The Alpha-Beta male

I’ll admit I am the type of gal who leans more toward guys who sport calluses on their hands than those who slather lotion on them. And I cringe at the image of my guy sitting next to me at the salon, both of us with relaxer in our hair and avocado mask on our faces.

But somewhere between the foppish “metrosexual” and the disheveled brooder is today’s invisible man -- the nice guy.

Consider this: Most of my married girlfriends have hubbies who are right in there with the girl talk, know the best detergent for whiter whites, and actually clean the pots and pans before serving the meal. I think they’d breast feed if they could.

You know those guys. With the same relish as their wives or girlfriends, they tell the story that makes the girls in the room go “Awwwwww”:

...And as we stood gazing at the sunset, I fell to one knee, and with a tear in my eye, gently took her hand in mine and asked her to spend the rest of her life with me.

What’s wrong with men expressing their softer side? Absolutely nothing.

Let’s face it. To a large degree, many of us women are playing the role of the man in our own lives. These days, women can flex their muscles everywhere from the weight room to the boardroom. Shouldn’t we, then, adjust what it is we seek in a mate?

Along those lines, I often think, as Judy Syfers wrote in the ‘70s, that what I’m really looking for in a man is a wife. A multi-tasking, tender-when-you-need-it, decision-making, cries-with-you, strong-amid-adversity, anniversary-remembering mate.

While that might not make for a smoldering romance that burns out as quickly as it was sparked, it could be the basis of something a tad more meaningful -- a relationship.

Case in point: Viv and Brendan. When I met Viv, she was juggling two guys. Brendan was a New England schoolboy. Now, Sean wasn’t exactly an alpha male. But let’s just say the Long Islander played darts, was ultra-competitive about fishing and had his deer kills stuffed. The schoolboy made the grade; the hunter became romantic road kill.

After they married, Brendan put his career on hold and followed as Viv’s took off. Nice guy, 1; brute, 0.

I think my longtime friend Phil has the right idea. He calls himself the alpha-beta male -- a non-offensively assertive guy who doesn’t mind going to chick flicks and doing the shopping. And he’s not threatened by strong, independent women.

“Let me put it this way,” he said over his cell phone, as he paced the aisle separating jockey shorts and bras at Wal-Mart. “People think they need to be one way or another. I don’t think they can be.” Both gender streams course through each of us, he said. Those who don’t develop the opposite stream are “never going to understand the other side.”

However, crossing the streams can get ugly. You might find your boyfriend is a disturbing, funhouse-mirror reflection of yourself.

Take Michael, a post-grad-school dalliance of mine. His dedication to twisting his dreadlocks the same number of times nightly was more terrifying than impressive. It reminded me too much of my mother setting her hair in rollers.

And when I had to break a date because of work, he told me off in three e-mails after hanging up on me when I called to apologize. The whole exchange was oddly familiar. The more like Martha Stewart he became, the more like Al Bundy I felt.

The dreadful dread excluded, “nice” can actually be, well, nice. When the distant man becomes remote, dragging his bulging arms away, who remains to wipe the tears and empathize?

So, it’s not always that nice guys finish last. Sometimes, nice guys simply last.

Michelle Maltais can be reached at michelle.maltais@latimes.com.