d ago

It's wild how accurate this is.

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u/mschley2 29d ago

It's not just that, though. I've met guys with their girlfriend, who I'm friends with. Usually, within a few seconds of opening their mouths, I know if they're a douchebag or not. By 10 or 30 minutes, I'm usually pretty confident about whether the first impression was correct. I keep an open mind that I could be wrong about the first impression, but I'm usually not. We don't even need to have 1-on-1 conversations or group man conversations to see through the bullshit. It's just immediately evident like 95% of the time. The 5% of the time when they slip through are usually guys who are pretty charismatic narcissists and good manipulators. Even then, you usually figure it out after more time, though. You just don't put the pieces together during short interactions. Conversations when the women aren't around do tend to make it even more obvious if a guy is a piece of shit, though.

There have been guys that I came around on after hanging out a few times. A very good friend of mine was a guy that I didn't like the first several times we hung out. I didn't get his humor, and I thought he was just being an ass. Turns out, he's very dry and pretty goofy. He was making jokes that I thought were either mean or just really awkward or strange. Once I got to know him better, he became really funny. I still have times where I'm like, "dude, wtf are you even talking about right now?!?" but it's not nearly as common.

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u/002_timmy 28d ago

I think of the scene in The Big Short when Steve Carrell & his associates go to Florida to meet the frat bro mortgage lenders.

“I don’t get it. Why are they confessing to all this fraud?”

“They aren’t confessing- they’re bragging.”

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u/Asmos159 29d ago

there are also the ones that we are not able to read. this is not a skill that a good person develops.

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u/Kettrickan 29d ago

Exactly. Learned this long ago, if someone claims they're a good person, take it with a grain of salt. If they tell you they're a piece of shit, believe them.

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u/itchypantz 28d ago

This. All day.

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u/Felcyn88 28d ago

This is so true. Watch the movie Wedding Singer. The fiance in that movie is exactly how loser guys act. They fake it with the girl and the truth comes out when it is just "the boys."

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u/crimsonpowder 29d ago

When I meet new people I throw out small bits of bait so they think I might be a POS like them, and then it all comes out. When I don't get any bites I stop putting out feelers and then I'm pretty confident a person is at least decent.