This sounds cheesy but I can remember back in first grade when I made the conscious decision to be a good person. Fight the eyeroll, I'm going somewhere with this. It wasn't that I had a deep realization about the nature of good and evil at age 7 or something, it was way simpler than that. I was bullied from almost the moment I started school and I made that decision after looking at my bullies and simply deciding that being good meant not being like them. I've tried to live that ideal since and it's carried with me to this day. I still believe that aside from an unfortunate minority, most people strive to be good and do good within their means, even if we don't always agree on the methods or philosophies.
As I've gotten older though and started to put real work into my own mental health, I've also had the sad realization that you can indeed be too nice. It's something I didn't accept for a long time and of all the issues I'm working on, it's among those I still struggle with the most.
Due to my insecurites from the aforementioned bullying and also spending much of my childhood walking on eggshells at home and with certain teachers and friends as well, my personality adopted the trait known as "people pleaser". This article explains the idea well, aside from the bit about Meyers-Briggs pseudo science, just ignore that. The basics are that you become obsessed not so much with everyone liking you but with no one disliking you. To avoid negative perception from others, you go out of your way to help people, often at great personal sacrifice. What's wrong with that you might ask? On the surface, nothing at all. We should strive to help others, sometimes that takes extraordinary effort and indeed, today's broken society would be much better off if we collectively thought of others more often.
Where things break down is when you lose balance and start to harm your own well being by trying to do the best you can for everyone all the time. This is impossible but you try to defy physics anyway. You get so focused on others that you neglect your own needs. You may find yourself going the extra mile for people who don't appreciate it or even expect it as a core part of your relationship. You may be getting taken advantage of by people who don't really care about you beyond what you provide and will discard you once you stop being useful. This can be a boss, friend, family member or any number of others. Hell, I've even felt guilty for pushing back when I get terrible customer service (which as we all know, is just the baseline now) from some outsourced rep in a chat box. Even when I have every right to be frustrated, I find myself obsessing about what this person half a world away that I'll never speak to again might think of me.
Worse, you may often realize all of this. You know some treat you unfairly. You know that self-care is not selfish. You know that some bad people are taking advantage of your good nature. You know that some of them are trashing you behind your back. And you resent yourself for still going out of your way for them. It all gets pushed aside though because come on, what are you going to do, say no?! "But I need them to not hate me!" I can list out dozens of examples of this from my own life and if you suffer from this problem, you can too. I've had a ton of friendships, romantic and other relationships going back to childhood that I should have ended well before they did and didn't because I didn't have the guts to call them out when they turned toxic. Maybe this is why I tend to have such a kinship with animals and always need pets in my life. They don't judge and just love you as long as you give them the bare necessities and love them back.
People pleaser traits often cohabitate with a lack of assertiveness. For the same basic reasons, you often don't speak up, argue or push back, even when you know you're right. This builds up bitterness and resentment and inevitably, the pot boils over and you end up overreacting on something that probably didn't call for it. This causes a sudden unplanned spike in the negative perception you obsess about avoiding and makes you want to speak up even less, putting a tighter lid on the pot that will blow off more strongly next time. You get suddenly labelled as opinionated or quick to anger because it's so out of character, which it actually isn't, people just aren't used to seeing it from you.
That last point is the one I've found myself the most frustrated with. In any number of communities, friend groups or employers, I've seen people who are combinations of outspoken, opinionated, loud, abrasive, acerbic, arrogant and sometimes just outright dicks. Yet somehow many of them also have generally good reputations and are sometimes celebrated for "telling it like it is" or some variant. The second I even veer into that territory to defend a point though? I'm being "difficult" or "argumentative" or asked "Where is this coming from?" or "Why are you so angry all of a sudden?", even when I'm not angry. The same thing happens when you're known for bending over backwards for everyone and then decide to scale back because you've been neglecting yourself. "Why have you stopped trying with people?", "You used to be so helpful." or worst of all, "When did you start being so selfish?"
About a month ago, I was chatting with a group of friends about the sad state of the world and mentioned that while I'm still very concerned and frustrated by how things are going, I've learned to not let negativity about it cloud my entire day and other aspects of my life. Basically, not letting things I can't control become permanent intrusive thoughts. Anyone who knows me and pays attention has seen this.
The first response was "Have you seen your blog posts?" Never mind that it's literally called Geek Bravado, that it's stated purpose is to be an outlet for my strongly voiced opinions, that most of the things I complain about I at least try to offer an alternative idea or two for or that this place is still outright tame compared to larger, much more influential blogs (Where's Your Ed At is great by the way) or gods forbid, social media. In the remainder of that short conversation, it was implied that I just bitch for the sake of bitching.
I could and should have pointed out how these people were all in glass houses and most of them don't even read my posts but of course, I didn't because "Don't rock the boat, even though you're right."
