Being “Nice”
"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."
-Elbert Hubbard
Look around and it is easy to notice that many people, when trying to win someone over, attempt to do so by being nice. It might be someone trying to attract a potential romantic partner, a salesperson trying to entice a potential buyer, an employee trying to court favor with a boss, or someone trying to be pleasant to avoid a stranger’s judgment – whatever the scenario, they think being nice is the answer. While this all sounds very logical in theory, it is generally the opposite of the truth.
In many cases, there is an even deeper motivation for being nice: we hope and believe that being nice can protect us. We convince ourselves that if we’re nice, no one can object to us, which means no one will want to physically or emotionally hurt, reject, or abandon us. This is “magical thinking.” It is comforting to think we can protect ourselves in such ways (whether that is by being nice or by being “tough”). The fact that our safety could be beyond our control is horrifying. This is especially true for children, whose physical and emotional safety is entirely dependent upon the actions of others. Lack of safety can equal death, which makes “magical thinking” not just appealing but necessary to survival.
As children, we convince ourselves we have magical powers that can prevent people from harming us. As adults, we continue to believe that if we’re nice to that guy or girl, we can get them to like us or at the very least not hurt us. If we’re nice to people we want to be friends with, they’ll want to keep us around, help us fill our social calendar, and maybe even be there for us when we need them – right? In reality, how nice or tough we are rarely protects us from any of our real fears- like abandonment, judgment, self-doubt, and the belief that we are unlovable.
In reality, nice people are commonly taken advantage of. This makes many of our fears more likely to play out, thereby reinforcing the very fears we had hoped to protect ourselves from. The old adage “nice guys finish last” epitomizes this concept. There are countless examples of the nice person not getting the guy or girl. The nice person at work commonly becomes the endlessly self-sacrificing martyr while others get promoted. As being nice leads to our fears being realized, the subconscious pay-off may in fact be the opportunity to prove to ourselves that we were right all along. We really did have to fear that we would be taken advantage of, forgotten, hurt, and abandoned. Often what we unconsciously want more than happiness is to be able to tell ourselves, “See, I was right.”
Unfortunately, niceness is often viewed as a weakness. Also unfortunately, many people are attracted to the opposite of nice. It is common knowledge in the psychology world that we are attracted to our past pains with the unconscious desire to change the outcome. Even more perplexing, people tend to unconsciously replay the negative outcomes anyway (we really love being able to tell ourselves, “See I was right”) and end up repeating variations of the same unhealthy relationship. This is why instead of being attracted to “nice,” so many “women love assholes” and “men love bitches.” The people who are “nice” to us don’t represent an opportunity to replay our past pains. We have no need to “fix” the relationships that went well.
Benjamin Franklin theorized that we don’t necessarily like people who are nice to us, we like people who like us. The “Benjamin Franklin effect” involves courting someone else’s favor by getting them to do you a favor. Right now, you might be thinking I have that backwards. Don’t we court someone’s favor by doing them a favor? Ben didn’t think so. He had a nemesis, who like himself was an avid book collector. The two hated each other, so Ben decided to ask his nemesis for a favor. He asked to borrow a book he knew his nemesis would be proud to boast he owned. Ben made sure to express his gratitude for the favor. And his nemesis stopped being his nemesis. Ben proved that helping others makes us feel good about ourselves, and the people who make us feel good about ourselves are the ones we want to keep around. It’s the positive reflection of ourselves in others’ eyes that makes us feel good.
One may take what we’ve discussed in this chapter as an argument for being an asshole or being manipulative. However, that is not my point at all. My goal is to convince you that being falsely nice does not protect you. Instead, it harms you because you are not giving yourself permission to be yourself. Worse, you may not be giving yourself permission to say what you really feel. Being you is valid, whatever that looks like.
Now, I am not a fan of being an asshole; I am merely a fan of being honest. In my experience, being nice is not the best way to win someone over, but neither is being mean or manipulative. If you stop and think about your feelings towards mean or manipulative people, you will likely realize that these generally are not the people you like. As discussed earlier, being mean might make certain people attracted to you, but you may want to consider if these are the sorts of people you feel it’s healthy to attract.
If I’m not endorsing being falsely nice nor falsely mean, you might wonder what would I endorse? I would like to encourage being honest, whatever that means for you. Sincerity is not always comfortable at first, but it has a way of opening up true communication. Best of all, you get to be true to yourself and your feelings.
Whether or not you win anyone else over, being your authentic self is the best way to win yourself over. In my opinion, that’s a far more important goal in the search for a deeply satisfying, happy, and peaceful life. I consider courting anyone else’s favor to be a pleasant bonus.
Ask Yourself:
What might I be trying to protect myself from by being nice?
How does being nice hurt me? Do people take advantage of me?
What would happen if I were honest, even when it’s uncomfortable for others?
Why is it important to me to have other people like me?
Do I ever take advantage of nice people?
Next Letter: Healthy Conflict