Real Talk: Why is Everybody Hating on the Nice Guy Trope?

Abi Wurdeman
September 22, 2023

They’re attentive, generous, and sensitive. They love deeply, dream whole-heartedly, and orchestrate huge romantic gestures. Most essentially, they’re not like other guys. 

They’re Nice Guys.

And in recent years, their reputation has taken quite a hit in both pop culture and the real world. The Nice Guy trope used to be the go-to standard for writing a romantic hero who “deserves” the girl, but now it’s synonymous with manipulative behavior and a sense of entitlement.

So what’s going on here? Why are we suddenly giving side-eye to the leading lads of some of our most beloved stories? Is it officially a bad thing to use the Nice Guy trope in your story?

The answers to those questions are complicated, but if you take the time to understand what’s behind our culture’s Nice Guy aversion, you’ll be in a better position to write a real nice guy—a complex, deep-souled human being who takes responsibility for their own internal battles.

To help you get there, I’ll explain:

  • What the Nice Guy trope is and how it came into existence
  • Classic media portrayals of Nice Guy characters
  • How this trope has impacted culture
  • The societal expectations that this storytelling device contributes to
  • How to help the good guy in your story avoid Nice Guy syndrome

First step: let’s clarify how something supposedly so nice could turn out to be so bad.

Origins of the Nice Guy Trope

A teenaged Nice Guy sits under a tree beside a girl, offering her a daisy.

Many sources will trace the Nice Guy trope back to the 1930s films The Gay Divorcée and Top Hat. I’d argue that the trope is much older than that. Cyrano de Bergerac is a Nice Guy. So is Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing.

This trope is so deeply entwined with long-standing gender roles and relationship expectations that its frequent use in pop culture was inevitable. 

For this reason, this article will focus almost exclusively on the representation of heterosexual relationships in pop culture. Female, nonbinary, and queer characters can also be “Nice Guys,” but these approaches often subvert the trope. And in order to clarify how this trope came to be, we need to zero in on the heteronormative expectations that created it.

First, a definition.

What is the Nice Guy Trope?

The Nice Guy is a character (traditionally male) who’s either known by others as a good and selfless person or thinks of himself that way. You sometimes see this trope in a supporting character, but he’s more likely to be a protagonist.

Most stories frame the Nice Guy character as being very different from “typical” men or boys. He’s more emotionally available, not particularly macho, and is probably a hopeless romantic.

Often, this character’s so-called niceness seems to be his greatest obstacle. If his goal is related to career success, we watch him doggedly commit to his morals while those around him take a sleezier path.

Most of the time, however, the Nice Guy’s objective is a relationship with this love interest. Hopeless romantic that he is, he considers his crush (usually a woman) his one true soulmate and would do anything for her. This is where it gets messy.

This character believes in love so fiercely he sees his own feelings as the ultimate truth. Even if he doesn’t actively pursue his love interest, he believes the power of his affection proves they belong together. If she doesn’t reciprocate, it’s just because she hasn’t seen the light yet.

Some Nice Guys pursue their crushes with excessive grand gestures that would be considered stalking in the real world. Others handle their feelings by brooding and growing resentful as they watch their crush cozy up to a Bad Boy.

In most examples of the Nice Guy trope, it’s assumed that the audience will cheer for the Nice Guy. After all, he’s the one who really listens. He’s the underdog who might not be the cool jock or high-earning lawyer, but his heart is good, and that’s why he deserves love.

Now, is that logic really so bad?

Well, here’s the issue:

The Gender Roles Behind the Trope

Woman and man stick figures against a pink and blue background.

You can’t cash in all your goodness coins to earn a person. While integrity and kindness matter in romantic connection, there’s a lot more to it than that.

Nevertheless, most societies have long embraced the idea that heterosexual romance is essentially an exchange of the following gender roles:

We expect men to be pursuers.

In the human mating dance, they’re expected to really bring it. It’s on them to initiate conversations, dates, milestones, and marriage. They have to be funny, kind, masculine, dress well but not too well, be chivalrous but not patronizing, and drop their credit card without complaint.

Meanwhile…

We expect women to be desired, not have desires.

In most cultures, the idealized woman is passive. She’s beautiful, resourceful, self-sacrificing, and kind. She might be smart and funny, too, if that’s your thing. But one thing she is not: a person who wants something.

