It is easy only to talk in abstract terms. Don't be a dick -- what does it mean? Nobody knows, unless they do. Some well intended people ended up in very bad sitatuations while always thinking they were not dicks.
Most people familiar with the phrase “good Samaritan” or “going the extra mile” won’t demonstrate such behaviour.
Instead, although “nice” almost certainly has some culturally specific Shibboleths, I would say the basic test is where someone is on the selfish-empathetic scale, and further to empathic is a good thing in a partner.
> Treat them with respect, eye contact, don't make about sex and generally don't be a dick. Usually works in all social circumstances.
This is generally a great way to make friends. This is not how you court a partner. People will tell you about exceptional circumstances but they're just that - exceptional circumstances.
> This is generally a great way to make friends. This is not how you court a partner.
Evidence? Many friendships have a way of turning into relationships, because it's so easy to show off things to your friend that make you attractive and desirable as a partner. It even happens without people intending it!
All of the people I know were never friends before they got together. Friendship marriages and relationships exist but they’re exceptionally uncommon. Thus why I said they’re exceptional.
The stats back this up. You might be living in a world of survivorship/confirmation bias. You’re only acknowledging the ones that worked and not all the ones where the guy/gal never had any advances accepted. I know many women in my own personal life who seem to think no one was attracted to them until I ask them, “how many men asked you out?” They then realized there were plenty of men who were attracted to them - just none that they wanted…
> All of the people I know were never friends before they got together.
So they all got together/started to date as complete strangers? Even if they were loose acquaintances for some time, that's plenty enough for the whole "get to know each other" dynamic to get going. 'Dating culture' is an anomaly, people were never intended to court each other like that.
> So they all got together/started to date as complete strangers?
Yes or as loose acquaintances (they would never call each other friends or anything of the sort - just that they knew of their partner but that's about it). Not everyone was like random bumping into people off the street but almost all of them were not that far off from that.
I know dozens and dozens of relationships and none of them were friends before they got together. After all - they all needed to find each other physically attractive. If they didn't - it was never going to work. That is one thing that is remarkably common among all of them too - they all distinctly find their partner when they met them and now as physically attractive. There is no bridging that gap and no amount of "power of friendship" will fill that hole.
There's plenty of ways in a real-world context. No, friendship alone will not do it of course, but having the right attitude will. She really needs to find you intuitively compelling in a general sense, and this will be practically interchangeable with physical attractiveness in her mind. One reason I know this is that it works just fine the other way around. Many guys have experienced finding a woman very 'plain' and uninteresting, but then radically changing their mind about her after she got the chance. That woman has just become "attractive" to them in a very real sense, even though nothing physical about her has changed.