I've seen No More Mr. Nice Guy! referenced here a few times, and since AWALT, and my marriage has imploded, I decided to hunker down into monk mode and take a serious look at myself and where my life is going. This meant rereading the sidebar and picking up a bunch of traditional Red Pill books, because, man, it's surprising what you forget when you get complacent, and I definitely put a lot of the blame for my failed marriage on myself, and I had known all about TRP for nearly a decade. I take this now as information and an opportunity to learn and grow out of destructive habits.

I was really surprised by how good this book is. I took 12 pages of notes and did many of the author's activities. I never really understood why I had become a nice guy. I thought it was something natural to me, and that's why I was a beta whiteknight, but now I think I know a little better. I wanted to share with you some of the key insights.

Nice guys usually didn't have a good relationship with their dads. That was me, because my father was emotionally absent. It was awkward to talk to him, I felt neglected, he would get angry super fast whenever we were doing man things together, like if I couldn't find the right tool, or if I forgot the name of a tool. This led me to be largely raised by my mother, and to seek my mother out for my problems, not my father. Also, mothers can't teach a boy how to become a man. Suffice to say, I had no idea how dysfunctional my family was or how that affected my development.

Doing things to please my mother always ended with my life messing up. The family dynamic was that my brother was autistic, so I had to be the good son my parents could be proud of and said and did things to please my parents. This led to me doing things to please others and never putting my own needs first. In NMMNG, a key aspect is to put your own needs first and create boundaries around those needs. It means you may have to have confrontation (a nice guys bane).

NMMNG also addresses sexual dysfunction. Nice guys aren't sexy, and they know it. This doesn't, however, negate their sexual needs. And so, this book talked about one thing that I had never heard anywhere else, and that is, healthy masturbation. Healthy masturbation is when you pleasure yourself but you don't fantasize and you don't look at pornography. What you are doing is tapping into your sexual self and learning to not feel shame and fear. This is one thing I think the NoFap community misses. In NoFap, masturbation is still seen as a shameful practice. It's damaging though, to see yourself as a sexual person being a bad thing, even if it's in the subconscious. To give an illustration, because I think it will help, I compulsively masturbated to porn for most of my post-puberty life. Marriage didn't change that, not even a little bit. It absolutely affected my sex life in negative ways. One of the things I couldn't get out of my mind was that sex, masturbation, sexuality, were all sinful things. I attended a fundamentalist church in my developing years and sex was an extremely taboo subject. It was seen as okay in marriage, but it was absolute utter sin outside of marriage and even sexual thoughts were sinful. Healthy masturbation was never discussed, never mentioned, no one ever said it was okay to be a sexual person (or, if they did, it was quickly contradicted by how sinful acting on thoughts was). A lot of nice guys have this sexual dysfunction of thinking sex is a bad thing, even if subconsciously. Healthy masturbation helps override these deeply imbued thoughts. I used to always get a low feeling after masturbating, like I did something wrong. If you are like this, then the next time you masturbate, don't fantasize and don't use porn. You will be amazed how you feel afterward, like you are permitting yourself to be a sexual person with needs and its okay.

NMMNG talks about the need to have male friends. I've had male friends in and out of my life and never knew the deeper benefits of having male friends. A lot of nice guys are loners, and I've been a loner more than I've been one of the crew. Other men help teach you how to be a man, but you can also hash things out with them without fear of losing sex (for obvious reasons). That's why you shouldn't pour your heart out to your girlfriend or wife, because there are dynamics to your relationship, such as sex, that you will fear losing, and could lose. Men will accept you, warts and all, and you will eventually regain your self confidence and get back to your self.

There were some other things, like covert contracts, where nice guys will do things for others and be a good guy but expect others to reciprocate without telling them.

I want to conclude now, and the conclusion is I feel like this book has laid a foundation. Reading a bunch of random Red Pill stuff over the years didn't seem to help me any, but reading this book made me realize specific things I can work on. It's not at all applicable to everyone here, but if you've ever had nice guy tendencies then you must read this book. I am finding it more helpful, like I said, foundation, than thinking of myself as a Beta who needs to become Alpha. Well, this book outlines how nice guys can make that transition, and it's certainly more in depth than "just lift" kind of advice.

P.S. no summary can do the book justice, you have to actually read the book. Ignore the stupid illustrated videos on youtube that attempt to summarize the book. This book is a workbook, not a quick and forgettable read.