the "nice" girl syndrome

I have been repeatedly accused of being a nice girl.

You would think that it's a good thing, to be considered nice, but of course it's not. It's like the worst thing you can be called. Like when you ask about someone and the answer is "she's nice", you know there's not that much else to say.

Except that I know for a fact that there is more to me than the whole nice girl aura. But as soon as there is too much niceness, people wont see much else anymore. I've studied the freakin' rule book by heart: men love the chase, yes, it's been written countless times and proven and said by so many men and women that I've lost track. God forbid you should ever let your guard down and not challenge a man for ten minutes.

In long term relationships, it translates as the girlfriend who is too convenient, too caring, too available. A man can love you, worship you, want to spend the rest of his life with you and suddenly, because you're having a bad time and you are unable to hold up the whole "I'm a mysterious woman who can leave you at any second" role, he can just let you go because --well, it's just not exciting anymore. I'm guilty as charged, I'll admit it. I have a hard time following the bitch-persona because it's just not who I am. I've tried and failed. And then I think about all these successful relationships around me and wonder, do all these women have an ability which I obviously lack, or do I just date men who require an unreasonable level of "challenge"?

In the dating world,  the nice girl appears as the girl who is too agreeable, too "into him", and again, too available. A man can find you hot, smart, interesting, yet you can turn him off just by sending one too many messages that just make him feel too comfortable about having you right where he wants you. How boring.

Now while a man is having this permanent need to be challenged, the woman is supposed to satiate his needs by being perfect: the perfect amount of presence and the perfect amount of indifference; the perfect amount of sexiness and the perfect amount of working-woman; the perfect amount of nights out with friends versus the perfect amount of nights spent together. We should just all write down the list and stick it on our refrigerators, pencil in the perfect amount depending on the guy we're dating and refreshing it every month as the relationship evolves. You know, just to be sure we're not missing anything.

Maybe I've got this all wrong --I wouldn't be surprised. After all, I have been dumped countless times for the same reason (yes, too nice is a reason for men to break up with you) and so I'm obviously not very good at learning from my mistakes. Unless of course, I switch perspectives. What if I'm a nice girl --with myself?

I grew up in a house where taking care of others was a pre-requisite. And it somehow settled in my DNA. When my mother died I was 16 years old --but my sister was 11, and my brother was 7. I've read somewhere that people who grow up taking care of others develop this thing called "the need to be needed." I catch myself doing it sometimes, with my friends, with my siblings who are adults now and can take care of themselves, and of course, with men in my life. And the constant advice I receive, is that if I was just as "nice" to myself as I am to others, then maybe I can finally beat this thing.

So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to make a list of things I'd like to do for myself before the year ends, and will document it, here on Beirut Rhapsodies. And we'll see how well that works out.