We’ve gotten into our heads that desire looks desperate on a woman—that the perfect woman only needs to wait until a worthy man comes along to win her. And that man will most definitely deserve her because he did all the things. 

We expect men to need nothing but the love of a good woman.

Life is hard on all of us. But gender roles dictate that while a woman needs intimate friendships, loving parents, therapy, and Brené Brown, a man needs only one thing: a good-hearted woman who sees through to his soul and loves him despite his demons.

We expect women to rescue men emotionally…

…especially when the man in question pulls out chairs and lets a lady cry about her childhood trauma. That’s a man who has supposedly earned his rescue. 

This is the exchange that the Nice Guy trope works from. A good woman isn’t supposed to want anything other than a good man. A good man isn’t supposed to need anything other than a good woman.

So if a Nice Guy spends all his niceness on a woman and she rejects him, she’s breaking the contract. She’s a fool for not wanting the Nice Guy (because all of a sudden there’s just one) and is selfish for denying emotional fulfillment to this deserving person who can’t get it anywhere else.

This brings us to the subject of Nice Guy syndrome.

Nice Guy Syndrome

Nice Guy syndrome is what happens when a person—real or fictional—manages to turn niceness into a toxic trait. People with Nice Guy syndrome tend to:

  • Have low self-worth and look to others to fulfill them
  • Be overly generous with the people they believe can fulfill them (typically a love interest)
  • Neglect their own needs in favor of serving someone else 
  • Ignore boundaries in the name of love and connection
  • Grow resentful, cruel, or even violent if the object of their interest doesn’t reward their generosity with the desired relationship

A lot of the Nice Guys we see in our storytelling are really fake nice guys. They might do considerate things, but who is all this kindness really for?

The irony is that countless writers have used the Nice Guy trope to challenge gender roles. This character often serves as a foil for the popular jock or an otherwise macho romantic rival. When we see the Nice Guy win, we’re supposed to see it as a victory over superficially masculine ideals.

But both rival and victor are working with a strong sense of entitlement, believing they’ve earned enough points to win the girl. 

Where You’ve Seen This Guy Before

A person in glasses sits on a couch holding a big bowl and staring intently at a television screen.

You might already be thinking of instances of the Nice Guy trope in pop culture. The Nice Guy has been a beloved character for a long time. 

But I will say that as far as tropes go, this one is fairly varied. Sometimes the Nice Guy gets the girl, sometimes he doesn’t. And even though you’re usually supposed to cheer for this character, there are times when writers turn the trope into a cautionary tale.

Here are some examples of the Nice Guy trope that you might recognize.

Examples of the Nice Guy

Laurie, Little Women In true Nice Guy fashion, Laurie spends his youth pining over Jo and bending over backwards to make her happy only to throw it all back in her face when he finally confesses his true feelings and she rejects him.

That said, Laurie’s a decent example of a Nice Guy who matures out of toxic niceness. With some distance from Jo, he comes to realize what fulfillment truly means to him. 

Sure, fulfillment comes in the form of a different March sister, but at least he enters that relationship with a clearer sense of what it takes to exist in a mutually satisfying partnership.  

Ross Geller, Friends The show implies that Ross deserves Rachel because… I don’t know, everybody wants to see the nerdy dude get the cheerleader? Probably also the thing where he’s her lobster, I guess.

But Ross is possessive, deeply insecure, and constantly belittling Rachel’s career. To soften these qualities, the show periodically reminds us he’s the geek of the group, as if being a social underdog means he’s automatically a good guy.

(For more on this phenomenon, this video on the “adorkable misogynist” rocks.)

Claudio, Much Ado About Nothing Claudio is a textbook hopeless romantic, falling in love with Hero instantly. He’s also a pretty rotten communicator. The minute he catches a rumor that Hero’s been unfaithful, he flies into a rage and publicly shames her on their would-be wedding day.

(Have I mentioned that one of the Nice Guy’s toxic traits is that he’d rather brood than ask a direct question?)

Duckie Dale, Pretty in Pink Like Laurie, Duckie is the best friend who loses his cool when his would-be love interest rejects him. He then phone-stalks her after the argument, leaving message after message when she clearly doesn't want to talk. 

The Nice Guy Renaissance

As the discussion surrounding the Nice Guy trope has gotten louder, we’ve seen more instances of Nice Guy characters who are genuinely kind. These fictional men are willing to take no for an answer. They don’t often feel threatened by their love interest’s career and friendships, and if they do, they deal with the inner demons that make them feel that way.

