Am I Too Nice?

Dear Madame Toujours,

All my life I have been told by my mother, my Sunday school teachers, and my Barbie dolls that nobody will love me unless I am nice. There's that whole "forgive your enemies" thing to start with. Then there's that stuff about sugar and spice. And then just in case I didn't get the point, along comes herpes. Suddenly, it isn't even safe to get wild and reckless on Friday nights.

So I have gone through thirty years of being nice, and so far as I can see, it has netted me exactly nothing. Guys dump me after a couple weeks of walking all over me. I haven't had a raise at work in ten years even though I'm always the one offering to do the little extras that keep the office running.

I look around and see plenty of women who are outright tin-plated bitches, and even though they are horrible people that I wouldn't allow in my rowboat if this were the biblical flood, they seem to get everything they want in life (actually, I would let them in my rowboat even though I would be miserable about it the whole time because, doggone it, I am nice).

Look, I'm not in it for the rewards. I don't expect to get rewards for being nice. I know that's not the point, but can't I be nice without feeling like a marshmallow?

Sincerely,

Too Nice

Chere Mlle. Nice,

Oui, you are noticing the important truth about la chienne. The bitch, she is having the forcefulness to be insisting to get what she is wanting, and everybody else, they can be going to the dogs for all she is caring about.

Unfortunately, as you are noticing, this is the very distasteful person. This is the person who is always lording herself over the persons who are weaker and taking the advantages of them. Eh bien, she is always making everybody miserable, and complaining about how she is never getting what she is deserving. Usually, she is supposing that she is deserving to be admired and respected and to have many nice things.

However, you are not being doomed to crawl around like the cringing lapdog for the rest of the life. The goal for you, it is to transcend both the nice girl and the bitch and become La Chienne Superieure. The alpha bitch, she is the strong one. She is the one who is guiding everybody and teaching the little puppies and defending them from the bears and the tigers. She is not the selfish one who is only wanting to be admired and feared and to have all of the tasty rabbits and field mice to eat. She is ferocious for the benefits of the pack.

Bon Chance, Mlle. Nice. I am thinking you will find that when it is not for yourself but for the helpless ones who are not protecting themselves, you will be finding that the inner Chienne Superieure, she is waiting just under the skin.