Comments on: I draw my evil from your niceness.

By: Temerity Jane » Blog Archive » What did we do to nice?

Temerity Jane » Blog Archive » What did we do to nice? — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:14:31 +0000

[...] wrote awhile ago about how I don’t think I’m really nice or mean. I think I’m average nice. I think most people are average [...]

By: Al_Pal

Al_Pal — Sat, 22 May 2010 18:19:43 +0000

I’m probably a leetle bit nicer than average, but there’s definitely a trap of thinking people ‘are nice’. (& I wouldn’t want that to be the first thing someone said about me!)

Once a friend asked what a mutual friend’s husband was like–I’d met & spent a bit of time with him, once. I said, IDK, he seems like a nice guy–I mean, he’s Canadian…turned out he was a physical abuser, had broken her arms in the past & shizz. They’re divorced, now, thank god…but geez. People are certainly not always what they seem!

By: TJ

TJ — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:14:19 +0000

I have that problem with people being friendly with me and calling me “Kel.” There’s no nice way to say “Don’t do that” without sounding like a total asshole.

By: Adlib

Adlib — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:59:55 +0000

This thread reminds me…my boss calls me by a nickname almost everybody else (friends, coworkers, etc.) uses for me, but with him, it feels weird and not okay because…he’s my boss! He’s not my friend. I just have no idea how I would go about saying “yeah, everyone can call me that except you” essentially.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:48:33 +0000

I used to get the “You’re so nice.” crap when I was younger because I thought I should be. On the inside, though evil thoughts abounded. As I got older I decided to be myself more and some people were shocked at the sarcasm that is now my normal mode of expression. But meh. I’m nice enough! And I would classify myself as avarage nice still.

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:06:09 +0000

Sadly, I’m about in that nightmare – hence my harping on it in a pseudo-related thread. My boss values “nice” above all other work qualities, including performance. While I am all for developing work friendships, I feel pressured to do so with my boss because it has come up in a “performance” review before, that I don’t do enough “social networking” around the office. Considering my job is 99% logistics, that seems a bit odd to me. I’m polite, I’m courteous, and I’m professional, I just tend to excuse myself when Boss wants to talk about her kids or how Twilight is an AMAZING book. You’re my boss, not my friend, and while the two CAN coexist, they shouldn’t be required to. Then again, the fact that I can’t stand the woman certainly doesn’t help.

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:59:57 +0000

I was going to say this same thing. Other words instead of “nice” might be professional, courteous, or polite (as you said). And what exactly IS nice? Is it that you generally like everyone, truly, in your heart? Is it that you give off the appearance of liking everyone? Is it that you’re always polite? “Nice” is such a vague word and people tend to use it either as a boring compliment (“She’s so nice!”) or as an opposite word, to describe someone you don’t like very much (“She’s not very nice”).

For me, I tend to not like most people, but instead of being “not nice,” I prefer to cultivate words about myself like professional, quiet, shy, or polite, in terms of how I approach and interact with people. I’m not rude to people, I’m just not overly nice to them.

By: TheWicked

TheWicked — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:20:15 +0000

I definitely would not categorize myself as a “nice” person, probably not even as an “average nice” person.

How nice I am to a person is directly correlated to how much of an idiot that person is. The more idiocy they display the meaner I get.

There are, of course, two exceptions to this rule.

1. The Wife. I have to be nice to her all the time, even if she is being kind of an idiot at the time.

2. Customers while I’m at work.

I seem to have a very low tolerance for idiocy.

By: Swistle

Swistle — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:31:57 +0000

And, uh. Also kind of boring.

By: Swistle

Swistle — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:31:22 +0000

I’ve known two girls who I would describe as nice all the way through—like, where I could say I don’t think they even knew HOW to have a mean thought about someone. And both of them were dumb as sheep. Nice, but truly dumb and clueless and oblivious.