Ben Wyatt (Parks and Recreation) is a stellar example of the New Nice Guy. He’s an awkward, nerdy underdog, but instead of puffing himself up or putting others down, he’s honest about his insecurities.

While he loves Leslie and feels deeply fulfilled in their connection, he cares just as strongly about what she wants, knowing how their romance could hurt her career. He respects her boundaries and sets his own.

Ted Lasso (Ted Lasso) is another major player in the Nice Guy Renaissance. Ted is an almost over-the-top wholesome character, eagerly supporting and uplifting everyone around him, including the ex-wife he still loves.

What’s particularly remarkable about his extraordinary niceness is that he has to learn not to use it as a crutch. His character arc is all about recognizing and expressing his own needs instead of burying them. His journey becomes less about getting his wife back and more about finding peace within himself.

Impact of the Nice Guy Trope

A Nice Guy follows a woman down a city sidewalk.

So what exactly is the point of this conversation? Why should we care when and how the Nice Guy trope shows up? 

Simply put, it’s a trope that idealizes unhealthy relationships and self-regard. It perpetuates the ultra-restrictive gender roles we discussed above while normalizing destructive Nice Guy behavior.

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with writing a character who believes others owe it to him to boost his self-worth with their affection. I’m all for thoughtful, deliberate depictions of Nice Guy syndrome.

What’s important is that we’re aware of how our characters and their relationships shape the themes of our stories… and how those stories in turn shape the world we’re in.

Here are some not-so-great ways the prevalence of the Nice Guy trope has influenced the way we talk about dating, relationships, and connection.

The Concept of the Friendzone 

Appropriately enough, the term “friendzone” was popularized by Friends when Joey informed Ross that it was “never gonna happen” with Rachel. Why not? Because Ross was in the friendzone.

If you’re not familiar, the friendzone is the proverbial box where people (usually women) place individuals (usually men) they want to be friends with but don’t want to date. For Nice Guys, being friendzoned is a cruel punishment. It’s also proof that “nice guys finish last.”

Theories about how to avoid the friendzone abound. These theories usually center on the notion that a fellow shouldn’t offer too much care and concern for a woman. If a man allows space for her to express her feelings, celebrates her strengths, and respects her physical boundaries, he’s asking to get friendzoned, or so the story goes.

This leads to a tidal wave of resentment. He tried to be the good guy she said she wanted, but she still locked him in the friendship box. The conclusion: women don’t really want good men.

Most Nice Guy narratives follow this logic. We see the Nice Guy do everything “right,” but his crush still picks the other guy. The happy ending comes when the love interest realizes how blind she’s been or the Nice Guy helps her see that she really does deserve to be treated well even though her dad left or whatever. 

In the climactic scene, our hero breaks free of the friendzone. It’s a beautiful victory.

Back in the real world, however, both men and women suffer from the bizarre notions that women alone hold the key to men’s fulfillment, they’re cruel to withhold it, and the entire purpose of kindness is to earn a sexual relationship from it. 

Normalization of Stalking Behavior

One of the Nice Guy’s most defining traits is his undying belief that nothing matters more than love. For the brooding Nice Guy, that philosophy manifests as a lot of sulking. For the more active Nice Guy, it means stopping at nothing to win the woman he loves.

Here are just a handful of things Nice Guys in books and movies have done in their pursuit of their love interest:

  • Extensively research her to find out where she live, works, volunteers, and hangs out
  • Film or photograph her extensively without her knowledge
  • Send her gifts every day
  • Call every day even though she’s asked for space
  • Build connections with her inner circle in order to get close to her
  • Make an entire fake identity to lure her in
  • Lie in order to secure her admiration, pity, or trust
  • Threaten suicide or bodily injury if she doesn’t agree to a date

These are framed as grand romantic gestures that demonstrate how deeply a woman is loved. In real life, they’re manipulative at best, terrifying and dangerous at worst. 

In short, Nice Guy narratives send a confusing message that women prefer stalking and emotional manipulation over a direct conversation.

Downplaying Harassment and Assault

For centuries, the Nice Guys in our storytelling have been able to stalk, insult, and degrade women and still be celebrated as good dudes.

The Nice Guy narrative puts a lot of emphasize on:

  • The male character’s emotional depth
  • His relatable need for companionship
  • His desire to feel seen and valued
  • How nice this guy is to everyone
  • His strong sense of morality

As a result, men and women alike relate to his vulnerability and respect the fact that he’s trying to be a decent person in a messy world.

