The Nice Girl Syndrome

Lately, I’ve really been thinking about the Nice Girl Syndrome — which a lot of us have had at some stage of our lives (or continue to have). Theoretically, I was aware of what it was, but I came to understand it up close when I witnessed one of my close friends suffer tremendously because of it.

While I write from the perspective of a woman, I’m also privy of some of the greatest guys I know who go through the same struggle. I truly hope some parts of this resonate with them too.

The more I saw it, the more I couldn’t unsee it — some of the most talented, gorgeous, fierce, beautiful women I’ve known, putting up with things just because they couldn’t bear to not be nice.

Here’s a quick litmus test to determine whether you have the nice girl syndrome:

- You struggle to say NO or actually, you’re terrified of saying NO

- You often think being loved is contingent on being nice

- You struggle to draw boundaries

- You have a hard time digesting critical feedback (often conflate feedback as a direct rejection of you as a person)

- You smile…. a lot more than what comes naturally

If you answered yes to one or many, congratulations, you are a woman of this world afterall.

Nice Girl Syndrome strangely enough, unites women across nations, ethnicities, cultures, and any conceivable differences. It can be part & parcel of the fabric of culture, or mindset of the parents, teachers, and all other factors that influence the impressionable minds of young girls before a certain age.

If we try to trace the lineage of the nice girl syndrome, we will intuitively know how complex & widely spread the roots of this syndrome really are. I will venture to follow my own intuition & experiences in trying to explain this, so apologies for any factual errors, for I am solely trying to untangle it from my own vantage point, and not for the masses, in hopes that it will resonate with some.

From a young age, girls are encouraged to be nice. Their behaviors are rewarded for niceness & as any young girl, you gather cues of what is socially acceptable. If you’re nice, your parents give you a tap on the back or the teachers tell you what a nice girl you are. You get told if you question or show signs of rebelliousness. Chances are your mother carried on the legacy of the syndrome, so passed it onto you as a natural way of being.

Before you know it, the syndrome has constructed a nice apartment in the estate of your identity. As you grow up, the syndrome grows richer, eventually constructing a three-story mansion, until the lushness of your estate (ie. Your identity) becomes a faint picture. Like any intelligent human being, you pick up patterns everywhere, at your workplace, at your school, at your home, where you’re constantly rewarded for being a nice girl so you continue to be so.

When you become aware of the estate of your identity, you’re not even confident in navigating it because you don’t know who you are if not nice? For so many years, people have seemed to love you, adore you, smile at you, be friends with you, talk to you, because of your niceness so that’s who you must be. You feel the faint sparks of the fire in you when you want to scream NO in someone’s face or imagine a “not so acceptable” scenario in your head or tell someone to “F right off” but that spark dies as soon as it’s ignited because it’s your WORST FEAR. You cannot be that person and you tell yourself you must be going crazy.

One night, you decide to go out dancing on the dancefloor, in your vibrant flowing dress that accentuates the curves of your body like a piece of art, and a little part of you knows just how beautiful you look tonight. A little part of you is even a bit snobbish, wondering, “No guy here is worthy of my time. I’m truly my own person tonight” and before you know it, a drunk lad approaches you.

The Nice Girl Syndrome takes over and you start talking to him. You can feel the conversation ebbing your energies inside, but you don’t see yourself as having a choice. You must talk. You mustn’t say NO. As the night goes on, more drunk lads approach. You’re getting tired but you continue to be nice. You entertain them all. Someone laces their arm around your waist without asking and you let that happen. Someone touches your shoulder to grab your attention and you let that happen. Someone asks you for a dance & you don’t want to dance with them, but you let that happen. Someone touches you the wrong way, it feels uncomfortable, it feels like a violation of your space, but you let that happen too.

You can see the hints of dawn from the window of the club you came to set fire in, but your own fire has since died down. You go home, utterly exhausted with all the exchanges. You tell yourself you need a break from all the dancing because you know, it’s not dancing at all when you go out dancing. It’s the constant passes made by men, the forceful conversations, the uncomfortable touches, the constant glares. The glares of men you must be nice to & the glares of some women who make you feel like you don’t belong.

