No More Mr. Nice Guy and self improvement

[seele]

Thanks a lot for your replies.

I love working out the gym. And I do love how I look in a well fitting blazer. But I am afraid that this is something that starts to define me. It doesn't really improve my character, it hasn't improved last half a year. I am the same guy that I was before, I just changed my priorities. I am getting afraid, that without all those (in my opinion superficial) aspects, there is little left. I don't read as much as I did, I don't work on personal projects. Instead I focused my life on becoming better in ways, that are supposed to get me laid.

I am looking at my past and I see, I was actually happier living in my home country, earning much less (it was eastern Europe, wages are much smaller there) and doing more of stuff, that I liked. I focused my life on improving it towards getting laid and it seems false.

I talked recently with a close friend of mine, with whom I was in a relationship. She was very impressed, by how I look now, but she also said, that I changed a lot and not all is good and I am pretending in some ways. She liked me more, when I was geeky guys, who had real passions, that could be in no way considered sexy. Well, to be honest role playing games, open source software or reading seems like hardly stuff that I could impress women with, unless she is into nerds.

It's not that I don't like the gym or being more fashionable. But I won't be able to talk with friends about dead lift and new shirt for the whole night. And I am perfectly aware, that it might be hard to pick up a girl on being 17th level paladin and killing dragons (this is a joke, I never played D&D, been a paladin or killed a dragon ;-) ). Isn't it a part of being a nice guy? Believing I should be into sports or travel or dancing, rather than being creative and imaginative and being proud of it? Or spending evening solving some complex algorithmic problem or improving software, that people use all around the world, not even knowing that?


I have this feeling, that one needs to adjust to the world and its expectations. When I turned into this guy, that did some sports (earlier martial arts, now gym), partied a lot and wear slim fit shirts I started getting laid. But I don't think I changed a lot inside. Rather I presented some false persona (and actually started integrating with it) and used it to get laid. It seems like a negation of what I read about having integrity as a man.