Passive-Aggressively Nice

Why can being nice feel so bad sometimes? There is nothing more rewarding than doing something nice for someone and seeing that you’ve done a good deed. Unless you got sort of pressured into doing it.

There are times when I do thankless favors. I don’t ask for much but a “thank you”, but there are days when it seems it is all for naught. Things as simple as going to a family function when I feel out of place or when I brave a crowd when I feel out of place can be taxing. Sometimes you’re almost forced to do things you don’t want to do just because it is out of responsibility or even obligation (but not of your own choice).

You do things for your boss all the time, right? You make sure they have their coffee or do certain things that are not part of your job description because they ask you to. I get the feeling of obligation that it has to be done or else it will be deemed a blatant disregard for teamwork. I know I’m not the only one. Too many people complain about how much they hate their job to not feel the same way.

Stop trying to please everyone!

I’m all for doing favors if I’m given the choice to actually do them. Either you ask me and I do it willingly or you volunteer me before I can actually agree and then do it passive aggressively and hate doing it the whole time. I get like that. I will passive aggressively do a favor if I was pressured into doing it. I have been in these situations more often than I’d like but I tend to also have a problem saying “no”. Maybe I’m trying too hard to please everyone, but someone mentioned to me that not everyone will drop what they’re doing or sacrifice for me if I asked. I’m just not that kind of person. Maybe I should be. I should look deeper into making friends with people who will actually fight to the death give me a ride to the airport once in a while just by asking nicely.

It has been quite taxing on me the past few months when it comes to friendship. Those who I tend to say are my friends are, in fact, just acquaintances. I knew this, but I guess I was basking in the glory of hanging out with the cool kids, I forgot that you are quickly forgotten when you’re not around. It is nice when friends make plans with me and keep them. In order to please people, I put my anxiety and reservations aside, because I think I would want others to do the same for me. Sometimes, that isn’t always the case.

Okay, so you guys might not like me after this example because it is not a shining star of kindness, so bear with me…

I was recruited (without my knowledge) to cook for an event. It was brought to my attention about 2 or 3 days in advance that I would be making this dish and it dawned on me, “Why the fuck do I have to make this shit? Why volunteer a dish you’re not going to make it yourself?” and it made me bitter. I tend to take after my mother in some aspects of my bitter attitude. I’m extremely passive-aggressive, just like her, in doing favors when I have no desire to do it. Sadly, this was for my mom’s job and she had no idea how to make chili, yet she volunteered to do it, and then it was my job to make it. It stumped me that I had to do it. I appreciate her considering my cooking up to par to feed the people at her job, but it annoyed me so much that I had to do it. Even though I knew it a few days in advance it still didn’t have me excited to do it.

Aside: Okay, I get it, my mom works her tail off for a measly hourly wage at a thankless job so when she comes home she is angry and hateful because she is tired and unappreciated at work. She comes home, and before I came to live here, she did all the housework and cooking alone. I came, helped cook and clean and I was thanked only a handful of times. When she went on medical leave, I was required to take on a lot of the responsibilities of the house and while that was a necessary evil, it seemed never ending. Then she got spoiled. I was now expected to do everything. She worked, and I would cook and clean. When I got lazy and did nothing while I was home, she would come home, be upset and then toss and bang everything around to make it known that she hated her life. Then I would wonder why she was so angry.

Back to the point of this whole post…

I don’t always say no to my friends, but when it comes to family, I feel obligated and it doesn’t feel like a choice as much as it feels like a job. My mom has the right to come home to a clean house that smells like a home-cooked meal just because she has worked all her life and done it for me. Especially if I’m not doing shit all day. In my defense, I write to entertain the handful of bloggers that even find me interesting, so I’m doing something productive, right? But that probably doesn’t take up my whole day and I could probably do more with my time, but I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love cleaning my house and just maybe I miss doing it for my house, and this is not my house. Yeah, yeah. Tell me what you will, and my dad will probably read this and chew me out later about how this will always be my house and I should contribute… (I have my own issue with that, too) but it’s not my house. I don’t set my rules and after living on my own it seems so stupid to be where I am right now, but I digress. (I’m sure I will revisit that gripe later on in life.)

Anyway, it felt forced upon me to make this dish when it’s not even my job. I mean, as a parent I know there will be days when my kids will need me to bake cookies and shit for their classes. Or I will have to do some other type of thing for them where I will be obligated to do it because they are little and it’s for school and their whole class would hate them and they’ll be exiled to the other side of the cafeteria due to social ostracism. Okay, maybe not that serious but it would still be bad if I don’t come through for my kids. My whole issue was, I wasn’t asked. It was assumed. It was completely assumed I would make this dish that my mother volunteered to bring in for their work party. It made me more upset than flattered. First of all, I should have received a text that was somewhere along the lines of, “They are having an office party here. Chili is on the list of things to bring. You make good chili, so do you want to make it for me, please?” Anything along the lines of a request, and not the basic, “Hey, you’re making chili. What do you need for it?” would have sufficed. So imagine my (._. ) when I was told I was making it.

Long story already written, I made it. I don’t even know how I ended up making dinner myself after she said she would do it, and then we resolved to make the chili after she finished watching her shows. As I heard her snore in the next room, it was already 10:45 PM or so and I knew she would ask if it was already done… I told her how to make it, and she said, “Oh, that’s easy! I’ll do it then” and when she walked out after maybe an hour and walks into the kitchen and looks at the empty pot, “Oh did you make the thing already?” I became livid.

Why did that make me so mad? You want to know why? Because after she said she would make it, she automatically assumed I would crumble under the pressure of her being so tired and miserable and having fallen asleep that I would just take it upon myself to do it. Nope. But when she came out to the disappointment, I just stomped into the kitchen and started making it, all because I knew she would talk shit.

Fuck.

I ignored everyone, and with a scowl on my face, I stuck my blue tooth headphones in, played some Krewella and happily (because I told the world to shut the hell up and only heard drops and kicks) cut vegetables and began cooking. She came out and tried to stir the meat for me, I just growled at her, “Just get away. I got it.”

I was being passive-aggressively nice about making that damn chili. I’m sure my mom will come home and say, they liked it or hated it, but she will probably thank me today. One can only hope that she will. I know she is my mom and I probably should do as I’m told, but it is still nice to be asked if I want to or at least be asked to show her how to make it so she wouldn’t have to ask me to do it again. In the meantime, I should probably work on saying no once in a while because it isn’t life or death for me to do certain things. I am not going to be less liked because I put my foot down and say no once in a while and anyone who will hold that against me are probably just using me to begin with.

I guess I am still figuring out the difference of who is worth being nice to and who isn’t. Not everyone deserves to get anything from me, even if it is just my company if I don’t feel like it. Sometimes, being nice really sucks. It doesn’t make you feel any better, and for me, it’s not because I want something in return. I don’t expect anything. I am kind to strangers on a normal basis if I have extra to give, but sometimes it feels like friends are only friends when you need them. I will continue to be nice because that’s who I am, but I just hope that one day I use it all up and become a selfish bitch who cares about no one because no one cared when I needed someone to be nice.

That would be tragic.