Too Nice

“[Gatsby’s smile] was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced – or seemed to face – the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

This has been said before, so don’t take me as the originator, but the problem is not that he’s too nice. He is nice! Very nice. But he’s not too nice. He’s an appropriate amount of nice. In fact, he’s the sort of nice you (actually) hope for most of the time.

So, what’s the problem? What is nice? First, he is thoughtful: he sends you links he think you’ll like. He texts back without long delay. He asks what you want to do for the date. He insists on paying! He laughs at your jokes, even the silly ones. And means it. Better still, he has a good family that he loves, a good job, his own house. He does fun things with his friends. He even plays music.

The problem is not that he’s too nice. And I don’t want to say that he’s boring, either, for that too is a simplification. There is a world in which you can imagine a boring someone who nevertheless fits you. The problem is that there is no way he can understand your darkness. He is the kind who says, of your recent complaint, “Well, it could be worse” or, “at least you have ______.”  He has not let the misery of the world sink into his bones and deeply disturb him. You can tell. Joyful people can exist after intense exposure to evil, but the joy has a different quality. When a particular song says, “when the world divides into two people: those who have felt pain, and those who have yet to,” you know that divide is between you and him. You imagine how he could change, but you don’t wait for that anymore.

You imagine, too, him reading this. Somehow, he might stumble upon your blog or you muster up the courage to somehow articulate these thoughts, though now they seem harsh and unutterable. You can see his face contort in disbelief as he listens. And you alone know the difference between, “you have not had pain,” and, “you do not know pain.” For all have experienced pain in this strange planet, but not all have taken the time to feel what it might mean.

Sadly, you also know that it does not have to be this way. You realize you could accept his almost innocent joy and allow him to be someone stable and good in your life. But somehow, this feels like a betrayal of yourself. You’ve always known you don’t want a career in acting.

So really what you’re saying, what is often understood but never said in the search for love, is that you want to be understood. But not merely understood. You want to feel understood in the way that you’ve hoped to be understood your entire life.