It ends up coming down to cold expectations management. People less concerned with pleasing others can still have great reputations because their behaviours are their expected baseline. Not couching things in apologies and knowing how to say no and stand up for yourself are good qualities in moderation but those last two words are key. Being too negative is unappealing but so too is the perception of being too agreeable or too willing to step up unprompted and then going against that when you've had enough. The baseline you establish for what people think you should do is as important as what you actually do, moreso in some cases.
Realizing this is when it clicked for me there is indeed such a thing as "being too nice" and in all honesty, it's been one of the bigger struggles I've faced in trying to better align my own mental health and come to terms with the way my neuroatypical brain works.
When you've spent your life trying to put what good into the world you can and being taught you get what you give, only to realize later that you often won't and can actually be thought worse of for it sometimes, that really hurts. It challenges what you thought you knew about the good in people and how much easier it could be in many ways to just be cynical and treat everyone like they're an enemy who hasn't turned on you yet.
I unfortunately couldn't find links for this but I remember when Markus "Notch" Persson sold Minecraft to Microsoft in 2014 and became a multi-billionaire overnight. Prior, he was known as a pretty positive, amicable guy who had only the occasional faux pas for someone who became as overnight famous as he did. After selling, he quickly became reclusive, abrasive and started speaking against the dominant political narrative of the time, seemingly looking for controversies to barge into. He suddenly went from being the golden child of indie games to an example of another out of touch rich white guy who resented the people who got him there. Meanwhile, far more toxic personalities like Phil Fish, Tommy Refenes and Zoe Quinn continued to be celebrated.
I then read what many in Notch's orbit did after he got rich. Despite largely building Minecraft by himself, he eventually built a small team for it. He claimed that he gave those team members generous payouts relative to their contributions. Millions, more than enough for them to never need to work again. He also supposedly gave a lot to his family and friends. He tried to share some of his windfall with those close to him, as I like to think I would have too.
He also claimed that many of those people turned around and called him greedy and selfish because he only gifted them generational wealth instead of multi-generational wealth and that his circle of trust collapsed as those he thought had his back felt entitled to more for nothing. The games press that loved him right until then also flipped because now that he was rich, it meant he had to be a villain and drama drives clicks.
If you see him written about today, it's largely not because of the galactic contribution he made to the gaming medium or the legion of young creators he inspired but because he became a right-wing hermit. No one questions why that might be or how that can happen when everyone you care about betrays your trust for the crime of being too successful. I mean, who's going to click on that, right?
This is all anecdotal but it would certainly explain his sudden change in personality and why if true, I still see him as more of a sympathetic figure. I don't agree with many of his recent takes but I can see why one would turn inward like that after such betrayal. Being rich doesn't mean you should be alone and not cared for.
I've had many an intrusive thought about going full cynic, only looking out for number one and just treating every relationship as transactional. In some ways, it would probably be easier to not have empathy in the way. I've resisted going down that path, even at my lowest point and I'm proud of myself for that. I'm not convinced I've had a greater share of negative people in my life than anyone else. I think I just wasn't good at realizing who they were and getting away from them sooner. Being accepted and feeling wanted is amazing, erspecially when you were an awkward and painfully shy young person who didn't make friends easily. Hell, making friends is even harder as an adult whether you're awkward or not.
What I have done in recent years is construct a makeshift defense that allows me to stay open-minded about new people and their intentions while also setting and enforcing boundaries. When you first meet me, I assume the best and even if others have tried to warn me about you first, I'll at least give you the benefit of the doubt. But if you betray my trust or exhibit signs of being a toxic influence, I will drop you on the spot. I'll still feel guilty about it but I will push that to the side to avoid falling into another trap. The longer I know you for, the bigger that benefit of the doubt becomes. For some, it's very large indeed but no one is above it entirely. It unfortunately took me ending several long-standing friendships and even my relationship with my Dad over the years to get this right. It's a far from perfect system I'm still tuning it but it keeps getting better. Really, I think this is just a natural skill for most people that I just never developed properly.
As I said in the first story breakout above, I try to end most posts like this with ideas or alternatives to be helpful. The truth is, I don't have sure fire answers for this one. This has been a life-long problem and after a long time trying, I made a patchwork system that kind of works for me but I'm not convinced it's the ideal one. I'm fortunate enough that I can now afford regular therapy and I continue to use that to help me find a better path.
If you read this and feel you share the struggle, leave a comment or DM me on Discord or Bluesky and I'm happy to try to offer some advice (there I go again but remember, boundaries!) What I will tell you dear reader is this: Resist the urge to think the worst of everyone. It's hard sometimes, especially when we see the amoral sociopaths who are increasingly in charge but it's important. You may have struggled more than most to find good people who love and respect you but they are out there. I know because I have several of them in my own orbit. Don't be afraid to ask people to work for your trust but don't be afraid to offer it either or put in effort for those that deserve it. The world may look like a place where being cynical is the safest bet but outside the echo chambers of news and social media, most people are good and want to do the best they can. I still truly believe that and I think if more of us hold that belief close, we'll find there is still more that unites us than divides us.
Good luck, we got this! 💪
