Nice Guys Finish Last

Ever had that experience when you feel highly altruistic and act like the nicest person around. Then how does this universe react to this positive energy? It presses the unbless button and sends negativity your way. Naturally at this point you regret being nice. It’s like your positivity is a beacon bringing out the worst in people. But you still won’t stop acting nice. Why is that though?

Is it because when being kind, people assume they can take advantage of you? Use you as a stepping stone? Step all over you? Lay the foundational core of their building on your building block, and you still won’t bat an eye? Is that where the term “nice guys finish last” comes from? Is this the collective takeaway of scores of genuine sweethearts out there over the years?

Over the years, we don’t know. But we surely know some nice guys out there, and what we know about them is nothing. So, we just asked them to reiterate their experiences. We started with an ‘average Joe’ and his experiences. This marketing exec has an all-round bubbly, happy go lucky personality. So how has that fared for him? “Not too great”, he said. He recalled one experience, in particular, that shook his faith in ‘the power of positivity’.

“Throughout college and university, I had this great friend. She was like a baby sister for me and even my family had practically adopted her. She was going through some boy troubles and like the good bro that I am, I asked her ‘what’s wrong and how can I make it better’. While she downplayed her situation, she later decided we can no longer be friends. Apparently, her man thought my ‘nice guy act’ was a cover to pursue her. So, to save her relationship she cut me off. At that moment I really wanted to stop being so darn nice. However, I wasn’t going to give them that power…. To take my optimism and positivity away.”

This raises the question. Did some bhayya out there just invent the phrase ‘nice guys finish last’ to deter people from being nice and making it glaringly obvious what little effort these budhus are putting in? Potentially yes. As a doctor recalled how people would mistake his kindness for a lack of assertiveness. They’ll poke the bear assuming ‘it won’t do anything’ until the nice guy showed them his assertive side. They’re surprised when a nice guy enforces their own boundaries.

“People always step on you when you show them a nice face. Every time I am smiling and funny. So, they just unilaterally decide the arrangements/boundaries without asking. Then be upset that I treated them the way they treat me.”

Another guy (with progressive hearing loss) had this to say regarding their humble outlook towards life. He learnt quickly that you catch more flies with honey, and in a world that is stacked against the handicapped, sweet-talk is a means to survival. People with physical disabilities are generally nice, simply because the world has not been handed to them on a silver platter. Be it applying for a job or going to a government office to get a hold of documents, just being a decent human being works. Of course, you will meet your fair share of bullies in your life, some of whom you will have to teach their place (the schoolyard variety) and some that you have to put up with (an insecure coworker). But that’s life.”

But that’s not the only way to live a life, is it? This way, if not anything else, is not sustainable. You act humble with them, and they take you for granted, you don’t, and now you’re rude, prude, proud, ignorant, arrogant, stubborn, aka the bad guy. Well, the nice guy waits, and waiting demands patience. With great patience, comes great power of withholding, withholding expression, withholding ideas, withholding yourself, to the point of letting go.

The nice guy syndrome comes with a built-in feature of understanding, and understanding, my amigos, is not the best thing to do, not if you’re to survive in this world. Whatever you do in your life, just don’t ever be the nice guy, because my friend, why be the nice guy, and suffer, and call your suffering as learning, when you can actually be the bad guy, and maybe suffer less, and suffice more.