IfYouCan'tSayAnythingNice...MakeAFist...OrLightSomethingOnFire...Part One

I have a problem.

I am too nice. I am way way way too bleepity bleep nice!

Don’t get me wrong. I can be as cranky and moody as the rest of them, especially if my female hormones are spilling over in excess, or if I haven’t eaten on time, or if I’m overtired, or most especially, when there is a frightening combination of all three of these factors. But sustained nastiness is difficult for me, even towards those who most others would agree deserve sustained nastiness. “Nice,” it seems, is my default setting.

Now, being nice is not, in and of itself, a problem, especially when the niceness is actually genuine, and I think, in my case, it generally comes from a sincere place. I seem to have exited the womb wearing rose-coloured glasses. Altruism and empathy come very naturally to me, I am an incurable eternal optimist, and I tend to (rather naively) believe that, for the most part, people mean well.

Let’s say, for example, that I encounter a woman in line at the grocery store who is pushy or rude or otherwise unpleasant. My initial reaction is usually to give her the benefit of the doubt, and to trust that there must be some deep down (hopefully fixable) reason for her behaviour, like maybe her dog just died or she had a really difficult day at work, or maybe her mom didn’t give her enough hugs when she was little, or maybe she has low blood sugar, or maybe she feels unfulfilled in her job or unappreciated in her relationship. I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that somebody could be a horribly mean person simply because they just ARE a horribly mean person, because they choose not to be a better person, because they just don’t care enough about the people around them in order to be motivated to be a better person.

My niceness also stems, obviously, from my good, decent, Christian upbringing, and the messages I grew up hearing over and over and over again: “Turn the other cheek”, “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you”, “Love your enemy”, “If someone asks for your mink coat, give it to them, along with your brand new sparkly Louboutin heels” (or something along those lines- I admit I never was too good at memorizing bible verses). And I’ve got to say that, generally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with being generous with one’s niceness. I mean, better to err on the side of being too nice than not nice enough. Everybody, after all, could benefit from a little niceness tossed their way, and sometimes, a little niceness is just enough to get a poor, wretched, lonely soul through the day.

So, the problem really isn’t the niceness. The problem is giving niceness out to people who don’t actually deserve my niceness, people who have used up their chances for my niceness by demonstrating, time and time again, that they don’t deserve it, demonstrating that through their perpetual acts of selfishness or entitlement, through behaviour that shows a complete lack of what I like to call “other awareness,” or through a general spirit of meanness. I continue, much of the time, to be nice to these people, even when they don’t appreciate it or deserve it or reciprocate it, and the end result is often me becoming resentful towards them and angry at myself for being such a pathetic pushover.

But, actually, if I think about it, that isn’t even the problem. The problem comes about because, sometimes, in my desire to give people the benefit of the doubt, I end up giving the wrong person extra chances at my niceness, I get a little burned, and I end up being more than just a little disappointed and dejected. I end up with my whole worldview thrown into crisis, because I think, “What? That hug and smile was not enough to cure this person from their foul mood?? I don’t understand. How will my world turn now that I know sometimes sustained niceness simply isn’t enough to make someone behave properly or to motivate them to treat others the same way?” And maybe that’s because, deep down, I wrongfully expect a certain kind of response to my niceness, and essentially set myself up for disappointment.

Now, add in the following ingredients and we arrive closer to the real problem. First of all, there’s the sad but true fact that I no longer have an endless supply of niceness. I used to. I used to be able to give and give and give without ever needing anything in return. Really! But unfortunately, after recently almost completely emptying my reservoir to the last drop in my bucket of good will, I have to recognize that rebuilding that reserve fund of niceness takes some time, and now I have to be a little bit more conscious of how I’m using my supply of niceness, a little more selective as to who gets my niceness sprinkled in their direction. Then there’s also the issue of my messed up internal calibration, the gut I forget to trust, which means that sometimes I have delayed processing of a situation and trouble recognizing the appropriate reaction to said situation.

So, imagine, for a moment, that the above-mentioned mean lady in the grocery store gives me a little shove. Now, most people would react with a “Back off, bitch,” and maybe those slightly more mature and patient would confront her in a calm, cool and collected manner, or others might give a little growl, snarl, and roll of the eyes. What I would most likely do is either apologize for being in her way, or I would stand there completely dazed and confused, and by the time I realized what had happened and that I actually am entitled to feel a little upset about the fact that a rude stranger pushed me, she would have already paid and taken off, and I’d be left there, shouting, “Hey. Hey. Wait a minute, mean lady. We need to talk.”

I often have delayed processing in these situations. I frequently need to check in with the people around me to see if my feelings make sense, to see if I am justified in feeling irritated or frustrated or taken for granted or ignored. That’s what happens, I guess, when the main message-giver in your life continually tells you for a good solid decade that you’re overreacting or you don’t know what you’re talking about. You start, unfortunately, to believe it, and it takes a surprisingly long time to undo.

I wish I had a pause button so that when someone does something or says something that gives me a little uncomfortable pang in my belly, I could take a time-out to figure out what I was actually feeling, own its validity, and then react accordingly. Because now, what generally happens is that an hour after the incident, or a day later, or a week later, I sit there and say to myself, “Wait a minute. You mean, she did that on purpose? He manipulated me intentionally? She took advantage of me? They ripped me off? Deliberately? Why would somebody do such a thing??” and then, of course, I replay the initial situation and think of what I should have said, what I should have done, and then- well- then, I’m just furious, and feel like I’ve been screwed over, not only by Little Miss Meanie, but by the universe and my pathetic little too nice self!

