The Trouble With a Man Who Gives You Nothing to Worry About

Sometimes you meet a man who likes you, calls when he says he will and seems genuinely pleased to see you again. The dates are lovely, the conversation is easy, and nothing in his behavior sends you home wondering what on earth just happened.

One would think this would be rather soothing.

Instead, somewhere between one pleasant evening and the next, Madam may begin to feel a faint little concern. Sir has not disappeared, cooled off or handed you a single puzzling sentence to examine from three different angles. In fact, there is nothing obviously wrong with him at all.

And goodness, that can feel strangely unfamiliar.

Chances are, you have known the other kind of man—the one who could turn a perfectly pleasant romance into three unanswered texts, a mysterious disappearance and an evening with your girlfriends asking, “But what does that mean?” Those relationships had heat. They had sparks. Occasionally they produced enough smoke to evacuate the building.

Then Nice Sir comes along and behaves beautifully.

No smoke.

No flames.

Not even a funny smell from the kitchen.

And somewhere around the third lovely date, you begin wondering whether perhaps you have no chemistry.

Madam Is Waiting for the Alarm

And Sir, rather inconveniently, continues to behave beautifully, texting after the date simply because he enjoyed himself.

You stare at the message.

That was quick.

Then he asks when he can see you again and, even more unsettlingly, makes an actual plan. No wondering whether “sometime” means tomorrow, next month or shortly before retirement. Sir names a place and a time.

How peculiar.

You like him, of course. He is funny, he listens, and you do not leave dates with him needing to assemble six women and several screenshots.

Still, the whole thing feels strangely quiet, and after a while you begin waiting for the little turn—the moment Sir becomes just confusing enough to make everything feel properly romantic.

But nothing happens. He simply keeps liking you.

And this is where you may begin doing something wonderfully unfair: wondering whether the absence of trouble might also mean the absence of attraction.

After all, where is the intrigue? Where is the tiny ache in your stomach? Where is the need to reread a perfectly ordinary sentence until you convince yourself it means something else?

Sir has given you nothing to decode.

At this point, you are starting to think the man is practically ruining romance. What else are you supposed to think?

Perhaps Madam Misses the Smoke

Romantic chaos does have one little advantage - it keeps a woman terribly occupied.

When a man is inconsistent, you think about him. When he disappears, you think about him even more. Then he returns with one warm message after several days of silence and, goodness, suddenly everything feels much more exciting.

Your heart gives a little jump, your girlfriends get the update, and just like that, the building is smoking again.

Nice Sir, on the other hand, gives you very little to work with. He calls, he shows up, he likes you, and somehow nothing ever becomes difficult enough to keep you properly occupied. Which is rather inconvenient, considering how long you may have been saying you wanted a man who was clear.

Well, here he is.

Honestly, Madam did not expect clarity to be quite this quiet. You asked for peace, and now you have it. Naturally, you would simply like to know why it is not making more noise.

Somewhere along the way, the little rush of uncertainty may have begun passing itself off as romance. A man keeps you guessing, your pulse quickens and suddenly everybody is calling it chemistry.

You called it butterflies.

As it turns out, some of those butterflies may have been nothing but smoke alarms.

Sir Still Has Not Set Anything on Fire

By now, Madam may begin looking around for hidden trouble.

Perhaps he is too nice. Perhaps he likes you too easily. Perhaps a man should leave you wondering a little.

You almost want Sir to misbehave just enough to reassure you that something exciting is happening.  Instead, he remembers something you told him and asks how it turned out.

How is a woman supposed to work with this?

Then, after enough peaceful evenings, something rather lovely begins to dawn on you: you are not bored at all. You are simply relaxed.

Your phone can stay on the other side of the room without becoming the most fascinating object in the house. A delayed reply does not require an emergency meeting of the girlfriends. You can actually enjoy liking a man instead of spending half the romance wondering whether he likes you back.

Goodness.

So this is what all that peace was doing. The room was never empty at all; it simply wasn’t on fire.

And perhaps that is where Nice Sir has been misunderstood all along. He does not finish last because he failed to create enough sparks, confusion or small emotional emergencies. Sometimes he simply meets a woman who has grown so used to romance sounding like an alarm that kindness seems almost too quiet at first.

Sir is not boring.

Madam may simply have forgotten how lovely an evening can be when nobody has to evacuate.