Are you 'nice'? Do you give more than you get?

Fresh figs stuffed with goat cheese and mint

Artichoke, white bean & thyme spread, served on toasted whole-grain pita

Rolled pork tenderloin with black japonica rice, dried fruit, and lime-macadamia chutney

Baked vanilla meringue with pluot and kiwi.

rowr!

In related news, I have at least 10 lbs. to lose.

http://www.davewilson.com/br10tech/br10tech_pluot/pluot_black_kat.jpg

sometimes i do give more than i get, but i lose my patience with that pretty quickly and cut way back on the giving.

Urgh, what a trumpet-blowing wanker.

That seems to me like a reflection of our increasingly individualist society - people seem less willing to do things when there is no "return on investment"; less community minded

1. After helping one friend loads of times over a few years, I wasn't there to help her once, so she abused the crap out of me

2. Nobody was there for me when I needed help

Now I don't bother much anymore.

I know I'm too trusting. I've been hurt by this a few times, and I will be again, but I made a deliberate decision to keep erring on that side, to trust people until I have reason not to do so rather than the other way round, and it's mostly worked well enough. I've lost money this way at times, but I don't care about that.

All this is too important to what positive self-image I have, to give up. When my ex-wife got very nasty and underhand during our financial wrangles I admit I felt some temptation to retaliate, but I never came close to succumbing - it was vital to me, if I wanted to keep thinking of myself as a good person, and there aren't too many ways I'd praise myself so I have to hang on to the few I have, that I didn't descend to anything like that, that I kept behaving in ways that I knew were right and reasonable. That time it all worked out well in the end.

My only problem with sometimes giving more than I receive, in whatever ways, is that I sometimes, maybe often, think that the reason that the other party is giving less back is that they don't like me anything like as much as I like them. That's fair enough if they do feel that way, but I sometimes take it as a hint to step back some, and that is sometimes wrong. It's not a 'screw you then' idea, it's a 'sorry I'm overdoing this relationship, I'll back off' thing.

My insecurity (when it comes to friendship or romance) combines with this niceness to ill effect at times. I take not imposing myself to the extreme, and end up not really making the right overtures of friendship, or not seeming interested enough in the other person. I tend not to ask the people I like enormously in London ILX, for instance, out for a drink or anything like that, because I imagine that I would be putting them in the uneasy position of declining in some polite way (assumption: that they like me well enough and don't want to offend me, but not enough to want to hang out beyond FAPs), or accepting and putting up with something they aren't hugely keen on. This is undoubtedly the case with some people, but I guess it's not the case with everyone, so I may come across as uninterested.

(I might give my own answer later on in the thread. It's a subject I think about an awful lot)

I think I was a nicer person three years ago than I am now. Maybe I've become more self-satisfied, or socially complacent, or maybe the daily grind has made me moodier, but sometimes I think I'm ruder to people, or less receptive, than I should be. Especially people I don't know very well - the younger me used to unfailingly give time to people, even if I couldn't really care less about what they were saying. Maybe having less time on my hands has changed that.

Or, as I've got older I've got to know my own needs and boundaries a lot more, and in trying to stay sane can probably be quite selfish in enforcing these with the people closest to me. Less close contacts never need to approach those boundaries, i suppose, so I am perceived as nice by them instead of by the ones who really matter :/

(Mark, you are nice, I think.)

I often do nice things for people, and enjoy doing so, but more often than not I'm too logical and analytical to just be spontaneously nice - particularly with people I don't know very well.

This probably makes me seem less approachable on first impressions but might make me less likely to be taken advantage of.

That said, I'm giving someone a ticket for the Celtic game tonight instead of making £££s on it, so maybe my Nice Quotient is up slightly.

The "nice guy = rug" thing is an unfortunate tag but that's how many are seen. Sadly, once some people realise you just keep giving they'll just keep taking.

sometimes i think i should be nicer-- one of my best friends is someone that everyone thinks is JUST SO NICE! and everyone loves him. except that i know that he doesn't really like everyone back as much, and a lot of it is politicking. which i consider to be a bit two-faced and hypocritical. so it's a tradeoff thing. people don't ever have to wonder if i really like them, because i'm nice to people i like, nothing to people i don't know/don't care about and can be a bit mean to people i don't like. which some people really really hate, but i feel like it's at least honest.

so, yeah. not nice.

! Good lord, man. Remind me to pitch in with any further meals in future (and I hope to hell I did say thanks for that omelette the other weekend!).

I hate it when people hint that being nice to people you don't like is hipocrosy or two-facedness. It's called POLITENESS. You don't have to cook them a seven course meal, you just have to smile at them and ask them how they are. Society would crumble if everyone went around being one hundred per cent honest with each other the entire time.

