I’d never given a stranger a compliment before, and I had never even given a friend a compliment until that day. I had been very busy, overwhelmed with work and juggling a million other things that a) I didn’t have the time or energy to give explicit attention to b) People can go postal and it isn’t my business. I had been conditioned to see people’s interactions with me as an encounter that could be reduced to a verbal compliment. I had been conditioned to believe that if I were nice enough, if I showed enough interest enough, if I won enough that day, that would be the end of it. I had been conditioned to believe that if I didn’t give them what they wanted they would leave me. That if I weren’t nice enough, if I wasn’t as nice as they were, if I wasn’t as interested in them as they were in me, that they would leave me.
And I was so conditioned I actually believed that if I wasn’t nice enough, if I wasn’t as nice as they were, if I wasn’t as interested in them as they were in me, that they would leave me.
I had been conditioned to believe that if I wasn’t nice enough, if I wasn’t as nice as they were, if I wasn’t as interested in them as they were in me, that they would leave me.
I had been conditioned to believe that if I wasn’t nice enough, if I wasn’t as nice as they were, if I wasn’t as interested in them as they were, that they would leave me.
I had been conditioned to believe that I would lose them if I wasn’t nice enough, if I wasn’t as nice as they were, if I weren’t as interested in them as they were.
I had been conditioned to believe that I wasn’t good enough to have a relationship with.
I had been conditioned to believe that I would leave them if I couldn’t give them what they wanted or needed.
I had been conditioned to believe that they would leave me because I wasn’t nice enough.
This was my first real relationship. I was a junior in college trying something new — dating someone, even. I was still a virgin. I had been on and off during my lifespan, at various points being too immature to get on a dating app or being too naive to navigate the dating scene. This was the first serious relationship I had attempted. I had been successful in the past with being nice to people, a skill I had learned from my mother, but this was different. This time, I didn’t think I was concealing anything or being sneaky or manipulative or anything else K-selected said I had to do.
This was simply a logical extension of my behavioral predisposition.
My mom had been to college with my brother and was a friend of my father’s. She had seen me flirt, smile, show my true colors. That’s what my mom taught me to do. I was probably more inclined to flirt back. I had been taught by my mother and other women in my life that I should be more careful with the way I expressed my feelings for someone and less inclined to do it outright. That I shouldn’t show my feelings to anyone, not even my friend, until I was sure they were compatible. I was probably also taught to not show my feelings to anyone, not even my brother, because my mother would warn me that I was likely to be “bad” luck. That would probably be true, based on all the other women in my life, but still, I’ve never actually believed that being too nice to strangers will lead to a relationship.
I had been taught that I should be careful with the way I expressed my feelings for someone and less inclined to do it outright.
I had been taught this was a recipe for disaster. I wasn’t. I married a man I loved, and we have two amazing kids. We have fun together, and our marriage is still strong.