Day 140 or Too Nice

I'm nice. I admit it. If there was a twelve step program for being nice, I would be the first to say, "Hi. My name is Traci and I'm a nice person". So what's the problem, you might ask? Isn't it good to be nice?

Well, I always thought so. I was certainly raised to believe in the importance of niceness. (Niceness? Is that a word? It must be because there is no offending red line underneath, so I'm sticking with it.) So back to being nice. I have actually been told that I'm too nice. What does that mean? Too nice. Even Oprah has said that she is not nice. Kind, yes. Caring, yes. But not nice. So what's a nice girl to do?

Maybe worse than being nice. I've been called sweet. In fact, I was once told by a dinner guest that he didn't need sugar for his tea because I was too sweet. Now I know he meant that as a compliment but I still remember that after over eight years and it has always sat funny with me.

So sweet. Nice. Yeah, I answer to them. And truthfully, I like that about myself. It is a big part of who I am. But I have been accused of being annoyingly nice. Or sweet. Choose your adjective. And sometimes I wish I wasn't so nice. Because I want everybody to like me. Everybody. I want people that I don't like to like me. So I shower them with an obnoxious level of niceness. Oddly, this does not seem to make them like me more. I can't imagine why.

When you are nice, people don't expect you to have a backbone. They expect to you to just smile and bear it. (When you're nice, you don't just grin, you smile!) And most of the time, I do. I have received many a cut with a gracious smile. But if I do stand up for myself, people seemed so shocked that I am not being nice, that I often capitulate to regain my nice status.

Television, especially reality television, is filled with not nice ladies. There is actually a show called the Bad Girl Club. And I am not saying that I want to be like them. At least, not most the time. But every now and then, I wish I could be a Bad Girl, look someone in the eye and say what I feel when they are being abusive to me. I wish I could risk being not liked by someone who obviously doesn't like me and be real. Instead of nice.

But nice is the badge I wear. So nice people, unite. Let's take the world by storm with niceness. Surely, our smiles and sweetness will eventually undermine all the false bravado of the Bad Girls. One day we will rule the world. And what a nice world it will be.