I'm never outright nasty to people I dislike to their face as long as they're generally well-meaning - the world exists outside of my head and my feelings and I have no desire to make someone else feel like shit even if I don't get on with them.

That is annoying. "Keepin' it real" doesn't mean you have to be a mannerless cockfarmer.

i think there's a difference between politeness and hypocrisy. with people i don't know, or don't know very well, i'll be polite and respectfull with them. but i won't go out of my way to be extra nice to them unless i like them.

i was speaking about one specific friend who really IS hypocritical about it. he'll be your best friend to your face and then talk crap about you behind your back-- which i find really hard to accept. we've had long conversations about it and how it can be hard to be a genuine friend to him when he could just be giving me the same bullshit lines he gives everyone else. he's started being more honest with me, which i appreciate.

of course, there needs to be a certain level of courtesy in the world at large. but i think there's something to be said for the fact that people will generally know what i think of them, rather than having to guess if i'm being fake or not.

Maybe it's just in contrast to immense selfishness, though.

Either way, I FEEL YOU JER.

Of course the downside is it will probably be interpreted as bullshit even if it isn't. Which is a shame as quite often there can be an admirable degree of honesty in there. See also "I don't deserve you".

Something wrong with me vs. something wrong with you.

Of course, it turned out there were various other reasons as well. It's feeble and insulting.

each just as ridiculous as the other.

this is not "you're too nice" but rather "you're too easily hurt and pathetic" being nice is about how you treat people not how badly you can take people fucking up.

xpost now

i've thought (on several occasions) that i shouldn't inflict my natural-disaster style romantic life on people because they are actually too nice and don't deserve to be hurt in the way they almost inevitably will be. but i figure that comes across as so arrogant and patronizing, so i don't say it. i just think it and sometimes whisper it in someone's ear as they're sleeping.

you're too nice= i'm an emotional retard and just won't really fall for you, but i can tell you're already falling for me, and so i think i should really spare your feelings by calling things off at this stage before you get hurt any more.

which is really surprisingly awkward to say.

if that was aimed at me, i've tried it. it doesn't work. then they actually think i'm nice (which obviously i'm not) and then like me even more. it's weird.

ken otm

I was about to start a thread along the lines of 'what are the things you do for other people that you don't have to' or somesuch. I was also thinking about the idea of 'duty'.

I noticed that in the 'what are you doing for the weekend' thread that keeps popping up, most people seem to spend their whole time doing things for themselves (not necessarily *by* themselves). I wondered if that meant that people edited out the perhaps more boring stuff that they end up doing for friends/neighbours/family? Or do it during the week perhaps, leaving the wkend free for fun,fun,fun? Or don't you do anything for anyone?

Well, it varies. In my case, I've made a regular weekly commitment to help good friend Y with her garden, which I've done for almost two years now. It's an experience that's always a pleasure, in that the garden is such a soothing and relaxing place to be, especially after the end of a work day. Normally this was on the weekend but that's switched to Tuesday evenings. I value her friendship and that of her family's (her son is having a birthday party on Saturday I'm very much looking forward to), and one of my two best friends Stripey regularly helps out at the garden as well. So it's a combination of assistance, hanging out and getting to talk over things. So the weekend itself now is more of a self-indulgence/sleep in/do nothing scenario, but increasingly I always want to be doing *something* on the weekends -- I have reached what I think was my limit of sorts when it came to enjoying a spot on my own (which was very, very necessary at the time) and feel more self-consciously social again, and if people need help on the weekends I'd provide it.

I guess I don't really have many skills or assets that will be of help to others, that's part of it. (No car, no practical ability, no money, etc.)

I don't even smile anymore! Ha ha!

re. talking to strangers, rather than friends - I mean, estate agents, ticket salesmen, whatever: I think I am very polite to them - but in my own way, which, who knows, they may not experience as polite. Queerly, in the last week, I have had *repeated* scenes where I felt the need to take a character like this up on something, clarify the situation, etc. I have always tried to be nice while doing it. Probably it has resulted in wariness because they are used to aggro in their jobs?

Relationships fail and end, don't they. It feels, to me, possibly superfluous to pick over phrases (cf: 'You're too nice') which are rhetorical ways through that scene of mutual difficulty and disappointment. What I think is needed in those scenes is sympathy, understanding. Perhaps that's hard to generate, when it's happening.

It was good when the Doc suddenly popped up talking about 'duty'.

I find myself wondering if they are using the word in the sense "socially likeable" or if they really have been duped into thinking x is a "nice" person.

If I'd been feeling top of the world I might just have said, "look, are you going to be okay?" and left her at the bus stop. I've no idea.

