Too Nice?
I’m too nice. Really, I am. I try to make everybody happy…often to the detriment of my own happiness.
Over the years close friends and family members have told me: “If you try to please everyone, you’ll never be able to please yourself.” True advice, but, coincidentally, these same advice givers seemed to be referring to “everybody else” and not them. They know my “pleasing flaw” and they use it to their advantage…this I am learning the hard way over and over again!
A recent “pleasing” experience turned out to be not so pleasant. My husband and I received three invitations for wonderful gatherings all on the same date. I RSVPed to the first invitation and when the second and third invites arrived I was disappointed that we couldn’t attend these events, but…oh well! (Why does it happen that you can go for weeks with no plans and then there are multiple invitations on the same day?)
I called the hostesses of the two other events and extended our apology that we couldn’t come because we already had a commitment. These hostesses—both good friends—expressed their disappointment along with urgings for us to “at least stop by.” Then both began campaigns to get us to come if only briefly. (I didn’t know we were that crucial as necessary party ingredients!)
The “get-us-to-come” campaigns continued until the day before the events. I answered the pleas with promises that “we would try.” In the meantime, I worked on my husband. He finally agreed to the schedule I established to spend less than a half an hour at the two “secondary” events and then move on to the party to which we first had given our acceptance. The plan included traveling from one side of town to another then back again and then to still another distant location. “We can do it,” I assured my husband. “I just don’t want to disappoint anyone.” He raised an eyebrow and told me I was nuts. He, however, said we would do whatever I wanted. (No wonder so many of our friends put a “Saint” in front of his name!)
D-day arrived. By the time we left for the “events” we were already 20 minutes behind schedule. (We planned to arrive at our final destination before dinner was served.) No matter…our trek began. After 35 minutes at our first party, we got up to leave. “Do you have to leave?” the hostess asked. It took another five minutes to say our good-byes and assure her that we would stay if we could. The same thing happened at the second event. Now we were running almost an hour behind schedule. To make matters worse, my husband finally had had it. His foul mood made the last and final event almost unbearable for me. We didn’t share one word all the way home that evening. His only statement was when we got home. “How stupid that was!”
I knew he was right. That, I vowed, was the last time I would worry about pleasing others when it required so much effort on our part. I had been unfair to my husband and to myself, not to mention the couple who had first invited us to their gathering. No one seemed to have been pleased that day, especially not my husband. It’s time to change my image, or at the very least, to acquire a little bit of “bitchiness.” My friends have been known to be bitches at times. I have this right too!