Why some people can’t trust nice people (and why nice people don’t care).

So. There are nice, kind people in this world who don’t have to TRY to be nice, even though they sometimes feel the pressure to pretend they like you more than they do; they simply ARE nice and well-intentioned. Their biggest joy is to make people happy, to uplift them, and to help people grow and overcome their obstacles.

There are also rude, nasty people who want to challenge you, test your willpower and grit, teach you to be tough, to overcome your obstacles, and to soar to the skies. A lot of people believe these people are trustworthy, and there’s merit to that thinking, too.

Now, the median of these two types is the ideal, but it’s a balance not a lot of people draw very well, but if you want examples, almost every stand-up comedian ever. The trouble is, they have a stage and a platform that is MADE for being both mean and kind at the same time. This means that you attack the discomfort directly but do it in a way that is funny and uplifting. You break the ice by facing the elephant in the room head-on. This should be our way of being, but without the platform of a stage, it is very difficult – people don’t know not to be offended with you.

Being nice is part of a self-image and a societal expectation.

There are people who take pride in their kindness and niceness. They WANT TO BE SEEN as good people, kind people, and helpful people. They will go out of their way to be so. If you respond to their kindness with rudeness, dishonesty, or by taking advantage or similar, they will not be pleased with you. Nice people expect others to be nice to them, too. To them, being nice is not something that is done because society asks you to be; being nice to them is A GIVEN. Therefore, when another person fails to be nice, it’s to them about as big of a social faux pas as showing up to a ball butt naked. Social outcast. In fact, they might find it funny someone shows up to a ball butt naked, but they wouldn’t forgive a person for being unnecessarily rude or unkind.

The people who make kindness a societal expectation are these same people; nice people. They ASSUME you’ve got what it takes not to blow your top for no good reason because, heck, they manage it without too much trouble.

If you cannot trust nice people for having been used to narcissistic niceness.

Sometimes people cannot trust nice people because they’re used to being surrounded by narcissistic people. They are kind to you at first but will quickly show their true colors. Now, genuinely nice people will never “show their true colors” because their true color is nice. If your premise and expectation is that every person is deep down rude, self-absorbed, self-serving, selfish and narcissistic, and you are just waiting to see to what extent, you’ll start feeling very nervous with people who “keep their cards very close to the chest” so to speak. If a person is infallibly kind to them, they will start feeling uneasy around you… And they will start picking a fight.

Having said that, there’s a mean streak in everyone.

Nice people ARE mean, too; they just don’t believe they have the right to be mean to your face, and if they’d say something bad about you to a friend, they no longer consider themselves your friend. They will cancel their right to call themselves a friend to you the minute they find it impossible not to say something nasty about you to another friend. Therefore, the way you get comfortable with nice people is by figuring out who they call “a cunt” among their trusted friends… and why.

Unfortunately, narcissists see being talked about behind their backs as a sign of being superior to the ones talking. Their logic goes that if they have managed to ruffle some feathers, that means their words or actions are MEANINGFUL to those people. Narcissists** don’t have an inherent sense of self-worth, perhaps due to childhood trauma, but I feel often the reason is deeper than that, still a multiple past lifetimes problem, maybe. You can create narcissistic trauma in a person by applying mercy instead of an appropriate punishment when they need it. It makes them feel like anything they do is pointless. They have no power to hurt others. Children and teens need to feel the consequences of their actions.

At any rate, a narcissist feels they are meaningless, worthless, invisible, and without power. Therefore, their attempt is to cause upset in others, and the people who react to their upset must have heard them; they must CARE about what they’ve been said. Now, if they find that they are being talked about negatively, they feel they’ve got power; meaning. An importance, an existence even, in those people’s lives… And they want more of it.

What they cannot stand is people speaking kindly about them behind their backs; that means they ARE meaningless, not a threat. Someone to pity and look down at – which is not entirely a bad way to look at it, as it is kinda true. But what it means to them, is that they are not safe with people to whom their words mean nothing; they have no power to hurt them – to drive them away. And, then we run into yet another narcissistic paradox; their need to “test” the people in their lives, to see how much abuse they are willing to take, as to establish a paradigm of give and take.

How nice people interact with each other.

Nice people are immediately nice and supportive of you when you meet them – if they like you. They give you immediate positive feedback and praise if they can give you some. From a narcissist, this is a play, from a nice person, it’s genuine and meant to be given for free, for nothing, for keeps. “Just the truth.” When a suspicious person keeps in contact with a nice person – of finds them repeatedly commenting on their social media or something – they feel like this is a trap of sorts: This person wants to make me into a puppet. They’re “love bombing” me. But the nice person keeps on going as if they didn’t even notice.

Granted, a nice person will stop their praise if they are not encouraged to keep it coming; and nice people encourage niceness by returning compliments wherever they can. At least, they praise you for the praise: “That is such a nice thing to say, thank you, OMG, I am blushing.” To a suspicious person, this sounds like sarcasm, but with nice people, that’s the only way to take a compliment if it cannot be: “OMG, I know you! I love your channel, too, I’ve been a fan for years!” Nice people encourage niceties, and if they don’t get some back, they conclude that the other person doesn’t like them as much as they do, and they move on without feeling upset – a suspicious person thinks “they didn’t get attention, so they left.”

When the suspicious starts provoking the nice people.

Down the line, if the nice person just keeps being nice long enough, the suspicious person feels the tension being so high they have to start testing what’s the nice person’s angle. “WHAT DO THEY WANT?!” So they start provoking them, acting random stabby, suspicious, accusing them of random things to see what might stick or similar. It doesn’t really take the nice person long to decide, “Oh wow, they’re insane!” but to begin with, they try to make sure their words were received the way they were intended, to salvage their face as a nice or a good person. Especially online, they can’t leave a situation like that hanging; they have to address it at least to other nice people (unless their PR person has strictly advised them not to, so not to give trash talk wings, as the suspicious element will only react to a stick that hit (close) the mark, oddly enough: “I’m not a gold digger!!!”

However, the nice person will attempt to restore their reputation and salvage their image in front of a person they like, but it is very likely the suspicious person, especially one with a narcissistic streak rather than trauma caused by narcissists, will keep attacking them trying to see which one of these two is now “the boss” in this situation; in their view, this is now a boss fight. The rationale here is that if you’ve been sucking up to them being all nice, they think they’re superior in your mind, whereas nice people give encouragement to EVERYBODY, superior, inferior, equal, doesn’t matter. Least of all, they compliment their superiors, however. They encourage their inferiors and try to flatter the heck out of their equals. “Look, I see you; I see your worth. I see us being friends.” The problem is, the Normal Person* thinkers don’t understand equal relationships or how they work, they NEED a leader-follower dynamic, and they cannot settle down until they know who rules the rooster.

If the suspicious person doesn’t soon back up with apologies, the nice person will decide they’re insane and not worth being friends with. They are very difficult to provoke into an actual argument because they do not want to give anyone a reason to think they’re unfair, unjust, or unkind. They will go on far enough to make sure they’ve made every possible rational point, refrain from low blows, and retreat from the conversation and friendship, and more than likely block them from all communications. This, in turn, gives the suspicious person all the proof they need: “See, I knew they were shady… They left when they realized they couldn’t use me…!” To gain the suspicious person’s respect, a person needs to take some low blows, then apologize, agree they’re as shit as their opponent, and then bond through their failure of being a good person.

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