Are You Simply Being Nice For Love and Approval?

What I Learned The Hard Way

Being “the nice guy or gal” in a relationship can be a dangerous allure. 

Just sayin….

It’s, in fact, a role I know all too well, one that I’ve slipped into countless times over the course of my life.

My hope? 

Well, that I’d receive the acceptance, love, and connection I craved at the time. 

You, too, may have fallen into this pattern of self-abandonment disguised as generosity, where the need to be liked overshadows the need to be authentic. But at its core, the Nice Guy or Gal complex is a betrayal of self—a Faustian bargain where authenticity is sacrificed on the altar of approval. 

For me, it took years of falling prey to this mindset before I could see it for what it truly was, namely, a mechanism of control that corrodes relationships rather than nurturing them.

There’s a certain art to losing yourself in a relationship—an art I perfected while trying to be someone I wasn’t during a doomed encounter in San Diego. 

The sunshine was bright, the ocean serene, and the avocado toast overpriced, but beneath the perfect coastal veneer, I was spiraling into a slow erosion of my own integrity. I became a pleaser, contorting myself into shapes that weren’t mine, all while hoping for some mythical reciprocal return. 

Spoiler alert: that return never came.

Let me paint you a picture. Imagine a relationship where you constantly hustle to keep the peace, predict what the other person needs before they even think about it, and serve up your soul on a silver platter. All the while, you’re convinced that if you just try hard enough, you’ll finally unlock the vault of love and validation. 

But instead of hitting the jackpot, you end up emotionally bankrupt, wondering where it all went wrong.

That was me—a fixer-upper in a relationship where I wasn’t the one who needed fixing. I was hooked by someone who was, let’s just say, uniquely skilled at taking without giving anything substantial in return. 

It’s a classic story: I played the role of the giver, the rescuer, and the peacekeeper, all while ignoring the glaring truth that I was dealing with someone who saw relationships as transactions. 

And for a long time, I kept thinking that if I just gave more, sacrificed more, and bent more, I’d finally see the return on my investment. It was like waiting for rain in the desert—futile and a little bit delusional.

But here’s the rub: underneath all that “niceness” and “pleasing” was an agenda. Sure, it was well-disguised, even to myself, but it was there. I was doing to get. I was bending over backward not out of selflessness, but out of the hope that I’d get back the love, the recognition, and the validation I so desperately wanted. 

I thought that by being everything to someone else, they’d finally be what I needed. The expectation I clung to was a subtle poison that eroded any chance of authentic connection.

What I ended up getting was a masterclass in what happens when you abandon yourself in the pursuit of someone else’s approval. I walked away from that narcissistic encounter feeling shattered. 

Emotionally, I was wrung out—like a dishrag left in the sun to dry and fray. Spiritually, I was disconnected from anything resembling inner peace, because I had spent so much time outsourcing my worth. 

And financially? 

Let’s just say that being generous in the hope of love is a one-way ticket to an empty wallet. I gave until there was nothing left to give, and the person on the receiving end never once bothered to look up from their self-centered pursuits to say thank you.

If there’s one thing I learned from this experience, it’s that you can’t pour from an empty cup—and I was scraping the bottom of mine long before I realized it. I had sold out my authenticity for the illusion of reciprocity. 

I’d become so focused on pleasing and accommodating that I lost sight of who I was. And when you lose yourself like that, you’re not just compromising; you’re betraying yourself. 

The irony is that while I was bending over backward to be what I thought this person wanted, they likely never even saw the effort. Or worse, they saw it and simply didn’t care. 

When someone is wired to take without giving, your sacrifices are invisible—just part of the expected landscape. You could build them a kingdom, and they’d still ask where the crown is.

Coming out of that relationship, I was forced to reckon with some hard truths. The most significant one? That taking care of myself had to come first. It wasn’t selfish; it was survival. You can’t expect someone else to treat you with respect and care if you’re not doing that for yourself. 

And all those Taoist and Stoic quotes I love to ponder? Well, the started to make a whole lot more sense. The wisdom of “know yourself, be yourself” isn’t just a platitude—it’s a lifeline. If you’re not anchored in who you are, it’s frighteningly easy to be swept away by the currents of someone else’s whims.

Looking back, I can laugh—kind of—at how far off course I drifted. It’s a little absurd how much energy I put into being what I thought someone else needed, only to realize that I was becoming someone I didn’t even recognize. 

But the laughter is tinged with a sobering lesson: no relationship is worth sacrificing your core self. The moment you start editing who you are to please someone else, you’re stepping out of integrity, and that’s a path that only leads to emptiness.

Now, I’m less interested in pleasing and more interested in preserving my own peace. I’ve learned that the kind of love that’s worth having doesn’t require you to shrink, shift, or compromise your values. It requires you to stand fully in who you are, no matter how messy, complex, or inconvenient that may be for someone else.

So here’s the real takeaway: take care of yourself first, not out of selfishness, but out of self-respect. The right people will appreciate you for who you are, not for how much you can twist yourself into what they want. 

And if someone demands more than you can authentically give, it’s a sign to walk away—before you end up like I did, trying to piece together your shattered sense of self from the remnants of a relationship that was never built on anything real.

The Nice Guy/Gal complex, as I’ve experienced it, is rooted in the belief that if you shape yourself into exactly what another person wants, then they will reciprocate with the affection and validation you are seeking. On the surface, this seems innocent enough—after all, isn’t kindness a virtue? But as Stoic and Taoist philosophies both remind us, virtue without sincerity is nothing more than manipulation. 

Epictetus taught that “freedom is the only worthy goal in life.” When I reflect on those words now, I see how far I strayed from that ideal when I was ensnared by the Nice Guy trap. My actions were laced with expectations, with unspoken demands for a return on my emotional investment. I was giving not from a place of genuine love, but from a desire to “get” something back.

Taoism offers another lens through which to understand this dilemma. The concept of “wu wei,” or effortless action, teaches us that the most harmonious outcomes arise when we act in accordance with our true nature, without forcing or contriving. Yet, in my attempts to be what I thought others wanted, I was anything but effortless. 

I was constantly adjusting, second-guessing, and striving, trying to mold myself into the “perfect partner.” I mistakenly believed that by fulfilling another person’s every need, by being agreeable to the point of self-erasure, I could earn their love. What I failed to recognize was that I was building a house of cards—fragile, unstable, and entirely dependent on the whims of the other person.

It’s important to note that this Nice Guy/Gal complex isn’t exclusive to men. The desire to contort oneself to be more likable is something that transcends gender. It’s a human tendency to crave acceptance, to want to be seen as worthy in the eyes of others. 

But this craving becomes toxic when it leads us to abandon our own authenticity. When we shift and shape ourselves into someone we’re not in order to be loved, we are, in effect, deceiving those around us. 

We are offering a false self—a version designed to fit the mold of what we believe will gain us favor. How can true intimacy and connection arise from such a foundation of inauthenticity?

In hindsight, I see that this inauthenticity is precisely what makes the Nice Guy/Gal complex so insidious. It presents itself as selflessness and concern for the other person’s happiness, but it is really a form of manipulation. It’s the “doing to get” energy—an exchange of favors disguised as generosity. 

The strings attached are often subtle, buried under layers of politeness and good intentions. But they’re there, tugging at the edges of every interaction. “I’ve done all these things for you—now it’s your turn to fulfill my needs.” When those unspoken expectations aren’t met, the result is resentment and bitterness.

This transactional approach to relationships is antithetical to authentic connection. David Deida, in his bestselling book  “The Way of the Superior Man,” highlights the importance of living from a place of grounded, unwavering integrity—where your actions stem from who you truly are, not from who you think you need to be to gain someone else’s approval. 

Deida’s insights struck a deep chord with me, especially when he emphasized that true masculine energy is about offering love and presence without any need for something in return. The moment we start attaching conditions, we’re no longer offering; we’re bargaining. 

And it’s this bargaining that drains the vitality and polarity from relationships, leading to a dynamic where both parties feel unseen, unfulfilled, and ultimately disconnected.

How many of us can relate to being in this position—either as the Nice Guy/Gal or as the partner on the receiving end of this conditional giving? Perhaps you’ve found yourself saying yes when you wanted to say no, bending over backward to avoid conflict, all the while hoping that your self-sacrifice would be rewarded with the validation you sought. 

Or maybe you’ve been on the other side, intuitively sensing the falseness behind someone’s exaggerated agreeableness, feeling the pressure of their expectations even though they never say them outright. Either way, the result is the same: a relationship built on shifting sands, where true intimacy is replaced by resentment and repression.

I’ve learned, albeit through many painful lessons, that there’s a profound difference between being kind and being nice. Kindness flows from an authentic desire to give without strings attached. 

Niceness, in the way it manifests within the Nice Guy/Gal complex, is a covert contract—an unspoken expectation that by being agreeable, compliant, and self-effacing, I will somehow earn love and approval. It’s not generosity; it’s manipulation wrapped in a smile.

In Taoist philosophy, the concept of “ziran” —being so naturally oneself that no effort is required—resonates deeply as I reflect on my journey out of the Nice Guy trap. True connection and love arise when we present ourselves as we are, without pretense, without striving to become what we think others desire. 

The irony is that in my attempts to be what others wanted, I lost the very essence of what makes connection possible: my own authenticity.

The challenge now, for all of us, is to ask ourselves: How often do we sacrifice who we truly are to gain the favor of others? And is it worth it? The answer lies not in striving, but in returning to the simple truth of who we are, free from the need to be anything else.

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Since 2022, I, Diamond Michael Scott, aka The Chocolate Taoist, have delivered uncommon nomadic wisdom to help you live a more interconnected and expansive life. 

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Onward and Forward

Diamond Michael Scott aka The Chocolate Taoist