Were you taught that if you were nice others would be nice?

“I had this really terrible interaction on the phone with a customer on Tuesday,” Carlton told me in our Skype session. “This guy was so closed and controlling. He just kept yelling about what he wanted me to do. I was being really nice, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. The conversation went on for an hour and we didn’t get anywhere. He just kept acting crazy. I ended up exhausted and drained. Why do people have to be like that?”

Carlton is a really ‘nice guy.’ The problem is he believes that his niceness is a way to control getting closed people to open. This was not the first time I’d heard about someone acting ‘crazy’ with Carlton. He had just ended a relationship with a woman who did the same thing. Continue reading Does Niceness Get A Closed Person Open?