Nice-ness

First off, this is not an epiphany of any sort for me. It is insomnia—when I started this—at its best combined with my lacking of sense of time—when I finished this. Also, I wanted to write something meaningful... to balance out my last, fairly pointless post.

Let's ask ourselves a question:

Generosity: Where is the limit?

This goes by many terms. Considerate. Helpful. Reliable. Giving. Compassionate. Chivalrous. Well-meant. Good-willed. Benevolent. Let's not forget nice.

Who is nice and who is too nice? Where is the fine line that nearly all the nice people cross? Where is this limit? Do a good deed here and there, and everyone—the do-gooder and the beneficiary—is satisfied. Do too many good deeds on a constant basis—necessary or unnecessary—and some people take it for granted, take advantage, or even take offense. How do we know when to stop being generous? In fact, how do we stop at all?

The problem comes down to personality. Observe the people around us in our lives. These people can be family members, the best of friends, lunch mates, co-workers, mere acquaintances, or complete strangers. Who do we know, from just observations, that are genuinely nice? Who are the ones pretending to be nice just to expect favors in return? Who are the ones who cannot possibly care about anything regarding themselves?

Recently, at the dining hall just a couple of minutes walk from where I live, I caught sight of a girl who was holding several notebooks and a textbook in her arms while carrying a tray full of food towards the cash register. I could tell she was struggling to keep her books from slipping through her arms while holding her breath, praying that she does not flip over her entire tray of food in the process of her balancing act. Before anything else happened within the subsequent moments, another girl (to the best of my memory) donned in a light jacket, small handbag slung around her shoulder, who happened to be on her way out of the dining hall decided to stop dead in her tracks to help her peer. From the thirty seconds I spent curiously watching, any connection at all between the two girls seemed imaginary. These two have probably never seen each other in their lives, yet one decided to help without hesitation, while the other one graciously accepted and declared her gratitudes at the end of the episode. Thirty seconds: the girl with the tray pays with her card, the rescue girl leaves her beneficiary's books on a vacant table, I resume picking out my mid-afternoon meal, the rescue girl proceeds towards her slightly delayed exit, and the girl-no-longer-in-need-of-aid sat down to enjoy her unproblematic lunch.

This was true generosity, governed solely by personality. Such acts are appreciated. Why? For some reason, the human brain has been programmed to accept simple favors that were not asked for when subconsciously they wish someone would do them such a favor. Take the above situation, for instance. When I saw the girl struggling with her tray and books, there was no doubt in my mind that she would like someone to assist her, whether or not she was actively wishing for the occurrence.

Conversely, the girl who entered the scene readily helping is far more difficult to understand. Did she help simply because she caught the sight of someone clearly needing help? Is it because she was raised since childhood to be kind and giving to others? Did she only help because she did not want to see splattered food and drinks all over the dining hall floors? My money's on the notion that she helped simply because she wanted to. Gut feeling. Besides, she departed right after donating the half-minute's worth of time, and chances are that the two girls will never meet again... or if they do, not remember the faces or the occasion. Count chivalry out for that scenario. Had it been a male coming to the rescue, the legitimacy of the "nice-ness" could be questioned. We can talk about that later.

Also, we have too nice, on top of the nice nice. At one point—and this happens all the time, pretty much to a good majority of everyday people—we become so giving and so generous, that it becomes smothering. Here's the keyword: smothering. Eventually, the worst outcome is that the beneficiary starts to take the compassion for granted, in addition to taking advantage of Mr. Nice Guy or Ms. Nice Girl. The overly nice get trampled, an unfortunate payment for their generosities. Typically, this happens when emotions such as, infatuation, pity, or loneliness come into effect. When one becomes enamored with another, the yearn to give—and supposedly—make the other "happy," is sometimes hard to hold back. When one feels a great sense of pity to a peer, the need to shelter, or in turn, "smother," the other becomes instinctual. Finally, when one is struck by the pains of loneliness, there is no peculiarity in trying to gain others' attentions by acting inappropriately good-willed and generous, with the subconscious hope of being noticed and attended to.

Now take into consideration the true generosity, governed by one's personality. For the lack of better words, a truly nice person only comes to the aid on occasion... or in other words, "When he/she feels like it." Of course, this is given that the person does not spend the remainder of his or her time scheming against others, inflicting harm, etc. Take these hypothetical situations into mind:

• Scene One: Two friends (combination of genders can be disregarded here, but let's just use two males for simplicity) are studying in the on-campus library. They have been there for quite some time, trying their best to prepare for the upcoming finals. The late hours approach, but they had no plans on returning to their respective dorms to turn in for the night. One of the friends gets up from his chair and pointed out that he wanted some coffee. Without any other thought, he asks if his friend wanted any as well. "Sure," was the response and his friend also stands up. "No, I'll go. Just stay there," the first one added before heading out and down the halls.
  