Your niceness has you dating people who see your niceness as a vulnerability & continue to prey on it. You self-inflict so much damage under the disguise of niceness that you can barely see light at the end of the tunnel. They say you’re in a toxic relationship and you need to get out of it, but you’re scared to face the brittle reality so you go on being nice, you go on offering your heart to people who are not scared to shatter it in a million pieces and you find yourself piecing it back together to offer it to them again.

You take a break, to be with yourself, to hone your craft at work. You walk up to your boss, who’s also a man, to submit your work. He rejects it with reason. However, you feel like you’ve been rejected. Instead of questioning him & reasoning with him, you feel as though you’re nothing but a failure. You tell yourself you can’t do anything well until you’re buried under a mountain of self-criticism. You shower the world around you with all the niceness you’ve got & save all the anger & hate for yourself.

You continue to let the people & the world around you narrate your story……

YOU — I’m talking to YOU.

YOU are NOT ALONE. When you’ve let that sink in, you must start the project of demolishing the three-story mansion, that’s now a whole town, built by Miss Nice. You must evict her. You must let her know that her tenancy was long overdue, but due to your niceness, you let her stay. However, it’s time for her to go.

As she packs her bags & walks out the door, the lost memories of the person you are start flooding in. You are that girl who loved to question people. You are that girl who stood up to injustice. You are that girl who has always had the strength to stand up for herself & what she believes is right. You are that girl who stood up to the bully in your second-grade class. It all starts coming back to you. You are that girl who loved being naughty instead of nice. You start piecing your identity together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

“I stood up to my dad because I didn’t believe his behavior to my mother was right so it must mean I have that strength”

“I thought about wanting to scream STFU to that boy who was constantly harassing me on the dancefloor so it must mean I have that fire”

“I wanted to say NO so bad to that friend who wouldn’t leave me alone so it must mean that I have the courage to say NO”

“I loved that one time I spent with myself in nature so it must mean that I love some time in solitutude”

You start piecing it all together & the estate that lied empty is slowly filling up. It’s got a skyscraper named “Courage” and a town named “Strength” and a park named “Love” and a townhall named “Fierceness” and a bridge to the “Land you must not name” for it’s where you buried Ms Nice.

Next time, you’re on the dancefloor, and a drunk lad comes up to you, you say,

“I’m sure you can tell I’m dancing to my own vibe, so with all due respect, find your own.”

In a few minutes, you feel an arm on your waist. You aggressively shake it off to send the signal of “WATCH but DO NOT DARE TOUCH.”

In another few minutes, you get approached and while you would love to have a reason for backing off, you think even reasoning is a waste of time, so you instead say,

“Really not in the mood to interact — hope you find someone else.”

You see that it’s not the niceness that makes you who you are, it’s everything below that, and way below that. You are stunned at your own depth and how much was hidden from you, all these years. You unlearn & relearn. You unlearn the nice girl and relearn the fierce woman. Unlike the nice girl who was acquired, you were born with the spirit of the fierce woman.

As you start embodying your fierce wild woman, the NOs start flowing naturally, the boundaries erect themselves, dignity & self-worth overflows in you like an inundated bank of river, your intuition preaches from the temple of your identity town and you find solace in solitude. This solitude is that of self-love, self-discovery & self-enquiry, not of self-questioning & self-loathing.

As you retreat to the forest of solitude in you, you find me there, leaning against a tree, probably reading yet another book. You find another fierce woman, climbing a tree. You look around and find yet another, drinking water from the river. You walk around and you see so many of us. In the forest of solitude.

“There’s no prerequisites to worthiness. You’re born worthy, and I think that’s a message a lot of women need to hear”, Viola Davis.

And for all the beautiful men out there, who also have this syndrome, there is a special cave in the forest of solitude, where you unite with us. Where we all relish our true selves. Where we all howl at the top of our voices. Where we all belong.

Book recommendation to all the beautiful women on the path of self-discovery: Women Who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola