Hmpf! Nice Guys?

Ok, I’ve talked about the natural side of relationships = pheromones. Moving forward, I have heard the phrase: Nice guys finish last”. Why is that? Is it possible to discover an aspect or answer that unravels the relationship issue of why men and women are attracted to each other? What I want comment on is the “nice guy” issue. I would be proud to say that I think I am a nice guy, but as I recognize what this means according to some, is there any truth to it? A Nice guy?


I have found strange information on this. Initially I came across this site that explains how nice guys are losers. The author of the site states that nice guys are generally insecure and have no backbone. The picture that they paint of a nice guy is that of a welcome mat that gets walked on all the time by women. In another sense, the author alludes to nice guys believing that women want jerks as their choices. But overall, is this an accurate definition?!


Personally
I thought women wanted a guy that is strong in his convictions, spontaneous, random, open-minded, loving/respectful, and is a great communicator/listener.

Another site that I came across offers help like a clinic for so called “Nice Guys”. Is this stuff real? What do you think?

Natural or For Sale?

With all the wisdom that I have sort of drawn out from research on phremones, I have come across some weird things:




A supposed news report
PS Pheromone Spray
Some Amazon.com items


Now, as I see it, this pheromone situation is natural to us human beings. I feel that it is something that serves a purpose in our situation of relationships. But I ask the question, REALLY?! How far have we come or does this question even references the idea that we want to subtly ease our way to other people based on their unconscious natural instinct? If we do this, what is the guise that we come in under? Predators maybe? Manipulators? I’m just throwing the ball out there to see what you think. If we can bottle this stuff up and do this to each other then what is my point of relationships? Nah, it’s ok, I won’t give up that easily!




On the other hand, they do use things like this for mating the wild beasts, y’know horses, bulls, cows, etc. Might there be a connection between the peddlers of this pheromone spray?

Relationships, biological?

I wondered if there was a connection to relationships on anatomical/biological perspective, and by golly I found a plethora of studies and research! Specifically from one research paper that touched on all aspects of the area.


It all seems start with our noses, that is, our sense of smell. Humans have a poor sense of smell in comparison to other mammals. For example, dogs have about 230 million “smelling” receptors, while humans only have about 10 million. The item that separates us from our other “heightened-abilitied smelling mammals” is our cognitive ability, the capability we have to discern (consciously and unconsciously) the smells that enter our smeller – nose.
So what is it that we smell? Pheromones are the answer for the day! “Pheromone” is a term derived from Greek words “pherein”, which means to carry and “hormone”, which means to excite. As previously mentioned, the difference between us and our mammalian counterparts is the ability for us to process this smell consciously and unconsciously:

“The ‘affective primacy hypothesis' [5] asserts that positive and negative affective reactions can be evoked with minimal stimulus input and virtually no cognitive processing. Olfactory signals seem to induce emotional reactions whether or not a chemical stimulus is consciously perceived."

What this says is that something is triggered or happens in us consciously or unconsciously that affects our emotions. Whew! That’s a lot to ponder! This affect just happens to affect our social behavior with the opposite sex and even produces other chemicals in our bodies that affect reproduction. And you know what? The smell does not even register to us sometimes!
I have found research that I could eat up all of blog space so I will stop here for now and delve more into the details of pheromones and its affect on us humans, relative to relationships in the next post.


Ending Thoughts
As I have stated in the beginning of my blog, I am an observer. Never have I known about pheromones and the part it might play in relationships. I always assumed it was based on visual and the right personality, not saying they are not, but I find it interesting to learn this piece of information about the extra—biological/anatomical aspects. What do you think?

So Much!!

There are many types of relationships that we will and are experiencing in life. I’m sure that we have been in many types. Every day we are bombarded with aspects of relationships. Whether it be the latest reality TV show, some commercial about one of the many online dating sources (promising the finding of love), a new release in theaters, familial, work related, etc. Even as I type this I am realizing how in life we are all connected through this thing called “relationships” in varying degrees; interpersonal. As I have found initially from wikipedia, interpersonal relationships cover a vast area so I want to try to break them down to some manageable aspect. I want to touch on some specific relationship situations:

· Biological/Chemical relevance (is there any?)
· Beyond Biological
· Work/Professional
· Friendship
· Beyond Friendship
· Relationship answers from religion