Breaking Free from the Cult of Nice
PLUS: An ebook deal on You Do You!
Happy Sunday, my gentle fucklings! I’m popping into your inboxes this Holy Weekend (for some; for me it’s just an excuse to eat chocolate for lunch) with an excellent ebook deal, good today only on Amazon US. (The rest of the post is good in perpetuity!)
Anyhoo…I hope your April has been tolerable despite the absolutely constant stream of bullshit. I MEAN. WOW.
For my part: tomorrow is my eighteenth wedding anniversary, which means Tuesday is the eighteenth anniversary of the Red Sox scoring back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs to sweep the Yankees in a 7-6 game at Fenway; and later this week I hope to be renewing my Dominican residency after six long months of bureaucratic shenanigans.
All in all, not too shabby!
And now—for YOU—we have today’s post, inspired by a book of essays I just finished reading called If You Can’t Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury by Geraldine DeRuiter. (You may remember her from “baking Mario Batali’s cinnamon rolls of misogyny” and documenting it for her blog, The Everywhereist, back in 2018.)
Many passages were read aloud to my husband in a fit of giggles, and I highly recommend it—especially if you love (or hate) Red Lobster.
In chapter sixteen, relatably titled “Hanger Management,” DeRuiter details the (it must be said) particularly female problem of repressing one’s anger so as to appear “nice” and non-threatening (to the male of the species, natch), and the havoc that chronic repression wreaks on our bodies and brains.
In 2023 I wrote about curing my agonizing back pain and sciatica by talking to my rage, (a tactic which continues to work for me to this very day), so I felt seen by the whole essay, which goes on to chart our relationships to food and our bodies, and to anger and hunger, in profound (and often hilarious) ways.
But one passage that especially stood out to me—in part, I admit, for the savage imagery she employs in re: Mike’s man parts—was about how she couldn’t bring herself to confront a mechanic who blamed her for her car having a flat tire.
She says:
As far as anger goes, I’m on the highest rung of the privilege ladder for women who could express this emotion. I’m a white, cis, American woman in my forties; you better believe that if I ask to speak to the manager, I will get a refund or someone will honor a coupon that’s so old, it’s actually a daguerreotype.1 I can complain without risk of death or arrest or even lifetime banishment. But even I’ve been socially trained to believe that I need to be nice to the guy from AAA who told me I got my flat tire because I was a bad driver, even though the car was parked in my driveway at the time.
And so, while I wanted to shout, “FUCK YOU, MIKE FROM MIKE’S FRIENDLY TOWING, I HOPE YOUR DICK IS CHEWED OFF BY SQUIRRELS,” I tipped him. Because I didn’t want him to think I was a bad driver and a bitch.
I suppose it’s no surprise that I would identify with a woman whose lived experience mirrors my own in a lot of ways, and again, I highly recommend this book. She’s a hot mess and a total delight; great combo.
But beyond that, reading it also reminded me of a chapter from my own book You Do You, called “You Should Smile More: How to Break Free from the Cult of Nice,” in which I examine the fetishization of niceness with regard to looking, acting, and the saying of things.
(To be clear, I don’t support mouthing off, making enemies, and being mean for no good reason—but nor do I believe that you or I should feel compelled to present a veneer of beatific calm to the world when inside, we’re minorly irritated or majorly pissed off.)2
And since my book is currently on sale for a mere $12 in hardcover and $2.99 in ebook, today I’m sharing an adapted version of said chapter with my favorite fucklings. May it inspire you to read the whole thing, and one day feel comfortable telling Mike from Mike’s Friendly Towing exactly where he can stick it.
An excerpt from You Do You:
“You Should Smile More!”
First, shout-out to any readers who’ve been urged to “Smile!” while walking down the street minding their own goddamn business. Raise your hand if you know what it’s like to unnaturally contort your face in order to avoid being singled out, criticized, or retaliated against.3
This happened to me approximately EVERY DAY when I lived in New York City. No, wait, I’m exaggerating. Every other day. On public transit, in a crosswalk, at a bodega—you name a locale, and a stranger has told me that I should be smiling in it.4
A passing cyclist once told me to smile as I stood outside my dentist’s office post-fillings, waiting for a cab; a cabdriver told me to smile after I narrowly escaped being assaulted at a stranger’s apartment; and a guy on the subway told me to smile the day after I euthanized my cat.
What is it with these arbitrary demands on the formation of my lips, cheeks, and teeth?
Who cares whether I look happy to be on my way to work, or back from lunch, or just having left the doctor’s office after an invasive gynecological procedure?
And why is it my responsibility to smile at all, especially during the act of being harassed?
SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THAT ABOUT CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN IT TO ME.
(It doesn’t happen quite as much now that I live in the Dominican Republic, although a lot of people who definitely did not emerge from my hoo-hah nevertheless address me as “Oy, Mami!” accompanied by a distinct hissing/clicking noise that might mean “You should smile more” in a local dialect with which I am not yet familiar.)
Anyway.
I promise this whole chapter of You Do You isn’t about street harassment—though the daily struggle between resting bitch face and the patriarchy is real, it is an epidemic, and I’m happy to be the four millionth woman this week who’s gone on record as saying so.
It’s just that an unsolicited “Smile!” is emblematic of a major obligation in the social contract: to LOOK or ACT or SAY SOMETHING nice when you have no desire or reason to do so—and I’d like to talk about why that is total bullshit for everyone, not just the Resting Bitch Facers among us.
Breaking Free from the Cult of Nice
The Cult of Nice worships those who walk down the street grinning like they just watched America’s actual funniest home video.
It targets coworkers whose daily to-do lists include “expressing unsolicited sympathy for your love life” and “making inane chitchat from the doorway while you’re trying to get work done.”
And it elevates to godlike status those who are capable of biting their tongues when Uncle Pete brings up Hillary’s emails at an otherwise pleasant family gathering.
(In 2028.)
Honestly, it’s impressive5 to be that fucking nice all the time, and I have no beef with anyone who chooses to go this route. But the grinning-and-bearing-it that comes naturally to them might not come naturally to you or me, and I would simply appreciate it if they dialed down their recruitment efforts accordingly.
Instead of urging you to “SMILE MORE!,” my cult propaganda leaflets would look like this:
You want to walk around looking neutrally expressionless or actively morose? Have at it!
You want to conserve time and energy by not engaging in idiotic small talk just to appear personable? Fine by me!
You want to unleash the fury of a thousand Huma Abedins the next time Uncle Pete mumbles “Benghazi” through the pumpkin pie lodged in his jowls? Make it so!
(Not only will I not stop you, if provided with enough advance notice I would happily show up and record this exchange for posterity.)
All of that said, please don’t take my acceptance of less-than-nice behavior as carte blanche to act all nasty. I’m not trying to breed any American psychos here; I’m just saying that it’s possible to be polite, productive, and professional without walking around sporting Howdy Doody’s “O-face” on the regular.6
And on that terrifying note, excerpt over!
For more on how to break free from the Cult of Nice—including tips such as: “When someone tells you that you’d look nice if you smiled more, gaze directly into their eyes, unblinking, until they look away” or “Tell them you lost your cheek muscles in ‘Nam”—get thee to the retailer or library of your choice and get a copy of You Do You!
(Perhaps for a mere $2.99 today on Kindle US, if that is your jam.)
Meanwhile, I’ll be over here trying to learn that hissing/clicking thing for the next time someone yells Oy, Mami! at me from a passing moto.
Wish me luck,
Sarah
PS: Loyal NFG Newsletter subscribers will note I’ve been on a You Do You kick lately, since I recently re-read the book to make changes for an upcoming reprint. You can find related posts in this handy section of my site:
PPS: I’m trying a new thing now, where I collect all pertinent, previously linked stuff at the end of a post to make your life easier. Do you like?
Reader: I LOL’ed.
Unless you are Catherine, Princess of Wales. You made your bed, girl.
I see you. I see your hands.
A man. It’s always a man.
Psychotic?
Come to think of it, that might actually be more terrifying than meeting Patrick Bateman in a dark alley.
Let’s normalize audibly growling at male strangers who ask us to smile.
I am so sick of being "nice" and I'm trying this weird thing of being nice to MYSELF instead of trying to get assholes to be nice to me. Wild!
I have terminal resting bitch face, to the degree where a man has tried to tell me to smile on the street and then changes his mind about approaching. When you meet me, I am super nice and cheerful and bubbly and all the things, but if you only saw me commuting, you'd think I am a stone cold bitch who is not to be fucked with.
I didn't do this on purpose, and in fact have no idea when the RBF is happening, but it has served me well. 😂 I am shit at confrontation, so I guess my brain decided to prevent it.