Do you ever feel like you are "too nice" to people

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Anna_K
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24 Jun 2014, 9:33 pm

I have always been taught to be nice and polite to others, but sometimes I end up being too nice and I end up getting pushed around and taken advantage of, even my own friends sometimes. Whenever I try to tell someone off, or tell them to stop, I always end up getting to aggressive and losing my temper, and then they make me look like the a**hole. So right now I basically have 2 choices: get pushed around, or lose my temper and scare all my friends off. I can never find a middle ground!! Does anyone else do this sometimes?



wowiexist
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24 Jun 2014, 9:46 pm

It is better to have no friends than friends who take advantage of you. I know from experience.



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24 Jun 2014, 9:52 pm

Yes. Sometimes people tell me I am too nice. It is sincere when I am doing it.

What stands out to me though is that being nice, even though I mean it and am sincere, isn't enough to make it possible to make friends.



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24 Jun 2014, 10:22 pm

Sometimes I feel like people take advantage of me when I do things for them because sometimes people always ask me to help them, but they don't seem to ask anyone else to do it so it makes me a little suspicious. Sometimes when people want me to do something for them I ask a question before helping them, but sometimes it's hard for me to think of what to ask or say right a the moment so it doesn't work that well.

I like to help others if they really need it, but I try to keep my distance from most people. If I can, I try to avoid people when I know they are taking advantage of me. I don't think it's worth it to be around people like that.



wowiexist
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24 Jun 2014, 11:33 pm

I started noticing that as well. I would do things to help people out, but they did not want much to do with me unless I was helping them with something. I had a few times that people said that it was an emergency and that their life would be over if I did not help them, but then I did not help them for some reason, and they managed to easily take care of the situation themselves. For instance, one person said her phone was going to be shut off because she was broke so she really need me to help. I said no, and her phone somehow remained turned on.



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25 Jun 2014, 7:51 am

I try to be nice. Sometimes I am not because of omisson, because they don't hear me say "hello" or "bye", and because I am slow to recognize people.



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26 Jun 2014, 1:47 pm

Are you already angry when you're telling them to back off? Maybe you could try as soon as it starts to become a problem.



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27 Jun 2014, 6:27 pm

Hell ya. It makes me feel two faced and a dishonest person because I don't like to be mean and get people all upset. I will find myself being nice to anyone (civil, people call it) when they are not mean to me and it doesn't matter if I don't like them or not. I have gotten crap for it too so I have cut back on it. But look, people will make you feel guilty for not doing certain things so don't let them make you feel bad for standing up for yourself. It could be manipulation they're doing.

There was one man online who accused me of being dishonest but he was a creep and I wouldn't be his mommy anymore so he threw a tantrum and I blocked him since all he wanted to do was fight and insult me when he had already told me he didn't want to be my friend anymore and he was taking me off his list. I got tired of his games and blocked him on Facebook too since he wouldn't remove me as a friend and I didn't want his drama. No wonder he doesn't have a mommy, mommies don't like to deal with any temper tantrums so they all walk away from their baby lol. What he did may have been one of his games to make me feel guilty so I could be his mommy but it backfired because I blocked him instead because I was sick and tired of how he treated me and that as the last straw after being too nice to block him and I kept giving him chances. He turned out to not be a true friend. True friends do not pressure you or insult you or get mad because you're not talkative enough and start putting you down for it.


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Sweetleaf
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28 Jun 2014, 1:44 am

Yes I do feel like that sometimes.


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aceyArisen
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28 Jun 2014, 6:51 am

Almost constantly. It's actually gotten me into some trouble before. Specifically, I was cyberstalked by a former friend who was sexually and romantically obsessed with me for a grand total of over five years, at least partly because I spent the better part of a year leading up to me unfriending him everywhere not having the heart to say "please stop this, you're creeping me out and making me feel uncomfortable". (Now, granted, I was fifteen then and I've gotten a lot better at putting my foot down since then, but the point stands.)