What gets significantly less attention is what it feels like when some dude punches a wall because you failed to love him. Or the panic that sets in when you, as a woman or someone on the receiving end of his “affection,” realize that a man is depending on your actions to affirm his worth.

Bottom line: we know a lot more about the vulnerability and good intentions behind a Nice Guy’s behavior. And as long as a man seems like an all-around nice guy, we’re inclined to dismiss his harassing behavior.

After all, he’s just trying to navigate the confusing waters of modern romance. He only wants to connect—to feel like he matters. And look at who he is! He’s the kind of guy who will give up his Saturday to help you move. He came to your mother’s funeral. 

The kind of guys who disrespect women are arrogant bros. This guy, though? He’s a Nice Guy.

I’m not saying characters like Duckie Dale are single-handedly responsible for the prevalence of ignored harassment and assault. What I am saying is that the Nice Guy trope is one of many contributing factors that have skewed the way we talk about these issues.

Societal Expectations and Double Standards

You’re getting the gist of it now. The Nice Guy trope perpetuates and exacerbates societal expectations that keep men and women caged in their respective boxes. 

These boxes ensure that none of us can ever be good enough or complete on our own. And in a cruel twist, these cultural limitations make it way harder to connect with each other and build fulfilling relationships. 

Let’s take a quick look at how this trope imposes unnecessary pressure on each gender.

The Pressures Men Face

A knight in shining armor.

It’s probably obvious to you that I have a lot of issues with the Nice Guy trope. Nevertheless, I never want to slam this trope too hard, because I think it can allow us to examine aspects of the heterosexual male experience that deserve our attention.

The fear of rejection. The struggle to connect. The intoxicating thrill of falling in love. Even the anger that emerges as the most comfortable way to process heartache. All of it deserves recognition in our stories.

The problem with the Nice Guy trope is that it glosses over unhealthy attempts at connection and justifies some of the worst Nice Guy behavior. It also reinforces ideas like this:

It’s up to men to make the relationship happen.

This goes back to the whole pursuer thing. Nice Guy narratives perpetuate the idea that the man is solely responsible for turning a friendship into a romance. Or, to put it in rougher terms, a man’s job is to turn that “no” into a “yes.”

For many women, being forced to reject a man several times awakens a sort of primal panic (I’ll explain why in a minute). It’s ultimately confusing for everyone. He’s been told persistence makes him admirable, and she feels her desires are being dismissed.

The man has to be the hero.

As you may remember, one big Nice Guy quality is the tendency to seek self-worth by being infinitely generous to their love interest. Simply put, Nice Guys twist themselves into pretzels trying to do all the things.

This protagonist wants to be the one who’s always there for his crush. He wants to be the one who truly sees her and helps her see herself. His goal is to solve every problem, fulfill every wish, and be the guy no one else has ever been for her.

Now, there’s some good stuff there. But all of it, all at once, piled on with unbridled passion is a lot. The love interest’s own inner compass and autonomy are bound to get lost under a heap of overenthusiastic heroism. 

More to the point, it reinforces the belief that a good guy knows how to be everything and fix everything. Kind of a high bar to clear.

A man needs a good woman and literally nothing else.

Welcome to my number one pet peeve when it comes to the Nice Guy trope. According to this narrative, there is only ever one cure for Broody McLovestruck’s trauma, and it’s the love of a good woman.

Doesn’t matter what he’s dealing with. Maybe he was abandoned by his mother in childhood. Maybe his brother died two months ago. Perhaps he’s clinically depressed. It doesn’t matter how complex the problem may be, the solution is always very simple for a Nice Guy. 

The solution is Girl. Girl can fix it.

Nice Guys don’t go to therapy. They don’t challenge their own toxic beliefs or meet their other guy friends at diners to talk through their feelings of unworthiness. 

A Nice Guy doesn’t need to do these things because he’s perfectly fine bearing his pain in dignified silence until a good woman comes along to lovingly strokes his hair in gentle understanding. That’s all it takes. Nothing can hurt him as long as he has love.

What an absolutely insane expectation we heap on the shoulders of men: take on the burden of romantic rejection, be a super impressive hero guy every day, and ignore all of your own mental and emotional needs. After all, the only way to really fix them is by getting someone else to give you their heart and soul. Easy peasy!

