The point is, I know where nice guys are coming from. I've cringed while watching them unknowingly sabotage their relationships. I've winced through stories from my female friends of how nice guys became creepy. I've watched good guys like you chase away nice girls who really did once want to give them a chance. So if you don't understand how your sweetness and good intentions could possibly scare anyone away, buckle up, because I'm about to give you some inside info on where you're going wrong.

I used to be a "Nice Girl" -- a walking Taylor Swift song in geeky glasses who'd stare longingly through your bedroom window while singing about how terrible your girlfriend is. I used to make homemade fudge for all the cute boys in the hope that they'd notice me. Now I write romance novels . And when I published a book about ghosts and serial killers, the creepy stalker guy was the one who attracted weirdly devoted fangirls.

5 The Big, Sickly Sweet Romantic Gesture

Here's a fun game. Sit down with a bunch of girls and ask them to make a list of the sweetest, most romantic things a guy they like has ever done for them. Then ask them to make a list of the creepiest, scariest, most WTF things a guy they didn't like had ever done to try to get their attention. Then count how many of the exact same things are on both lists.

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Sappy poetry, sketches, drawings, acoustic ballads, mix tapes -- sweet, personalized, homemade gestures are the unstable land mines of romantic weapons. Get it right and you'll demolish the competition, shake the ground, and blow away ... um ... whatever gets exploded when two people suddenly decide they really like each other. Get it wrong and you've just shot Cupid's dick clean off.

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"I made a sand castle based on floor plans from your childhood home."

Hey, this former fudge-making girl gets the appeal of sweet sappy gestures. I've written poetry for guys I liked. I've made mix tapes and playlists. Hell, I've even sewn things for guys. And I've included all kinds of grand romantic gestures in books I've written. The entertainment industry has been living on the sweet romantic gesture long before love-struck '90s kids held boomboxes over their heads. When it comes to love, we're trained to think that bigger is better.

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In movies, it doesn't even matter how jerky your gesture is. In the grand cheerleading epic Bring It On, the cute guy who recently did an NCIS cameo (Jesse Bradford) shows up at head cheerleader Kirsten Dunst's house with a cassette tape of a song he wrote for her. The song starts off with him insulting the most important thing in her life, before telling her he wants to feed her chocolates and screw her in a barn. Because it's a movie, she starts dancing on her bed in her pajamas and spanking herself with her pompoms.