| Here, "hope" is defined as a guy's emotional hope that somewhere out there, some female will become bonded with him on a level higher than that of mere friendship. Be it a quest for love, or a relationship, or a soul-mate, or simply someone to be more than "just friends," this hope represents the belief and desire for some woman to become a cohort on a scale transcending that mere friendship.
The Hope Constant theory dictates that the cumulative amount of hope sowed in all of a guy's female acquaintances will be more or less equal. The distribution of this hope may change on a day-to-day basis, as may the individuals in whom this hope is invested, but the net amount of hope invested remains the same. Like energy in the physical world, emotional hope can be neither created nor destroyed, but merely transported and transformed.
Intense sadness arises when the amount of hope one cumulatively exudes at any one moment is less than the amount one is accustomed to having; when the amount of hope invested dips below this constant, depression ensues. Say that some guy has serious interests in one Miss RandomGirl, to the point where he has a decent amount of his hope placed in her. In the event that Miss RandomGirl breaks his heart and shoots him down, then goes out with OtherGuy, sadness of some sort will come about until this hope is reapportioned. Sometimes, this depression is a long-term thing, as is the case when one still has feelings for someone out of their reach; other times, the hurt goes away quickly, as when one expresses "sour grapes" at "not really wanting them anyway" and immediately transferring hope and emotional energy elsewhere. This holds true in low-level cases, too: when a mildly good but not especially close friend announces that she is now hooked up with someone, the small amount of hope placed in her must either be focused on someone else or left unrequited in the form of slight emotional emptiness.
What goes oft-unrealized is the difference between the average guy's redistribution efforts and the Nice Guy's redistribution efforts; whereas standard males' flirtation-based, hormone-oriented hope can be effortlessly transmitted from girl to girl, the Nice Guy's more emotional nature and inability to fully let go ends up hurting him greatly. |