Conversely, like a lot of you have mentioned, I come across as a total jerk when I get even remotely upset with someone...which has also cost me a few friendships. :/

Lately I've been getting a lot better at stuff like this, but it's still tough to find that balance of being nice without being (for lack of a better term) a pushover.

(On a somewhat related tangent...one of my best traits is that I'm incredibly loyal. It's also one of my biggest faults--when my friends fight, for instance, I feel incredibly torn, like I have to pick a side (even though that is, realistically, not usually the case). Again, this has led to a few irreparably broken friendships.)



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28 Jun 2014, 11:57 am

yes, a bit.
sometimes in school people come to me to ask if they can copy their homework (that i may know or have no clue in) because they know i won't refuse them.
i've started becoming a bit more assertive recently though...


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WHOperhero
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28 Jun 2014, 1:49 pm

Yes! I don't loose my temper often, but when I do, I can be really mean. I feel like I have to be extra nice all the time to make up for my few bad moments.



tweety_fan
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10 Jul 2014, 5:36 am

Kiprobalhato wrote:
yes, a bit.
sometimes in school people come to me to ask if they can copy their homework (that i may know or have no clue in) because they know i won't refuse them.
i've started becoming a bit more assertive recently though...


that did happen to me a couple of times too.

I feel like I am too nice to people sometimes. It is a family trait.



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10 Jul 2014, 9:06 am

I am often too nice. Part of it is because I genuinely want to be helpful and I want to be there for people and I want that connection. The too nice also is a compensation for being hurt or offended in the past and confronting the other person about it only to be told it was my fault and that I had no business being offended. I look back and some of those things weren't true; I really did have reason to be hurt but I took the other person's word for it because I gauge my "social success" on the other person's reactions and feelings and find my own to be invalid or untrustworthy. I depend on other people's reactions to know if I have done something wrong or right. Some were my fault and my misinterpretation which was equally embarrassing and horrifying.
'
I had to actually cut off a friendship a few years ago because them using me got so bad. Making plans and them cancelling last minute all the time, them never calling me but getting mad if I didn't call them, them always expecting me to be there for them night and day but if I needed them, it was like I had committed a crime, they could say whatever they liked to me about me, but if I said anything to them about them that wasn't glowing I "had problems". The worst part is that I put up with it far too long and didn't realize how bad it was until they called me wanting to move into my house after three months of ignoring me when I had just had a baby and my husband was deployed. It wasn't just that. It was a whole mess of crazy requests and absolute, blatant denial of any consideration for me. I had to learn to say no and eventually cut off the friendship. It was interfering with my life and my mental health. I was very upset that I let this person do that to me, all in the name of being nice and also for not realizing what they were doing until it had gone way too far. But I don't regret cutting it off. It was that bad. It still hurts though to be treated so badly. Unfortunately, "niceness" and tolerance don't equate to meaningful friendships.

I also give people too much credit and excuse them for things thinking maybe they just really don't know better when the reality is, I'll realize sometimes years later, that they really did know exactly what they were doing and likely did it on purpose. And that they should have had no quarter from me.



Magnanimous
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11 Jul 2014, 1:59 pm

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA... no.

I mean I USED to be that way when I was a kid. But years of having my niceness be ignored or exploited, and any perceived impoliteness treated like the second coming of Hitler.... and... well..... I ditched it.

Arsehole-mode is my default setting these days. I pretty much get treated about the same, but don't spend the time and effort futilely trying to prevent it.
I don't actually bother being nice to people unless they have explicitly done something to warrant it. Niceness is NOT its own reward. Making human trash suffer is its own reward.



lemmyd95
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11 Jul 2014, 4:08 pm

There are times where even I feel I am, especially when it comes to the opposite sex, and so I end up embarrassing myself (until I realise days later) when I do certain things with these 'friends'. Only one female friend took me serious but I ruined it through me being awkward and losing contact because I actually hurt her emotionally.