Over on my friend Annie’s blog Smart at Love, she is discussing the behaviour of acting nicer than we feel in relationships. This notion that many people hold that being super nice is something that we have to be in order to nab and keep a partner is actually detrimental to you personally and to any relationship that you’re in. If being super nice is what you genuinely are, then knock yourself out, but if you’re feeling uncomfortable, resentful and unrewarded for your actions then there is very clearly something wrong and you aren’t being yourself.
As I pointed out in Annie’s original post ‘The curse of being too nice’, it’s about being yourself naturally. There are a lot of mixed messages out there about what it takes to be in a relationship and people seem to be obsessed with ‘niceness’. I’m not saying get medieval on your partners arse and become nasty, but real people get pissed off and don’t always like things and sometimes aren’t that nice. If you hear yourself saying how nice you are and how you don’t get x,y, and z back, I call it Those Who Doth Protest Too Much syndrome – you are as Annie says, acting nicer than you feel and when you genuinely are nice and it’s the real you, you don’t go on about it.
Being nice is something that you just ‘do’. The moment that you start to feel negative emotions as a result of all your niceties, you’ve pushed the boat out too much. Any person worth their salt who actually wants to be with YOU, should be prepared to like you when you’re feeling on top of the world and when you feel like sh*t. It’s about being real and nobody can keep up the facade forever without giving themselves an ulcer, a headache and a big well of resentment.
As Annie wisely points out, being real “…means each woman being that REAL blend of the good, the bad, and the ugly that is uniquely her. Unfortunately, if you’re accustomed to using niceness as your ‘honey’ in dating and relationships, and you start letting some of the not-as-nice parts hang out, it can be scary at first.”
As someone who has felt this frustration of this behaviour in the past, I have learnt my lesson. Now I’m me and if they don’t like it, they can take a run and jump. Now go and be bitches! Joking! 😉
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I’ve been there too N!
As a matter of fact just got back. And this was definitely a lesson well learned. It hurt for a few days but, you know what? I’m good. There were a lot of things I didn’t like about him anyway and I felt obligated to be with him only because he was nice to me. I want a nice guy, nothing wrong with that, right. I’ll just have to ask God to send the right nice guy for me. Until then….
I like that part about ‘It’s about being real’. If you act nice when that isn’t how you feel, you are deceiving yourself about what is important — what you reacted to (or should have reacted to), and you are lying to your date/partner/mate. Your niceness says ‘I approve/enjoy what you are doing (did).’ Now you are focused on ‘Am I hiding my real feelings well enough that he/she cannot tell?’ and she/he has no idea they found something that darkens your day. Continue this deceit for long, and you change yourself into something fake.
Thanks for a great post!
I’m with you on this one. If you wear the Nice Mask all the time, you aren’t really being yourself. Who really wants to be in a relationship with a fraud anyway? And then—when the mask comes off, it’s this big can of worms that should have never started. Great post!
yea man well said, equally applies to women too yes??