Now, I say all this recognizing that I’m not a man, which means I’m not qualified to make a statement about the degree to which these pressures suck. I’ve known men who embrace these expectations. I’ve also known men who resent them. I assume it’s a spectrum.

But I feel I can speak confidently on the ways in which those pressures collide with societal expectations of women.

Pressures Women Face

A princess lies on the ground, staring into the distance.

To put it in the simplest terms, the Nice Guy trope reinforces the expectation that women are morally obligated to fulfill a contract they never signed in the first place. Let’s take a closer look at how that expectation manifests in our society.

Women are responsible for affirming men’s worth.

To recap: 

The Nice Guy does every caring thing he can think of to earn a woman’s love. Not only does he want a relationship with her, he needs it, because it’s literally the only place he can go for fulfillment and affirmation.

Historically, readers and audience members have supported the idea that because he’s done so many nice things, he deserves her love. Or—to put it another way—she owes it to him.

Many women live with a regular, knee-jerk awareness of how their choices supposedly make men feel about themselves. That awareness shows up when interacting with colleagues, conversing with strangers in the grocery store line, and especially in romantic relationships.

The pressure to boost egos, soften negative feedback, and avoid outshining anybody is constant and real. 

A woman who rejects a Nice Guy doesn’t deserve to be treated well.

In Pretty in Pink, when Andie tells Duckie she’s going out with Blane, Duckie’s response is classic Nice Guy.

“You can’t do this and respect yourself… When you get your heart splattered all over Hell and you’re feeling really low and dirty, don’t look to me to help pump you back up, ‘cause maybe for the first time in your life, I won’t be there.”

Fake Nice Guys are prone to extreme black-and-white thinking. If they treat their love interest well and she turns them down, it must mean she doesn’t want to be treated well. She wants a bad boy instead. 

The Nice Guy’s next move might be to emotionally retaliate, like Duckie does… or like the Nice Guy who calls a strange woman an ungrateful cow when she fails to smile in response to his invasive compliment, which is a thing that happens here in reality.

We see the most extreme version of this in the incel subculture, in which violence towards women is often viewed as a justifiable reaction for “nice” men who’ve been denied sex and companionship.

Whatever form retaliation takes—violent, verbal, or otherwise—there’s an expectation that women must prove they’re worthy of kindness by responding to it the way men want them to.

Women are in charge of keeping themselves safe.

In the one-woman show, What the Constitution Means to Me, Heidi Schreck describes an experience with a man who she knew to be harmless, but whose interest in her still set off the “just stay alive” reflex in her mind. 

Might sound dramatic, but when I saw that part of her show, it was like I suddenly had words for something I’d been trying to explain my whole life. I think heterosexual men and women are both terrified of letting the other down, each for their own reasons. For women, it’s a matter of survival.

It’s not just that some men become violent with women who touch on their insecurities, though that is in the mix. It’s also that generations of women have passed down an instinct to anxiously cater to men’s happiness. 

For centuries, a woman needed to get on a man’s good side just to have a roof over her head and food on her plate. Likability was her currency. It wasn’t even until the 1970s that a woman could get a loan or credit card without a male cosigner.

Even now, men hold the power in most workplaces, governments, and religious institutions. Some of the fiercest feminists I know still admit that it’s uncomfortable to knowingly disappoint a man. It’s an action that goes against a primal instinct to side with power and safety.

It’s also why the Nice Guy’s romantic persistence isn’t that romantic in real life. Even if a woman doesn’t actually believe saying “no” will put her in danger, she may still feel an instinctive panic. The more times she has to say it to the same person, the less she feels like the word holds power coming from her.

Double Standards and the Matter of the Nice Girl

So what about the Nice Girl? We also see stories about female characters who aggressively pursue uninterested men. Isn’t that problematic?

That’s an excellent, tricky question. Yes, there are a few Nice Girl characters who genuinely fit the trope.

In The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Abby is a modern Cyrano who hides her identity behind her hot neighbor’s face, lies to her crush, and spends the movie brooding because she assumes he wouldn’t be interested in the real her because she’s… not attractive? Even though she’s played by Janine Garofalo? Whatever, this article isn’t an examination of beauty standards and we haven’t got the time. 

What’s far more common, however, is the Nice Girl whose pursuit is understood to be self-serving or a little unhinged. This character is rarely rewarded for her relentless and invasive pursuits. Rebecca Bunch from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend falls into this category. 

