My sister, Judy, and I walk almost every Saturday morning. I call our time Sister Therapy. We talk about her current work in progress books, events, challenges, past, present, you name it we discuss it. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t, that’s ok. We learned a long time ago we can disagree without being disagreeable. Recently, Judy responded to a post about “Nice guys” not getting married. Her response is at this link: https://theprojectbyjudy.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/nice/
I pondered on her statement and expanded it a bit. I struggle with feeling comfortable around ‘nice people’ in general. Doesn’t matter where I am at school, work, church or home I feel out of step with ‘nice people’. So I did a few social experiments. (I apologize for anyone I made uncomfortable but their responses were educational for me.) When people asked me how I was, I told them exactly how I felt. I am coming off of 6 months of severe depression. I was shoved into a overwhelming situation and my go to coping skill is depression. (That is written correctly, depression is a better coping skill than the anger bubbling just under the surface.) You know what? Most ‘nice people’ get away from me as quickly as possible. People that have been there and done that would give me hug and words of encouragement. ‘Nice people’ don’t know how to respond to the rage, depression, dark humor and other fall out of PTSD. Their response is find the fastest escape route. ‘Nice people’ don’t want to be friends with me. Can I be happy? Sure but I also suffer depression. I don’t hold it against ‘Nice people’ but sometimes I want to be real. Talk about real feelings, discuss real frustrations, pour out what is in my aching heart. I am thankful to my sister that lets me be real all the time with her. It is a relief not to guard my words, filter my conversation through the ever present “is this acceptable to say” filter. There are a few others I can be real with and I am thankful to each one of them. For the ‘nice people’, I will go back to answering the question “How are you doing?” with the politically correct, “I’m fine.”
PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving 
People are uncomfortable with something they don’t understand (depression, PTSD).. Maybe they don’t know how to help or what to say. So they avoid what they think might hurt you. In that sense some nice people can’t handle it.
How do you define nice? Those who have problems with the same things can also be nice. And they have the advantage of understanding.
Just my 2 cents.
This is true. Thanks for your 2 cents.
An interesting and brave experiment!
Ha! Using ‘I’m fine” as an answer never gets old. I noticed the other day how my daughter has started using it even though I know that everything wasn’t “fine”.
As for nice people… I’m a ‘nice’ person depending on how the day has been treating me. I’m ‘Christian’ nice when I have to be. Most times I actually care about how someone feels when I ask them that question. I think of it as a chance for a person to actually be human and get something they’re thinking about off their chest.