Making Nice

I have read a fair amount in recent times about a staple of mens' profiles on dating websites. Many men avow that they are nice, and frequently bemoan their paucity of success with women. A perusal of all the materials that constitute their profile commonly reveals that they are not nice at all, but are in fact the worst sort of man. This seems to hold true rather consistently, to the extent that women would be well advised to avoid any man who believes himself nice.

You will never here me seriously lay claim to being nice. I just don't see that as true. The most I will say is that I try to be nice and struggle at it. I am sporadically successful, but not enough that I would regard it as a defining trait. I will allow that I am generally civil, although whether this is due to my reluctance to confront or a truly civil spirit I can hardly venture to guess. I'm certainly no behavioral psychologist, if in fact that is who would be qualified to say.

Whatever the case is there, I don't think I'm nice. I may behave in a civil manner, but in my heart I often feel rather mean-spirited, cold and callous. I am able to hold back the bulk of what is bad, but it is there. While writing jokes, I discard many which I believe to be too cruel. I share some among close friends, but find sometimes that they do not meet with much approval. I also feel this meanness outside of humor.

Were I to be more free with what I think, I wonder how I would be received. I rather suspect that there could be some alteration in the landscape of my friends, although it must be true that each of us represses enough of a darker nature that it would heavily impact the opinions of others. I don't mean to say that I'm special on account of all this. Many people are like me in this respect, and some people are truly nice, but I don't think they claim they are.