There are still some double standards at work when we see Nice Person characters. Nice Guys are often (but not always) forgiven for their stalker-y ways and are rewarded with a partner most would consider out of their league. 

Meanwhile, Nice Girls are written to make us feel uneasy, especially if the love interest they’re pursuing is out of their league.

But the trope is evolving more each day, and I’m all for it. Ultimately, the Nice Guy trope gives us an opportunity to ask important questions about what it means to love, connect, and feel whole. It’s all in the execution.

Helping Your Characters Overcome Nice Guy Syndrome

A stethoscope beside a laptop computer.

Conveniently enough, we’ve already written a guide to writing the Nice Guy. But as long as you’re here, we might as well look at some of the things you can do to make your Nice Guy characters a little more Ben Wyatt and a little less Ross Geller.

Setting Boundaries

Many of our stories suggest that boundaries are a Bad Boy thing. These guys keep women at arms length, and this distance is supposedly what drives women wild. Meanwhile, Nice Guys want connection, so they knock down their walls, and that’s what lands them in the friendzone.

The real issue is that the Nice Guy’s boundaryless existence forces intimacy. It also makes it impossible for him to take care of his own emotional needs because he’s so focused on fulfilling someone else’s.

Here’s the thing about the friendzone: it’s totally fine for a Nice Guy to say, “I’m in love with this person and I can’t handle listening to her cry over some other dude so I’m not going to do it anymore.” 

What’s not fine is continuing to wipe away her tears while resentment builds over the fact that he’s putting in all this time and not getting the reward he wants.

So consider if there’s ever a moment when your Nice Guy realizes he needs to set boundaries or prioritize himself. What would that look like? What are the consequences if he doesn’t do it? And how does it affect the love interest if she’s left to be her own hero?

Exercising True Generosity

Now that your Nice Guy has set some boundaries, his generous acts actually mean something. He’s not desperately doling out kindness in the hopes that his crush will repay him by fulfilling all the needs he’s been unwilling to fulfill for himself. He’s being kind because he cares about her.

And what would he do if his generous deeds truly were about her needs—if they weren’t romantic gestures but true acts of love?

Caring About Consent

If your Nice Guy has an unrequited crush, what would it look like for him to honor her disinterest?

It might not feel like an interesting character response at first. After all, we’re used to the pursuit being the story. But give yourself time to entertain the question and see what comes up.

Could he move on and meet someone else? Might that new relationship create some interesting conflict later on in the story? Or what if he goes on a trip to distract himself and discovers a new purpose that sets him on an entirely different track?

What if his personal journey prepared him to have a better relationship with his crush than would have been possible at the beginning of the story? What if by respecting her wishes, he unknowingly leaves the door open for her to make the grand gesture when the time comes?

Cultivating a Sense of Self-Worth

Figure out what’s missing in your Nice Guy’s life other than love.

What painful event in his backstory continues to haunt him? What fears or flawed philosophies is he still hanging on to? How can his personal journey challenge him to grow and lead him to feel content with himself as he is, partner or no partner?

These questions are essential for crafting complex characters, anyway. In fact, we have character development worksheets and a character arc template that can help you find more depth in your Nice Guy hero.

Don’t Resist the Flaws

Finally, I want to be clear that I’m not recommending you craft your Nice Guy as an all-around ideal human being. Every character needs flaws. It’s even okay if your protagonist is working through a little Nice Guy syndrome. 

The point of this article is not to say that this classic trope is bad because the character is imperfect. The problem with the Nice Guy trope is that this character’s flaws have been glossed over or dismissed for centuries.

You can totally write a guy who deals in false kindness, resentment, and entitlement. 

Just know that he’s not your hero. 

Analyze the Crap Out of Your Characters With Dabble

I’m so thrilled you’re still with me after this in-depth analysis of a single trope!

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Abi Wurdeman

Abi Wurdeman is the author of Cross-Section of a Human Heart: A Memoir of Early Adulthood, as well as the novella, Holiday Gifts for Insufferable People. She also writes for film and television with her brother and writing partner, Phil Wurdeman. On occasion, Abi pretends to be a poet. One of her poems is (legally) stamped into a sidewalk in Santa Clarita, California. When she’s not writing, Abi is most likely hiking, reading, or texting her mother pictures of her houseplants to ask why they look like that.