Why do I hate it when people are nice to me?

Maybe you want to believe all people are assholes and this threatens your world view.

Take a look at how you view yourself in the world. You really are worthy of being treated with dignity and respect!

I think I know what you mean.

Our social niceties are especially useful at our first encounters to make it clear that there’s no threat, and to establish an atmosphere of trust. But once that’s done, you want to be able to move beyond the social kabuki and relax enough to respond naturally. All of those layers of nicety can feel like a barrier to intimacy if they’re kept in place too long.

That doesn’t mean that you then start being assholes with each other. You just stop trying to be so circumspect in your interactions, with the mutual understanding that you can trust each other.

My son’s girlfriend is Japanese, and her interactions with me have a very scripted, extremely polite character to them, even though we’ve known each other for quite awhile. It’s not just respect; it’s as though no negativity or anything less than cheerful enthusiasm should be allowed to surface. I keep wishing that things could finally get real. I’d love to finally have an argument with her.

Perhaps your self esteem is so low that anything he says to you feels like a lie.

Because you know that all people are arseholes, and you realise that their niceness is a facade and that they are all lying to you.

Too nice can sometimes feel stifling, smothering, or not allowing us to do things for ourselves. I don’t know if that is the case for you.

Some women like “bad boys” because they feel mysterious, challenging, and make us feel wanted, sexy and beautiful. If the case is you want people to treat you badly because then you feel more desire for them, that is a problem in my opinion. But, you did not say this is a love interest, so I don’t know if that applies.

Sometimes it is simply you were not raised with your family behaving so extremely and feels awkward.

I think it might mean that you have a self-esteem issue. Perhaps you don’t think you deserve kindness. You have to love yourself first.

Only you can look inside of yourself and try to understand why it is “off-putting”. Try to put that feeling into words. I think sentence completion exercises are good for this.
For example: When I meet someone new and they are especially nice to me it makes me think_____

When people are always nice it makes me think________

I hate it when people are nice to me because________

treat people the way you want to be treated

I get the idea for sentence completion from Nathaniel Brandon. He has written a lot about self esteem.
Here are some more examples from his website:
If I am more accepting of my desire to be liked…
If I deny and disown my desire to be liked…
If I learn to manage my desire for approval…
If I can acknowledge my desire for approval without being controlled by it…
If I want to translate these ideas into action…

You might be surprised to learn that you have the answers to many things you don’t understand about yourself if you are simply willing to ask yourself some questions and answer honestly. Don’t over think it. It is often the first answer that jumps to your mind which is the truest and deepest.

There is much more to read about on Brandon’s website . I happen to think he’s phenomenally underrated.

Thank you for your thoughts everyone! I think @JLeslie hit it- it feels like I’m being smothered. It may very well be a self esteem issue, but I don’t mind when other people are nice to me. I’m also pretty arrogant so I don’t really know.

Why don’t you ask a real fucking question and stop boring us with this tripe.
Okay, now that we are friends, I can confide in you that I feel the same way about phoniness. The trick is to recognize when someone actually cares about people they don’t know. They are the best.

@filmfann I see how you did that. :)

Could be a trust problem. When people are too nice it could also be a sign of a hidden conflict.

Maybe you do not think that you deserve it. But I guess you do!