Friday, August 06, 2010

And the Miss Congeniality award goes to...

Me.



Wanna know my deepest, darkest secret?

I'm nice. To everyone. Well, I try to be nice to everyone. Even people who don't deserve it. Even people who aren't especially nice to me. And if I'm not nice nice, at least I'm not mean, I don't go out of my way to hurt people.

For reals, I am not cut out to be eeeeeevil.

Shocking, I know, but it's true. When I do or say something not-nice that might hurt someone, I almost always feel icky almost immediately.

For instance, if someone hurts me, like, really bad, like if someone purposely gives me a paper cut, one of those awful ones you get from manila folders, and then drips lemon juice on it, I would lash out and say or do something awful. Approximately thirty seconds afterward, I would feel like a jerk and do something nice to make amends. To the person who gave me a paper cut and put lemon juice on it.

What IS that?

Why can't I just be mean, period. Why can't I just tell them and their manila folder to fuck right off and then go get myself some frozen yogurt?

I've been like this my whole life.

But I'm trying to stop. Not stop being nice, because, really, that would be kind of an asshole move and aren't there enough assholes in the world (bluetooth wearers, I'm looking at you)? I'm going to try to stop countering meanness with meanness - because two wrongs don't make a right (but three lefts do...).

This doesn't mean that I'm just going to let people spritz their mean all over me like some cheap perfume sample in the mall and then walk away leaving me in a cloud of Chanel No. Jerk. I fully intend to call people out on their shit, but I'll do it in a nice(r) (or at least level-headed) way*. I'll say something like "That paper cut was kind of a dick move and the lemon juice was unnecessary. Maybe in the future, you'll think about why you want to hurt people before you hurt them. Now I'm going to go get some frozen yogurt, but I'm not inviting you to come with".

I'm not going to stop being nice because being nice makes me feel nice**, but maybe I'll just try to save most of my niceness - the niceness that says nice things and does nice things for no reason - for people who deserve it***.




*fingers crossed I can stop with the passive-aggressive ambien blogs about that shit

**or it makes me feel smug and superior about being on my high horse. Whatever

*** if anyone points out that the people who are the meanest probably need the niceness most, I will cut that person. But in a nice way, like with a REALLY sharp knife, so it won't hurt much and then I'll offer some antibiotic cream and a bandage. And a cookie.

Labels: "awesome" ends with "me", and I'm not even on Ambien