So, this, in the end is the real problem- the fact that when you take the way I’m naturally wired plus my deeply instilled motivation to give people the benefit of the doubt plus my fragile intuition plus my almost empty reservoir plus my delayed processing plus my tendencies towards guilt plus my discomfort with confrontation plus my new attempts at setting strong boundaries and my recent commitment to more clearly trying to teach people how to treat me, what you end up with is a completely warped and unhealthy relationship with anger, because what happens is this:

First, I’m in complete denial and ignore my gut reaction. Actually, a lot of the time, in the spirit of trying to understand and just give the offender the benefit of the doubt, I let it go and forgive, and let it go again and again and again, and then- finally- I sit there and start thinking and thinking and thinking some more, and then when I can officially admit that yes, indeed, I just might be angry, I still resist it and resist it some more, and then there is this tossing back and forth between reason and reactive emotion- denying, justifying, multiplying, until all this festering transforms me into a (somewhat cuter) version of the Incredible Hulk, a force to be reckoned with, an articulate, passionate woman with a burning volcano of rage in her belly, a fiery tongue (that can cause a considerable amount of damage), and a mind filled with heart-pounding, furied fantasies of shitting on someone’s front step, kicking their teeth in, gnawing their testicles off with my teeth, setting their house on fire, announcing through a department store intercom system that both their mind and nibbles&bits are limp and tiny and useless. But, I would of course never actually do those things because those are the actions of storybook characters and crazy people, and I am neither a storybook character or a crazy person (at least not yet). But if I were to do any of those things (some of which, I admit, I have actually threatened and come close to realizing), I would probably apologize profusely afterwards and possibly even pay for the testicles to be sewn back on and fancy new straight white teeth to be re-inserted.

So, this, I think, we can all agree, is the problem- the delayed reaction of anger, so that the expression of anger comes too late and too big, and all the headspace it takes up is just unnecessary and avoidable had I just trusted my gut in the first place, rather than always trusting in another’s intentions or relying on someone else’s advice. If only I could find a way to keep my nice self intact without feeling obligated to give a selfish, insensitive, rude, unpleasant person anything more than a civilized nod of greeting.

I have trouble negotiating this idea that there are levels of civility and niceness and emotional investment, that not everyone deserves the same treatment, and that I can do that without jeopardizing my character or worldview.

Let me give you an example or two of this struggle, if only to make you sigh, shake your head, and roll your eyes a little.

Example #1: When my husband and I divorced, we had some shared investment accounts that needed to be closed and the contents shared. I (of course) had actually gone to meet the investment consultant and I (of course) was left to deal with the final split of assets. Now, I could’ve just had the investment people send him his cheque in the mail, but there was a postal strike, and he had called me (because he only ever calls me when he needs something) and asked me to please deposit the cheque directly into his bank account. Yes- he wanted me to go to the investment office, pick up the cheque, drive to his bank with his bank number and deposit the cheque, because he needed the money and didn’t want to be inconvenienced by the delay. Most normal people would say, “Too bad, so sad” and most recently divorced, mildly bitter people would say, “Too bad, so sad. Go fuck yourself” and some less bitter, somewhat helpful people might send the cheque with a paid-on-delivery courier service, but me, well what did I do? I called him up to confirm the details of his banking information and deposited that bloody cheque, and then I emailed him a confirmation that the transaction had been done. I even, and thinking back at this, I roll my eyes and shake my head at myself- I even planned to write him a good-bye email at the end of all our divorce proceedings, a kind of “Thank you for the good times. I forgive you for the bad times” email, to bring some kind of closure and to tie things up in a nice, pretty, little bow. That was my plan….until I learned, through my confirmation-of-bank-details phone call, that he had a new “partner,” and then I felt this overwhelming wave of outrage and disbelief well up inside of me, not just about the cheque or about the new partner, but about everything, everything that I had buried away, that I’d pretended didn’t matter and didn’t hurt, everything that I’d claimed to have forgiven and forgotten, everything that I hadn’t allowed myself to be angry about before because I’d convinced myself for so long that he never meant to hurt me and he couldn’t help himself and deep down he wanted to be better but just didn’t know how, and convincing myself of all of that had somehow meant that if he didn't intend to hurt me, then I wasn't entitled to be angry. Everything! Everything! Everything! I was angry about it all. About him, and me, and her, and all the different 'them's involved. Everything and all of it. All at once.

Some of my friends had expressed concern early on in my divorce proceedings that I hadn’t been angry enough, and I had said, in response to their concerns, that it wasn’t worth it, that it was easier to just forgive and move on. And in a way, in the end, that is a legitimate truth- forgiveness is good, moving on is good- but you still have to let yourself feel the disappointment and rejection and hurt and sadness and frustration. You have to give yourself permission to feel affected by something shitty. You have to stop pretending that it’s not a big deal, that it doesn’t matter, because it DOES matter, and it’s okay to be angry when someone treats you badly; it’s okay to be disappointed when something doesn’t go as planned; it’s okay to feel hurt when you’ve been rejected or ignored or taken for granted.

And that, in the end, is the issue. In my fear of anger, in my fear of being weak, of being oversensitive, of living in the past, of not moving on quickly enough or fully enough, I preached this idea of letting go without actually ever letting go. You can’t let it go if you are in complete denial of what you’re actually letting go of, if you haven’t looked it in the face and identified it. Burying something, denying it, brushing it off, is not the same as letting it go. It’s just wood to feed the inevitable fire of heart-wrenching, headspace-stealing, soul-gnawing rage that will eventually reveal itself.

What an uncomfortable lesson to learn- a lesson I am still struggling to learn.

More to come.