(This is a pretty unusual example, its not like I go around doing stuff like this all the time)

xpost

Fuck off and have a nice day! *smiles*

I do get a bit irritated with the conflation, seen many times on this thread, of being nice to people with being weak and fragile. My depression has made me less strong emotionally, but I was consistently nice to people before that, and pretty strong, and I still am in some areas. Apparently there are studies showing that there is a pecking order on the streets, the way women get out of men's way on pavements much more than vice versa, and so on. I get out of the way of almost everyone, and the only time I don't is when someone, invariably male, pushes it, at which point I get aggressive back, and in every case so far the other man has backed down (I talked more specifically about this on a recent thread about fighting). I can be tough and mean when I see the need, I just very rarely see the need - and I can't imagine seeing it with a girlfriend, for example (and never have).

Fuck off and have a nice evening! *doesn't smile*

maybe they don't know the guys in question like you do? someone could be a drooling axe-murderer behind closed doors for all i know, but if he/she is charming and pleasant in a social situation then i'm sure i'd say how so-and-so seems like a nice person.

Are you 'nice'? I'm fairly nice to my friends and family, I can be a little hard to get to know, but I don't expect much from people, but I'll always try and treat people with respect.

Do you give more than you get? I don't ask for much, I don't really take that much. I'm not really into the whole transactional social norm thing.

Do people routinely crap on your sincerity? At uni I used to help people with their essays and stuff, and I never really got a lot of thanks for this. Nowadays, nah, i don't really feel this way.

Your lack of guile and nastiness? Are you a good guy/gal who finishes last? I guess it's up for other people to judge if I'm nice or not. I'd say I was okay, perhaps it's a 'nice' trait to think you're not nice and run off a list of your negative characteristics. I don't really think I'm in the game to be able to finish last in. I don't really have much of a nasty streak, but I'd say I can work people out quite well.

xpost

11/89 - Ice Skating Over My Sister's Finger, Mostly Accidentally
3/92 - Putting Silly Putty in My Sister's Hair
7/96 - Punching Chr*s Curr4n in the Chest After He Spat on Me and Called Me A Fat Fag. I Was Fat but Not A Fag, For The Record.
2/99 - Knocking the Wind Out of My Dad When We Were Fake Boxing
9/02 - The Breakup Where I Just Flat Out Ignored The Girl

It's trite and smarmy to say that it's thoughtful responses on threads like these that make XJLILE, and XJ (really) LILE because of everybody's comments.

::sloppy tongue kiss::

I LOVE YOU MANDEE!

And--oops--totally!

-- Markelby (boyincorduro...), September 14th, 2004.

Well that's Barry got me sussed out then (the second part of his post obv, not the first).

I have the overwhelming feeling that I'm not nice.

I don't want to get into a whingefest about getting laid or not getting laid due to niceness or not-niceness. Being not-nice helps me get laid, sure. But it really is a detriment when it comes to actually getting in a relationship, which is a different matter.

This is of course not always the case, but it is the case more often than not.

But then this is the kind of situation you'll get in a place like London, where people are not actually interested in love or sex as such, only fashion (just like the music and book industries in London are run by people who don't care about music or literature, just spreadsheets), and therefore want a quick fix and an easy solution to a difficult question. London people don't seem to have the necessary patience to build up a relationship in the tried and tested way, i.e. getting to know someone through regular contact (at work or outside work), taking months and sometimes years to become sufficiently familiar with, and therefore sufficiently attracted to, them. So instead it's on with the unsatisfactory nights in the pub, the speed dating, the lonely hearts columns, which might give you transient relationships that last a few months before one or the other of you gets bored, but will not provide you with a permanent solution.

Commuting doesn't help - everyone always has to *get home*. But why not get to know people where you live too?

Is it really "niceness"? I'm thinking in terms of the gulf that might lie between politeness and forcefulness, and the middle ground that you have to find between each in order to get anywhere with your fellow humans. By forcefulness I mean being able to project yourself, as opposed to knocking the shit out of someone else. Of course if you have good looks and a fat wallet then those things do help you to project yourself, but we've already talked about that side of things elsewhere.

But then I don't think there's ever been a moment in my life when I felt sociable.

Never mind! Tomorrow is one day nearer the end of my life!

But i think being nice is really just, being considerate to others. You can be mouthy (not sick mouthy) and cocky and stand up for yourself and stuff be nice. It's not about what you do for yourself, it's about what you do for other people. Doing something "nice" for people, standing up for *others* when they need it, not when you need to get laid. Once you equate doing things with achieving some kind of goal then it's not being nice at all. you're just doing some kind of job.