Are you nice?

It's better than being an unpleasant cunt. And when I do need to be an unpleasant cunt, I have the element of surprise on my side.

Hey you stole my answer.

It's my answer until I say you can have it, junior.

I am unfailingly polite to the servants.

Unless they fail in any way.

I think I'm generally nice with patches of cuntiness.

I dislike the word "nice." It's the kind of generally positive thing that people say about someone when they can't think of any specific qualities to praise.

Brent, I like your reply. It was nice.

OMG CAN YOU PLEASE STOP STARTING THREADS?!?

^^^ apparently not.

But that wasn't nice.

don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, i like him just fine

but he's a surmounter

dude don't fucking apologize. if you don't like someone you don't like someone. i don't like surmounter. he makes me feel icky. the end. no apologies.

who's apologizing? i was making jesus lizard-y joeks

i'm nice!

i've received comments on my niceness in the past. it's vaguely emasculating!

hahaha

sorry even though i know i should listen to them i am not hueg jesus lizard fan bc i am not old.

Tehresa - please see thread title two rows down.

well you saw a pretty good imitation of them last night so maybe check them out.

ja i was talking about that w/ peeps at show but whatevs.

At one time, I stopped posting on ILX because I realized that I was not being very nice in most of my responses.

I'm back, but now I don't post as much any more.

I am an assmunch to most people, but that is because most people are STUPID. It's upsetting that my tolerance for people is so low. I wish I could be nice, but it's too hard.

I'm nice

I dislike the word "nice." It's the kind of generally positive thing that people say about someone when they can't think of any specific qualities to praise.

It also makes you seem a bit like a pushover, y'know. Nice is so... a little bland, a little unremarkable. So would I say I was a nice person? Not consistently so, no, but overall I think I do give that impression. :-)

Hahaah you ARE a nice guy Haitch! Is that bad of me to say so? Its not emasculating! You're just a cool dude!

It's not for me to say. I hope so. I'd rather be thought of as nice than not.

i am nice, until i have to deal with stupid or pointless people.

Lately not so sure.

while concurring that "nice" often goes hand in hand with "bland" (cf Kim Clijsters), and while admitting that I am not often that nice...people who talk constantly about how unpleasant they can be are like the evil twins of people who go on about how shy and sensitive they are, ie they're both basically socially retarded, and it's not really anything to be proud of

I am basically nice, unless I am being drunk and obnoxious.

;ex otm - there seems to be a minority of people who would rather they leave an impression even if it's a horrible one. I don't get it. Do they just need a hug?

No, I don't think I'm very nice at all.

I don't think it's anything to be proud of or boast about, it's merely an unfortunately statement of fact. :-(

Lex so otm re Clijsters.

i am socially retarded.

I have spent my whole life in ruins because of people who were 'nice'

OTM!

Who the fuck's asking?

I have spent my whole life in ruins because I am too nice :(

^^^^ Exactly that.

tripled. I'm often nice to a fault.

I used to be nice but it made people take advantage of me so I had to stop.

I want people to like me in situations in which their opinion is likely to be of absolutely no consequence whatsoever, and am mortified whenever I feel I may have offended a complete and utter stranger, but I can be a real dick to my friends and family without even thinking about it and then have to have it explained to me why such-and-such is a dick move on my part. I'm not nice in any of the ways that actually count. Only child. Parents did it to me.

haha tombot otm

also nice is great until you need to get w/ chicks and then all of a sudden it just doesnt cut it

but I can be a real dick to my friends and family without even thinking about it and then have to have it explained to me why such-and-such is a dick move on my part

This is probably because at some level you know they will forgive you.

Poeple tend to think I'm nice. And I probably am. I tend to avoid confrontation and will generally try to not speak to someone rather than find myself in a position where I'm going to want to be unpleasant to them. Although I'm actually rarely polite to the people I like and terribly polite to the people I dislike (but I suspect that's just because I'm English - I'd hazard a guess that this might be a national trait)

That said, I'm quite gleefully nasty to people when I feel they've not got the hint. Which is probably why one of my co-workers labours under the impression that I like him - whereas all my other co-workers are well aware that I can't stand him and find this terribly amusing.

I salute your patience!

also nice is great until you need to get w/ chicks and then all of a sudden it just doesnt cut it

I don't really think of niceness as being indicative of weakness or blandness or whatever. I more just think of it as the bare minimum one has to do/be in order to be an acceptable human being. I mean, those people who can't be nice most of the time, I think they really need to be put down like rabid dogs. Or at least euthanized so they don't spread their foul, foul genes.

test

"Oh I'm too nice." "People take advantage because I'm so nice." = Passive aggressive BS! Also using people who claim to be 'nice' tend to be closet arseholes who believe their own BS!

