Couldn't tell you.
I'm undecided as to whether I'd even call myself that anymore.
I think too often people use "nice guy" to mean "not a jackass."
That isn't fair. Some people put a lot of work (and twice as much restraint) into being kind.
There's also plenty of value to it. Nice guys don't always finish last, contrary to the idiom.
But let's say for the sake of argument that I'm a nice guy.
Well, it's been my observation that us nice guys aren't that complicated.
We're waiting on someone to save. Or maybe someone to save us. That depends on your perspective.
Granted, there's more to us than that. Sometimes we just want a connection with another human being. But the point today is about the curse of wanting to save people.
There are two primary hazards to this end goal of ours.
First? People don't want to be saved.
They don't believe it can happen, they don't want others helping them out.
God forbid you actually succeed. Then what? They've got nothing left but a "normal" life.
Chuck Palahniuk said it rather well, as I recall, “People don’t want their lives fixed.
Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions.
Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they
have left? Just the big scary unknown.”
We define ourselves with our problems, and so make them ours forever.
Notice how it's "their problems. Their dramas..."
Let's face it, people generally like things that belong to them.
There is a way to fix that, I think, but it goes beyond the scope of my ramblings for this evening.
...and, frankly, I'm afraid if I give it too much more thought I might do something stupid. Like trying it out.
The second hazard, you ask?
We find them. We find someone and we save them.
We pour our souls into fixing theirs, into helping them limp along until they can walk again.
We'll mentally and spiritually drain ourselves dry for this process. It's what we wait for, after all.
It's what we want. We want to pull someone up from a miserable existence into something decent.
Why do we want that?
I can't speak for everyone here. I want it because someone damn well should've done it for me. Because maybe that one gesture of trying to help will be enough for somebody - whether I'll ever know it or not.
Because I have helped someone, and despite the pain it still feels like the right thing.
So the second hazard is getting what we want? Helping someone?
Yes. Because then they'll leave.
Once you've rescued someone from drowning, they are no longer so desperately attracted to a life raft. The qualities that seem so meaningful just dwindle and become a little pathetic - if we're being honest here. So they move on. I've written about this in depth before, somewhere...
Oh, here it is.
Which of these hazards is worse? That remains up to each of us to decide for ourselves.
As for me, I find the worst part is the hidden hazard: the hope. The hope that one day, a different outcome will come along. The hope that maybe it'll be my turn to be saved.
Not-nice people have a word for hope like that. They call it insanity; you know, trying the same thing and expecting different results?
I'm not disputing that, and I've come to accept it. My little slice of crazy.
Cheers to you other nice people who've found a way out of the cycle, whatever it may be. Hell, maybe it even -worked- for you.
I'm close to giving up faith, if that's even possible for me. I seem to be endlessly trapped on lost causes.
The amusing bit is that I say this as though I haven't tried giving up before. I just don't have it in me.
What does it say about a person when they just can't make themselves give up?
- C
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