• Scene Two: Two friends (male-female combination) are enjoying a crisp Spring afternoon somewhere outdoors. Something in the man's head clicked before and, without second thoughts, he can do or will do any of the following for the ensuing hours: refusal to let the woman pay for anything, including food, drinks, transportation, etc., spontaneous treatment of material goods, dished out compliments by the truckload, and/or did constant favors without thinking about whether or not the woman could have done them herself.

Very possible scenarios. Many people have been through one or the other, or even both situations. Many people played the certain roles I've listed or took part in witnessing such situations unfold. Scene One was obviously an example of real generosity, governed by the giver's personality, while Scene Two was an example of illegitimate benevolence, governed by the giver's clouded emotions. Now let's alter the scenes a bit:

• Scene One, v2: The same two friends are studying in the on-campus library, trying their best to prepare for the upcoming finals. The late hours approach, but they had no plans on returning to their respective dorms to turn in for the night. One of the friends gets up from his chair and pointed out that he wanted some coffee. "I'll get it," said the sitting friend, who gets up and heads out. Meanwhile, the first friend remains standing in wonder, with an "Uh, okay?" mentality.
• Scene Two, v2: Two friends (male-female combination) are enjoying a crisp Spring afternoon somewhere outdoors. Both the man and the woman converse like any friends do. They eat at a restaurant and the check arrives by the end of the meal. The man makes a move to pay for the entirety of the check. The woman would not tolerate the act and points out that she would pay for her part of the meal. They compromise. At no point in the day do either person randomly make moves to spoil the other with the purchase of material goods, drowning of meaningless compliments, or performed unnecessary favors for each other.

Compare these scenes with the first pair. The variation of Scene One has one friend performing an unnecessary favor. In comparison, the original Scene One has one friend doing the favor for the sake of convenience (he wanted to get his own coffee, might as well get his friend one if he wanted one?). The variation has one friend getting a coffee for his friend, even though he himself did not want coffee. It's not exactly a big deal, but acts like those go 100% in the "too nice" category. As for Scene Two's variation, the generous bid by the man was governed by both personality and chivalry (again, which I will get to later) and not for the sake of drawing the attention of someone he may be attracted to. In contrast with with the original Scene Two, there were no false acts of giving. Conclusively, there is nice and too nice.

A lot of actions are common sense; whether to give or not to give. Judging whether a person is genuinely nice sometimes falls under common sense, as well. However, this does not necessarily mean that people should be categorized as either inconsiderate or compassionate, genuine or fake. Let's move on to acts of chivalry (the courtesy of men towards women), since generous men and chivalrous men are not the same.

Opening the door for a girl or woman is chivalrous. If she is walking ahead of him and she opens the door herself, reaching forward to hold it open is chivalrous.

When walking, keeping a girl or woman towards the inner half of the sidewalk is chivalrous.

Allowing her to walk beside him under his umbrella on a rainy day is chivalrous.

Offering to pay for mundane things, such as a simple dinner, a taxi ride, or a movie ticket is chivalrous. Paying for absolutely everything they do together is not.

Holding half of her shopping bags is chivalrous. Holding all of them is not.

Carpooling her when both are heading in the same direction is chivalrous. Being her personal escort is not.

...And the list can go on, and on, and on. Being chivalrous is not a necessity. Yet, sometimes the acts become misinterpreted as being overly nice. With feminists prowling around every corner, if a guy happens to inadvertently show off too much chivalry, there's a good possibility that an argument will ensue between the man and woman. Male will say he was just trying to help. Female will say she can do it herself. In most cases, the common saying of "it's the thought that counts," can be tied into chivalry. The whole tradition goes back hundreds of years in history which I will not get into. However, some of the actions that I categorized as not chivalrous are indeed just being overly nice.

Similarly, treating someone on rare occasions is purely generous and not overwhelmingly nice. And here's the fine line: treating someone often on multiple occasions is too generous and too nice. How often do you hear the lines, "My treat," "It's on me," and so forth? Unless it's always my treat and always on me, the balance between giving and too giving is relatively stable.

With all this talk about the good and the bad being nice or too nice, all in all there is nothing extraordinarily wonderful or troublesome of being on one side of the fine line or the other. Hey, some people like the excessively generous and go out of their ways to appreciate the acts. Some people prefer to stick around with the standard nice. As for the nice people, it is their job to make sure they are not being taken for granted or taken advantage of. There is no true reward besides seeing the happy look on the beneficiary's face.

Why the generosity then? It's personality. We do things because we feel like it.