Are you nice?

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.