When You Feel Bad Because He's Nice

I’m sure, at one point or another, we’ve all experienced the guilty sensation we get from not really liking someone even though they’re nice. If you’re someone like me (until very recently), you might not know what to do in these situations. I’ll admit, I’ve carried on week-long conversations, I’ve gone on dates, and I’ve even kissed someone because I felt bad rejecting the person because he was nice. I know more than a few women who’ve gone so far as sleeping with someone because they didn’t really see a way out of it without offending the guy and they didn’t want to do that because he was nice.

Ladies, this stops now.

Recently, a male Facebook friend of mine started chatting with me. We’ve been following each other on social media for almost eight years and I have no idea how or why we even became Facebook friends, but whatever. We had never spoken to each other until a few weeks ago.

It started off as innocent conversation. We were just kind of sharing our thoughts on things going on in the world and whatnot. He was very nice and easygoing and it was totally random, but I like to talk a lot, so I was enjoying it. Then his messages started coming incessantly. Honestly, every time I looked at my phone there was a new message from him (and I look at my phone a lot). All very nice messages. Then, rather abruptly, he threw the “I think I have a crush on you” thing at me. And I was like, okay, weird. First of all, you’re pushing 40 and you still tell women you have a “crush” on them? Secondly, I’ve never met this man in person. And thirdly, what the actual fuck?

So I made the decision to just kind of ignore that comment and go back to whatever stupid thing we were talking about. Maybe he meant to send that message to someone else? But then he says “would it be okay if I brought you a coffee?” He lives in St. Catharines, I live in London. That’s a two hour drive. I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t.

So I declined him as gently as I could, because he’s nice and I felt bad. I kindly reminded him of the roommate that could make such a gesture a little uncomfortable…that roommate being my husband. Seriously though, I typed out a huge thing about how that’s not even a possibility but I was very flattered and I find him very nice, and honestly, if I were ever to be rejected, that’s exactly how I would like to be rejected. And he responds with “K.” Not so nice, but that’s okay. Rejection is never fun.

So I don’t respond to that because I’m relieved the communication has stopped, but then less than 12 hours later I get this nice message from him about how he understands and how he really enjoys our conversations so maybe we could continue to talk as friends.

Then my dumb ass agrees because he’s nice and I feel bad. I immediately regret everything because he’s back on the crazy boat sending me a million messages a minute and liking every single one of the hundreds of photos I post within seconds of me posting them. I should add that I’m hardly even responding to his messages. Once in a while I’ll shoot a “thanks!” or a “haha, you too!” just to be nice, but for the most part, I’m not responding.

But then, today, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Sure, he’s nice, but he’s mother fucking creepy. So he sent me a message this morning (after me ignoring several days’ worth of messages) telling me, “you’re beautiful, have a good day!” and I was just like, no. So I didn’t offer an apology or an explanation, I just blocked him on social media. And I can still feel that urge to “feel bad” creeping up, but I’m shutting that shit down once and for all. I was as nice as I could possibly be in response to what I considered to be nice behaviour from him. His behaviour was not nice. He ignored the fact that I didn’t want to be wooed. He was borderline stalker-ish. He just wasn’t really that nice to deal with.

So can we all just collectively decide that we don’t need to feel bad anymore for not liking a nice dude? It is not our duty to cater to these weirdos. It’s not our fault that we are just so easy to “have a crush on.” We don’t owe any man our time, our words, our attention, our affections, and certainly not our bodies. The only man we owe is the pizza man when he’s standing on our porches with that delicious ass food waiting for the money that we owe him. That’s it. I don’t care if he’s a guy on social media or your friggin husband. I don’t care if he’s nicer than Keanu Reeves himself. If you don’t want to, then don’t. Period.

And I’m not saying just be rude to every guy who talks to you nicely. Some men are genuinely nice and will take a hint and will handle the rejection gracefully and respectfully and move on. But if you have to say “thanks, but no thanks” more than once, he’s not nice and you don’t have to feel bad and you certainly do not have to be nice. In writing this about the nice guy, I’m not being nice and I don’t feel bad at all. Period.