Are you nice?

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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.