I might not really like 'nice'.

Wow, there are so many different definitions of and connotations of the word "nice" floating around this thread that I don't really know what it means any more.

Yeah, forget that shit. Does "nice" get things done? I think there are better words for every positive quality, ie "polite", "gracious", "friendly", etc etc ad nauseum. "Nice" does not satisfactorily sum them up, rather it glosses over all of them and implies some minimum standard of tolerability.

positive self-opinion: only closet arseholes have it

xxpost

i'm all nice on ice alright

I suppose we have Mr. Rogers to blame

Not my point Curt1s. This is about 'nice', I've plenty of time for positive self opinion. (xxpost)

Ban Surmounter for bringing up all this toxic shit. I mean really, "are you nice," I mean JESUS CHRIST!!!

Ban Rock Hardy for not being nice!

Does "nice" get things done?

Sometimes yes. If you need someone to do something for you being nice to them is much more likely to make it happen.

When I think of "nice" (as a negative thing) applied to my behavior I think of it as a tendency to always give people the benefit of the doubt. I assume other people have good intentions and have been burned when this is not the case. I'm also very polite and tend to suppress my anger and hatred of someone when in direct confrontation.

This wasn't always the case. When my mental illness was untreated I was very aggressive, rude, and sometimes violent. Not good. I could probably stand to be more self-assertive but for the time being I'll accept my "niceness" as part of my overall health.

Ban kev_lol for...just because!

yeah

This is cos I was brave enough to take on the 'nice' mafia? The hell with you and your 'nice'!

go fuck yourselves

I am a bitter angry manipulative jerk and take it out on anyone who tries to get close to me, but with people I don't know well I'm too nervous to say anything controversial interesting, so maybe people sometimes mistake that veneer of boring fencesitting stammerer for niceness. Or, put it another way, Tombot OTM.

http://m1.freeshare.us/161fs288037.jpg

In social settings I have regressed back my adolescent aloofness after a 10 year failed experiment in trying to be "nice," or affable, or gregarious.

Yeah, what tombot says goes for me too. I tend to be really deferential and pseudo-kind to strangers and yet I just made my dad feel like crap for no reason and didn't really feel that bad about it.

I'm told that I'm nice. I suppose I am.

What I've needed to learn, however, is how to be a reasonable, pleasant peason without being a doormat. That was my big problem in the past, and in some ways it still is. My outward pleasantries have all too often been a coping mechanism for a nonconfrontational, appeasing personality. I would try so hard not to get anyone "mad" at me that, ironically, they would get mad at me anyway for seeming evasive and passive-aggressive.

Sometimes I envy assholes. Overall, though, I am proud of being nice.

Dudes, I would much rather be a little bit of an asshole to everyone and have that be known and accounted for as a facet of my personality, than be a selfish jerk to people I love and salve my conscience by trying to be "nice" more in a general, unfocused way. Apply the fix where it is needed, not where it is convenient.

I am one of those people who actually tries to be a cynical rude arsehole but this is kind of scuppered by a surfeit of residual niceness and enthusiasm so I can't really pull it off. Give it a bit of time though.

There is definitely a weird dynamic involved. While I think that it's very beneficial overall to follow "do unto others" sorts of guidelines when it comes to interacting with people, at the same time, making a constant effort towards being "nice" can easily veer off into habitual people-pleasing, which invariably occurs at the expense of expressing important elements of one's self, thus distorting one's personality, and ending up causing trouble for all concerned in the long run.

I think this may explain the blandness or flatness that some people complain about in people they regard as being overly "nice"-- too much of the vitality of the person has been dampened and constricted through attempting to live up to an idealized self-image of being a "good" person, or as the result of an overvigilance in censoring one's self for fear of upsetting others.

I'm also of the opinion that there is a cultural double-bind of sorts that is at work here; that is, on the one hand we (and esp. the women among us) receive the message that we should be "nice" to others, while at the same time, we are told to be assertive, stand up for ourselves, not be milquetoast, etc.-- all of which may involve forsaking being "nice". Not to mention that we may look around and see people behaving like total assholes and subsequently being rewarded with positions of power, wealth, privilege and so forth...

If I hear the label "passive aggressive" one more time, I'm gonna sit back, quietly gnash my teeth with a half-grin.

Yeah, I guess it's your right to respond to it in that way.

I should clarify that my usage of "nice" was "I am a doormat and will defer to other peoples wishes as graciously as possible and look out for my friends and not kick up a fuss... and then go home and crack into pieces and seethe with internal anger I take out on myself by drinking etc"

Uh... maybe that wasn't the idea here. And anyway, I sure can be a cranky little bitch when I don't check myself, so eh.