Stephen Wolf wrote: > > Hi, I have a minor problem that I've been wrestling with and I need > some advice from people who have dealt with the same thing. The > problem is that I have no close friends whatsoever. Zero. Zilch. > Nada. <snip> > Every day I see people I courteously say hi to, and talk to once in a > while but it never goes from "acquaintance" to "real friends" (even though > they refer to me as a friend). That's just the problem. I have like > dozens and dozens of "acquaintances" and zero "friends". Sometimes I > think I'm so polite and courteous around people that they treat me > more like an uncle than as their peer. Any suggestions (from people who > actually read through all this) ?
The problem - in a nutshell (from one whose been there) is your insufferable 'nicety'. 'Nice' (i.e. courteous, deferential, non-asserive, non-confrontational etc.) doesn't cut it - at least not for the long all. For the real relationships that really count. People - many anyway -- now understand and recognize that 'nice' is often a cover for displaced aggression and hostility. Aggression and hostility that cannot emerge through normal channels (especially in a neurotic, aggressive-phobic society) but which then materializes in unhealthy ways.
As Drs. George R. Bach and Herb Goldberg note in their sterling book 'Creative Aggression'(p. 23):
"Nice behavior eventually has a price, for both the 'nice guy' and the person or persons involved with him. It is alienating, indirectly hostile, and self-destructive because:
- the 'nice guy' tends to create an atmosphere such that others avoid giving him honest, genuine feedback. This blocks his emotional growth.
- 'Nice' behavior will ultimately be distrusted by others. That is, it generates a sense of uncertainty and lack of safety in others, who can never be sure if they will be supported by the 'nice guy' in a crisis situation that requires an aggressive confrontation with others.
- 'Nice guys' stifle the growth of others. They avoid giving others genuine feedback, and they deprive others of a real person to assert against. This tends to force others in the relationship to turn their agression against themelves. It also tends to generate guilt and depressed feelings in others who are intimately involved and dependent on him.
- Because of his chronic 'niceness', others can never be certain if the relationship with a 'nice guy' could endure a conflict or sustain an angry confrontation, if it did occur spontaneously. This places great limits on the potential extent of intimacy in the relationship by placing others constantly on their guard.
- 'Nice' behavior is not reliable. Periodically, the 'nice' person explodes in unexpected rage and those involved with him are shocked and unprepared to cope with it.
- The 'nice guy', by holding his aggression in, may pay a physiological price in the form of psychosomatic problems, and a psychological price in the form of alienation.
- 'Nice' behavior is emotionally unreal behavior. It puts severe restrictions on all relationships, and the ultimate victim is the 'nice' person himself."
So, the bottom line is cease and desist with the 'nicety' already. The best friendship I ever had - and the longest lasting, was based on an initial altercation (near fight) over a girl we were both dating. From then, we happily traded insults at each other - building a rapport from that. We got our aggressions out openly, honestly, and constructively, without hiding them - or turning them into sterile postures of 'nice'. At the core of that insult trading, was a level of mutual respect, and appreciation for the honest demonstration of each other's *constructive* aggression.
This is the key, and no one pretends it is easy. Certainly not today, when trying to adopt a phony 'cool' posterior is the rule and contributes to the phoney-baloney aggressive-phobic posturing we see all around. No one wants to even appear confrontational, at the risk of being seen as 'emotionally unstable' or some claptrap - when the exact opposite is the truth. That is, the one who continuously represses all his aggressive instincts, in subservience to the needs of others, merely drives them underground so they appear in unhealthy ways (i.e. getting depressed, headaches, sexual dysfunction, drinking or other addictions).
Make your friends - you can do it. But 'get real' when you do. Leave Mr. 'Nice Guy' at home. (P.S. you will also get more girls that way do - since real girls/women don't 'do nice' - they want red-blooded, three dimensional men, not 'momma's boys' & 'yes men')
-- "The first truth is that liberty is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than that of their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt.