I had an unfortunate encounter the other day.
What is it about Friday nights in trashy college house basements that brings all the ex boyfriends (and their new girls) out of hiding?
(If you said cheap alcohol and fleeting entertainment, you’re probably right.)
Yes, I ran into an ex at a house party, swapping spit with another girl who conveniently managed to stay my peripheral vision all night – no matter where in that basement my peripheral vision traveled to.
(If you said “yikes”, yeah, me too.)
Luckily, I had my loyal and badass posse with me at the time (which I will unapologetically brag about, because everyone deserves to know), who unanimously told me that I should “just roll my eyes at him until he notices”.
I have to admit, I was a little jealous. Posse member #1 had her boyfriend with her that night (who was adorably holding her from behind all night, protecting her from all the drunken creeps and unnecessary testosterone in the room). Posse member #2 had a boyfriend back home (who would probably haul his butt here in a heartbeat if he had to, while I can’t even get a text back). And posse member #3 had already met someone new that night (who swapped so much spit with her that the two of them eventually became the targets of a few Snapchat memes by posse members #1 and #2).
And there I was.
I didn’t really know what to do (which would have been a great time for the ‘just don’t do anything at all, dumbass’ logic to kick in).
So I just stared.
I probably looked really stupid, actually.
In fact, I must have looked really stupid, because posse member #1 came to my rescue (hand-in-hand with her adorable and crime-fighting boyfriend, of course), and said, “I know you won’t roll your eyes at him because you’re too nice, but he really deserves it.”
I had to laugh a little.
“Too nice”?
By whose standards?
(I say that accusatorily, but I know she’s right.)
I feel a little silly writing of being nice as if it’s a struggle.
It’s not.
But it is a little annoying when you can’t even muster up the angst to throw a passive aggressive (yet tasteful) eye-roll at an ex every once in a while.
If you’re anything like me and you’re “too nice” to people who probably don’t even have the word “nice” in their vocabulary (including exes!), then these 8 things might be a struggle for you too.
1. People often mistakenly think we’re shy.
Being “too nice” usually constitutes knowing when to keep our mouths shut. Some people think our silence is rude. Others just think it means we’re shy. Some of us are. But not always.
2. We hate confrontation.
The word itself even makes us cringe. But we’ll do it.
Very reluctantly.
If we absolutely have to.
3. People mistake our niceness for not having an opinion.
“You just don’t care because you’re too nice to take sides.” Believe me, I do care. But I would rather sell my organs on the black market than cast my unwarranted opinion on others. Your opinion is yours, just as mine is mine. They might not agree, but that doesn’t mean I want yours to change.
4. We make a lot of sacrifices.
The good of literally anybody but ourselves is usually the most important thing to us. Which often means sacrificing what we really want in order to make sure others are happy. But we usually won’t complain about it. Because, you know, that point about knowing when to keep our mouths shut.
5. We’re really good at waiting.
Probably because we hate confrontation so much. But really, most of us were probably cursed with more patience than we know what to do with. Too often, we wait for someone else to speak up first, hold our tongues until it’s too late, and give third, fourth, and fifth chances where they aren’t due. There is such a thing as being too patient. Many of us are just that.
6. Our friends constantly have to remind us to be more aggressive.
Aggressive? We can promise you we don’t know what that is or how to do it. You can try to corrupt us. We might even agree with you eventually and decide to throw some elbows next time we find ourselves stuck in a crowd.
7. But we never actually become more aggressive.
And when we try, everyone just laughs at us. Apparently whispering “excuse me” while staring at the ground and muddling through that crowd that we’ll inevitably find ourselves in doesn’t constitute as “aggressive”. But, I digress.
8. We complain about every single one of these things, but we’re still going to keep being “too nice” anyway.
Could be worse.
Okay, so I don’t know what it’s like to be aggressive. I’m probably not even that good at rolling my eyes anyway.
Maybe I should practice in the mirror.
But I probably won’t.
Because I’m “too nice” to even roll my eyes at myself anyway.
