I was watching a YouTube video from one of my favourite online streamers the other day. Sweet Anita she's called, and she's a unique streamer because she has Tourettes syndrome. She started live-streaming to create awareness of her condition and to give other people the confidence to understand that it can be done and be well received at the same time. Her YouTube channel is basically a mishmash of the last day's conversations. It's a good watch.

Her latest video was about the conversations she had on the topic of "nice guys," or the latest buzz word for them are "simp's," I think. If you're an old fogey like me and are not used to attaching buzzwords to names then you'd basically know these men as men that are incredibly nice to people but want something in return, secretly. It was probably one of the most compassionate and empathic stories I've ever heard about these men, considering the situations she found herself in were incredibly manipulative.

That being said it encouraged me to share my story of being one of these men. Because there's a lot of mis-information about it.

For instance the whole opening the door for women and wanting something in return scenario that seems to be a hot topic, or was a couple of years ago. Generally, when that happens we're just being nice. Most of us were raised by our mothers to be upstanding white knights upholding our valour's of honour, and will literally bend over backwards for any random female. Don't take it personally.

But the manipulation and the attachment only comes when we know you a lot better. Opening a door for a random lady, we're just being nice. It's in our code of honour.

So here's the deal. Men like this are generally lonely. They are so desperately void at the core that the only thing they know is how to be nice to people so in return they are treated well themselves. It gets so bad that it becomes an addiction, being nice, and the validation that it creates from external sources.

This was me in a nutshell. My life revolved around validation from my friends and potential women friends in my network. The only thing that I cared about was getting praise from people. That was it. I really didn't care about anything else. And conflict, well, I hated to deal with that. Being nice was my way of avoiding the conflict. There had been so much trauma in my life that I just wanted to stay clear of it.

But where society edges away from reality is when these guys are classed as predators, and people that prey on you.

Most of it actually comes from a well meaning place.

The compliments, the boosting your self esteem, the gifts, the going out their way for you -- it comes from a good, well-meaning place. I mean nice guys don't generally rub their hands together evilly in understanding of what they are doing. I hazard a guess that near 100% of them have no idea they are being manipulative and controlling. If they realised it, like I mean truly had the revelation of what they were doing -- they'd be shocked.

Like I was. I cried. All night.

The realisation of what I had become and how I was appearing to people, and how that no matter how hard I tried some people just wouldn't accept any gifts from me. It all became clear.

I've done many video's and articles in the past about this in a compassionate way and every time I have a slew of men (and women) asking for resources. It's really not a place that anyone wants to be.

We just want a partner you know? To love us, and to cherish us. Because this is how we understand where self-worth comes from. It's all we've known. It's what we learned in childhood.

It stems from emotionally distant parents that teach us conditional love. If you do x, then I will love you. I mean it's certainly not said to us in that way but it's the subconscious messages that we get. For me it was a combination of my mother and father's idea of self worth that transitioned onto me. Their constant feuding, and using me as a weapon -- it didn't bear well on my health.

But since I've grown I've realised that life isn't perfect, and we all have our own little faults, and it's not about how we hide them, it's more about how we live with them.

But my transition from nice guy to healthy person brought its own revelations too. It turns out that some of the women that I was hanging from, devotedly asking for validation, they themselves were getting off on my attention whilst keeping me at arms length. And when I stopped giving them the validation that they wanted it turned nasty. It's not that I was being mean, it's just that when you're in an intimate relationship you shouldn't be discussing those things with other men. They were all in relationships. It didn't feel right anymore.

Of course, have men and women friends when you're in a relationship, there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're discussing personal things with other people, well.. that's just weird. So there's a bit of to and fro, and it wasn't all as one sided as it seems.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not excusing these men for what they do, only that I have a little compassion for them because I understand their plight. They're socially awkward, probably didn't have the greatest family life, and haven't yet met any good male role models. And on top of all that society kicks them when they are down. It's a long way up from rock bottom.

And this is why I appreciated Anita's recount. Even although she sounded like she had some really shitty run ins with these guys, she had the compassion and understanding to healthily give a balanced recount of what happened.

There needs to be more of that in the world. Compassion and understanding. If I want to understand something different I will go right up to someone and talk to them (or several people) about it and try and understand.

Understanding for me, is the key to everything!