Stereotyped as “nice”

My journals have helped me get some perspective on an aspect of my personality that I’ve often disparaged: I’m not a natural at self-promoting and competing in a public setting or a career setting. I cooperate easily rather than fighting for my own agenda. In fact, I forget NOT to cooperate.

Stereotyped as “nice,” I have often been overrun by more assertive, competitive, or aggressive people. It has been easy to see this as my fault. But what’s really behind that choice? That choice I always seem to make, to cooperate, to defer to others, and to explain myself.

Reading my journals from grade school through adulthood and middle age, I can see that it started as a way to protect myself from outright bullying. I couldn’t hide my vulnerability, so I would be as nice as possible in hopes that people would be nice to me. Cooperating helped me avoid unwanted attention from teachers and, later, managers. Friends tried to coach me to be more aggressive, but they couldn’t see the total exposed vulnerability I still felt.

Journal entry, January 28, 1992 — In the past couple of weeks I’ve seen some examples of ways I behave as though I don’t deserve to get my needs met. I’ve seen myself let people walk away, literally or figuratively, when I actually wanted something from them. I seem to be able to reach out once for whatever I want, and once only. I don’t stand up for it. I don’t let on that it’s a problem. Half the time I do get my need met at someone else’s minuscule sacrifice, and I find myself apologizing! That’s silly because in those instances it’s either me or them. It’s a normal situation with no need for an apology.

I was twenty-seven at the time.