Am I Being Too Nice?

I’m starting to make yet another discovery, and it is making me feel a little uncomfortable.

I’m too nice.

(Sometimes.)

If I know someone well, and I have enough evidence, data, opinions, whatever to say something, then I will most certainly speak my mind. Many people know me as being extremely opinionated. But if I don’t know you well, or I don’t particularly care one way or another on the topic, I’ll just focus on being nice and supportive. And then I’m sure there’s everything else in between.

Seems normal enough, right?

But I’ve noticed the niceness come out “inappropriately” sometimes, and I can tell when I’m being nice just to avoid confrontation, or I assume I’m wrong, or I know they are wrong but I don’t want to hurt their feelings. These are cases where I am being too nice.

So what am I supposed to do, be mean? That thought is making me uncomfortable.

I know it wouldn’t really be being “mean”, but I know in some cases it would potentially hurt people’s feelings or make them defensive. That’s what I’ve been trying to avoid… but I’m starting to see how that is keeping me from feeling connected with others, since I’m not showing them my true thoughts and opinions sometimes.

It just feels backwards, because everything I’ve learned growing up and of course now through things like The Daily Love is that all that matters is kindness. Maybe yet again I’m a little unbalanced? I’m too far in that corner, and while yes, that is important, I’m giving it a little too much importance sometimes?

So I guess, when I can remember, I’ll be testing it out. I feel like I tried it the other day with the group of people I know who are all into Star Wars and Star Trek and all of that – some reference was made and I didn’t know what it was from, and they had a “DUH!” response, and jokingly I’m just like “Lol nerd ;)” which was… not mean, because they always make me feel like I’m the lame one who doesn’t know that stuff because they all do, and they want me to get into it, and I just… don’t care. So it was just taking my power back a little….. right??? It wasn’t mean, was it… Where’s the line??

There are a couple people I know who are great at this… and some who go the other extreme… I don’t know, maybe I’ll be able to figure something out. Like there are plenty of times I would give someone a weird look, but I don’t, because that’s rude and mean, whereas some people I know follow-through and question the other person in addition to their look, and then it gets resolved and it’s fine. Whereas I’d probably just be like “Oh… okay” and smile it off with a slight confused look instead of looking at them sideways like “Why on earth would you do that?”

Again, that’s only for people I’m not close with. But guess what!? That’s how people get to know you… and there are definitely a couple groups I still do it with even though I “know” them. I’m worried too much about their feelings and what they’ll think of me, I guess. More so, I feel like everyone is as fragile as I am. I don’t like it when people pull that crap on me because it makes me feel bad, so I assume the same goes for everyone else, so I avoid it. I get my point across without being all judgy, even if deep down, to myself, I am being judgy.

So yeah, this ought to be interesting. I wonder if I’ll swing the other way a little too much and be too mean while I find my balance… which I would feel HORRIBLE about, but now I see that I’m letting “being nice” mask my true self, and that’s not okay. I don’t know what I’m going to do… It’s always a case by case basis, of course, so it’s all about whatever comes up.

I’m also going to stop “liking” music that I can just tolerate. For example, I’m not a huge fan of The Beatles. There, I said it. They are fine, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to it.

FREEDOM!

Another issue that annoys me is when people talk about dieting and weight loss and everything. I’ve developed a healthy relationship with that whole concept. I know my issues are more mental/emotional and physical activity related, and have nothing to do with what food I’m eating or how much – I actually need to eat MORE than I feel inclined to eat, because otherwise I’d go whole days without eating. Everyone else has the opposite issues from me, which is fine, but I don’t feel like discussing it, because everyone tries to project their own problems onto everyone else. The media was blasting me with “You have to eat less! And eat this!” so much that it was driving me mad because I was doing everything right – barely eating, eating well, exercising… but barely eating isn’t healthy. And I do eat well. And I shouldn’t STRESS myself over the exercise, it needs to be enjoyable, because my body was freaking out due to the stress, and my body was sabotaging my efforts. And the goal (at least for me) should NEVER be to “lose weight”, it should be to BE HEALTHY. And so it is. But everyone else is obsessed with weight and diets and ridiculously unsustainable workouts, and when I find myself in one of those conversations, it makes me uncomfortable. I know where I stand, and I know it isn’t helpful to the conversation, so I feel like I should just let their conversation play out and stay out of it. But that feels weird, too. Just silently standing there, especially when they are in better shape than I am. It makes it seem like I’m offended. I don’t know. It’s just weird. I guess I feel like they are judging me as they have the conversation. I just want to stay out of it.

Socializing… it always gets me. Still work to be done on that front. I’ll figure it out eventually, I guess…