If you looked at yourself as someone else would you approve? What would you think?

I don't like being a perfectionist. It's gotten a lot better over the years. It's no longer that I have to be perfect at everything, but more a desire to be as rounded as possible - to do as much as possible.

I think my best skill is my relationship with people. I can click with a lot of people. I have no fear meeting someone new. But it's almost turned into an ego thing - like I have to socialise, I have to meet people. I get sort of annoyed if I don't meet someone new everyday, whether at university or when I go clubbing. My friends say I know way too many people, and no shit it's so hard remembering everyone's names (I'm very good with names, but there's seriously way too many). It gets tiring. But at the same time it feels good. It feels good knowing I can go to most events by myself and bump into someone I know and hang with them, or just walk around university and have a group to hang out with if I just walk around for a bit. It feels good knowing I can 'talk to someone new and make it seem like we've known each other for ages'.

I know I have that ability. But do I abuse it? I'm actually a very sarcastic person. I can say very mean things. Like witty-sarcastic mean. But people always stay around? That's something I don't get. I'm not malicious-mean but joking-mean, but you'd assume people get offended still? But these people still enjoy my company, they're under the illusion I'm 'the nicest person' even though I never really intend to be. I'm lukewarm -sometimes even cold- in my relationships. Yet, the less I care, the less I try to be nice, the more they like me, the nicer they think I am.

So you know, I realised something. Being nice is not everything. Those people whose goal is to be nice are actually annoying. I'm not talking about altruistic-sacrificial-mother-teresa nice, I'm talking about people in general who are overly friendly. They can be patronising. They're in your face. When it comes to liking someone they're always the friend-people-can-talk-to, but not the one people like back. It's almost like when someone compliments another person, they go 'they're a nice person', I think of that almost as an insult. It becomes something that defines them, almost making them powerless and subservient.

Some of you will disagree. But I think my thoughts are grounded in some true observations. I guess people are just uncomfortable with the idea that being nice doesn't always correlate with better outcomes. It seems incongruent with what we've been taught, our morals and sometimes our conscience.

And believe me, I feel a bit uneasy too, therefore I'm reflecting in this entry. I'm merely being honest and writing what's real and how I feel. But I think the question is, if you're only going to be nice because you want 'better outcomes' in return, isn't that just as bad? If that was the case there's nothing intrinsically good about being nice except the positive returns back to the individual.

So I've been thinking.