I'm nice. Fuck you if you don't like it.
Aug. 23rd, 2006 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhSo there's this thing I keep reading, where people say "So I'm not nice. I'm honest."
Not realizing that nice ≠ honest, I went looking at the antonyms for "honest" on dictionary.com:
deceitful, devious, dishonest, evasive, lying, shady, sneaky, under the table, underhand
Huh. So I looked for the antonyms for "nice":
mean, unlikable, unpleasant, disagreeable, discordant, distasteful, nasty, unacceptable
Well would you look at that. Apparently nice isn't the opposite of honest! I am all astonishment.
(note: nice also isn't the opposite of snarky. I can be sarcastic and still be nice. It's a talent.)
See, being not nice just means, well, being not nice. Being not nice doesn't make you smarter, or cooler, or more honest, or more "real," or a better person in general. It just means you're not nice. It means some people will like you more, and some people will be wary of you, because you are not nice. I personally am wary of people who are not nice because I'd rather not inadvertently find myself a target for their condescension. But I know some who are wary of nice people because they seem fake. And that's fine, too.
There's an undercurrent among fen, a worship of the misanthropic intellectual. I just want to point out that you can be an intellectual and like people, too.
Not realizing that nice ≠ honest, I went looking at the antonyms for "honest" on dictionary.com:
deceitful, devious, dishonest, evasive, lying, shady, sneaky, under the table, underhand
Huh. So I looked for the antonyms for "nice":
mean, unlikable, unpleasant, disagreeable, discordant, distasteful, nasty, unacceptable
Well would you look at that. Apparently nice isn't the opposite of honest! I am all astonishment.
(note: nice also isn't the opposite of snarky. I can be sarcastic and still be nice. It's a talent.)
See, being not nice just means, well, being not nice. Being not nice doesn't make you smarter, or cooler, or more honest, or more "real," or a better person in general. It just means you're not nice. It means some people will like you more, and some people will be wary of you, because you are not nice. I personally am wary of people who are not nice because I'd rather not inadvertently find myself a target for their condescension. But I know some who are wary of nice people because they seem fake. And that's fine, too.
There's an undercurrent among fen, a worship of the misanthropic intellectual. I just want to point out that you can be an intellectual and like people, too.
