Keeping my own needs to myself left me feeling resentful and exhausted (Picture: Sophie Jo)
As I peeled pieces of lukewarm ham off my pizza, I wondered how it had got to this point.
I was with friends: Love Island playing on the TV, plates of Domino’s on our laps.
These friends had suggested ordering two meat-laden pizzas to share, and the thought of making things difficult by floating the possibility of a plain old margherita was too much for me.
I was a vegetarian, sure, but I was a people-pleaser first and foremost. So… I’d agreed.
The rest of the evening was a blur. I felt angry – partly with them, because good friends should remember long standing dietary preferences. But mostly, I was angry with myself.
Why hadn’t I said something? Why hadn’t I pushed back – reminded them that I didn’t enjoy eating small, processed pieces of pig? It felt like a very reasonable thing to say, upon reflection.
But I’d been so keen to come across as easy-going that I’d ended up frozen. I’d let myself down. Yet again, I realised bitterly, I’d been too nice.
This ‘nice girl’ persona was a constant throughout my teens and twenties. When I say ‘nice’, I don’t mean ‘kind’ or ‘generous’. I think nice girls can be kind and generous, and I have a good helping of those traits.
But there’s a difference there.
Here’s my view: kindness is authentic. Kindness will sometimes involve saying no.
Niceness, on the other hand, is going along with what everyone else wants and hoping they’ll accept you as a result. And this was the quality I embodied.
My niceness came out in different ways. With friends and acquaintances, I felt a need to be the amenable one. I’d be the lift-giver, the one who’d travel the furthest, the one who’d end up paying the most when the food bill was split and we were somehow down a fiver.
I’d say yes to every social event, even the ones I knew would completely overload my calendar. ‘No worries!’ was my catchphrase. ‘It’s fine!’
Being palatable to everybody isn’t really worth anything (Picture: Sophie Jo)
In reality, there were many worries, and it was far from fine. Keeping my own needs to myself left me feeling resentful and exhausted.
Dating was difficult, too – I’d often end up sticking around in cafes for hours, nodding along to stories I had no real interest in. It felt rude to leave, so I didn’t. I wasn’t trying to be fake – I just never realised I had the power to end a social event. I never realised ‘I’m not enjoying this’ was a good enough reason to exit.
When you’re the nice one, you’re like a beacon to people who want to talk about themselves. I became an agony aunt to strangers on the bus, an unpaid therapist to the office over-sharer.
Through the wonders of the internet I ended up with a Belgian pen-pal, who started as a Twitter acquaintance, but quickly moved to sending me three-page handwritten recaps of her week. I would often wonder why I knew so much about people who knew absolutely nothing about me.
Over time, the message I received from the world was: you’re here to make things easy for people. That is your role in life. And in some ways, that was an acceptable role to have.
I didn’t feel respected, but I felt loosely valuable. My worth was in being flexible. The girl who was always there to help. The girl who never made demands and was therefore palatable to everybody.
But being palatable to everybody isn’t really worth anything. For me, it meant I was holding back important parts of myself: my genuine, instinctive responses to everyday life. I was trying so hard to be nice – to be perfect – that I was rarely being honest.
The 2020 lockdown was a lightbulb moment for me. As I got used to a life without the normal pressure of social events, I tried to pay close attention to who and what I missed and to notice the difference between the things I really cherished and what I’d just gone along with in the past.
I knew that there were people in my life who I had authentic connections with – kind friends who laughed at my jokes, understood my quirks and were happy to meet me halfway, both metaphorically and literally. It became important to dedicate more of my time to them.
For me, life is quieter in some ways now (Picture: Sophie Jo)
Therapy’s been a real help for me, too – it was only when I got to the root cause of my niceness that I was able to start making changes. I realised I’d been going through life trying to get everyone to like me. But now, in my 30s, the more important question is whether I like them.
I started small: turning down social events that didn’t interest me or that I was too busy to attend. Sharing my opinion. Only dedicating emotional energy to the people I genuinely cared about and who genuinely cared about me. This was difficult to begin with, and I regularly felt guilty. But I quickly realised: it’s actually kinder to be upfront.
Some people won’t get it – and as a recovering people-pleaser, it can be difficult to sit with that. The ones who are used to you making everything easier for them will often be the ones who don’t like it when you refuse to play that role anymore.
But that’s OK. It opens you up to the people who do want to see you thrive and grow.
For me, life is quieter in some ways now. I no longer have social plans every day of the week. My friendship circle has shrunk a little. I’m more than happy to say no when needed, so that I can say a very enthusiastic yes at other times.
I’ve finally decided that I deserve the same care I used to give out to everyone else. That feels like the nicest thing ever.
Sophie Jo is the author of Young Adult fiction novel The Nicest Girl (age 12+) – it tells the story of 17-year-old people-pleaser Anna Campbell, who decides she’s sick of being ‘too nice’ and vows to do something about it.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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‘No worries!’ was my catchphrase. ‘It’s fine!’