Where does Nice start?
Alright, time for a blog entry again, and it starts with a conversation snippet between Tristan and me. (Also, this is an edited version of a journal entry I wrote for my therapist, hence some… weird language.)
Clarissa: Why are you so nice? 😄 you are way too nice.
Tristan: Why? Maybe because it feels nice to be nice! 😂
(is it nice to be good and good to be nice)
Clarissa: It feels nice to be nice when you’re nice!!!
To me, being nice means I am vulnerable cuz now the other person can either abuse my niceness, or laugh at me for being naive. 😐
Whereas if I am guarded/spiky/defensive (or passive-aggressive), then you can’t hurt me cuz I am already EXPECTING the other person to react negatively. YOU SEE???
(LOL sorry, you weren’t asking for that much info. But just to show that it isn’t as easy as “it feels nice”. To some people it doesn’t)
Tristan: I don’t know; I think I attract nice people 😂. The rare who abused it are out of sight.
Clarissa: You attracted me, I’m not nice 😶 (if I am nice around YOU it’s cuz YOU are (too) nice!)
So I guess with my final answer to him I contradict my own thought process. Nice begets nice, even from generally non-nice people. Not always of course. But being nice in more cases than not makes people be nice to you, too. I mean I know it’s such a cliché, but he is the embodiment of it!!! Everyone loves him and is nice (!) to him, because he is just so damn nice!!!
How can I get some of that? Even knowing this intellectually, the idea of being nice by default (and expecting the BEST of people rather than the worst, as I do now) just feels soooooo scary and… squishy/vulnerable. How can I NOT be worried about being taken for a fool? How can I care MORE about people LIKING me (or, more selflessly, about improving their day) than people respecting/being wary of me? Always, always I would rather keep people at a distance than let them get close enough to me to be able to poke my squishiness.
I have struggled with this for years, and I don’t know that I have gotten any closer to my goal. While I am able to be a bit (!) more vulnerable with some people once they have proven often enough they won’t poke me (*cough* Tristan), I still approach people generally with mistrust and… spikiness. And some people I’ve known for years who are more like me in that respect, we still… often expect the worst from each other and treat each other accordingly. (You know who you are. *lol*)
I WISH I COULD BE NICE!!!!