📍Coffeebar, Reno, NV
I’m sure you’re all familiar with “Nice Guy Syndrome.” It’s characterized by a sense of entitlement to preferential treatment (cause I’m just SO nice), ulterior motives for putting others’ needs in front of your own, and the compulsive tendency to tell lies or half-truths to appease. Well, I’m a recovering Nice Guy myself, and I’d like to explore that last part — the lying — today. Fellow Nice Guys, I am wondering how you handle a particular kind of nice guy lying.
A Particular Kind of Nice Guy Lying
Think of a time when you’ve watched someone do or say something odd / embarrassing. And not only did you watch them. You watched them watching you watching them. In other words, Eye Contact occurred. How did you react?
If you are in fact a Nice Guy, there’s a strong possibility that you did SOMETHING to make that person feel less weird about their Embarrassing Act. Maybe you executed the simple “look-away-and-shift,” breaking the gaze and turning your body just so, forming an unspoken lie-pact. You both pretend that Eye Contact didn’t happen, that Embarrassing Act never occurred. This is a simple example of the particular kind of Nice Guy Lie I’m trying to figure out.
But what if the look-away-lie-pact isn’t an option? Well… that’s the predicament that I found myself in last week. Let’s take a look at what I did, and why it was WRONG.
The Exchange
It wasn’t a lengthy exchange. These moment-to-moment opportunities to Nice Guy lie often aren’t. I was standing around the theater lobby, minding my business, killing time before the start of show. As I waited, I surveyed the crowd, letting their presence bathe me in that “something unique” that every locale has in their locals. Or, at least, that’s what the woo-woo artist inside of me said I was doing.
Anyway. I was crowd-surveying when my attention snagged on a particular woman. She stood still, breaking the gestalt of the crowd-river flowing into the theater doors. She was quite close to me, but I kept staring anyway like the nosy fool I am. The woman was looking intently at her unopened program. What was she so fascinated by? The cover of the program didn’t have any special information, really. What was she looking for? Or maybe she was just that happy to be here? Just as my heart swelled at the imagined sentiment, the woman flipped the program open, raised it up to her face, and jammed her nose into the centerfold. She took a long, wet inhale.
Oh. I recoil. Well… that’s— And then she’s looking at me looking at her. Eye Contact. Sh*t. I look away, but realize she’s too proximal for me to do the ol’ “look-away-shift.” So I look back, and then immediately realize that now I’ve gone and made it look like whatever she’s done is so bad that it made me double-take. I open my mouth to say something, but I’m uninspired. So SHE starts to speak:
Her: “Oh… I…”
And that’s when I HAVE to speak. So I say:
Me: “No, I get it. I do that. All the time.”
Okay. Um. What?
Not only have I claimed to be a fellow program-sniffer (why does that sound like a slur?), but I’ve labeled myself as someone who sniffs them regularly. And not just sometimes. I sniff programs all the time. I don’t even need to tell you that she got out of there fast. Who would want to spend any more time than they had to with a perpetual program-sniffer?
So what went wrong? What can we — us Nice Guys — do to avoid this in the future? Let’s discuss.
First we gotta term this ish, this particular kind of Nice-Guy lying. Something that rolls easily off the tongue. I’m thinking: Situational Nice Guy Mirrored Behavioral Lying to Make People Feel Better About Themselves (SNGMBLMPFBAT).
Great. Let’s come up with a quick n’ dirty guide on how to SNGMBLMPFBAT.
A How-To Guide on SNGMBLMPFBAT
Knowing when and when NOT to SNGMBLMPFBAT can be difficult, especially if you’ve been on Nice-Guy-autopilot for the past several decades. Think of this guide as a starter pack, peppered with Quick Tips on how to get started with SNGMBLMPFBAT.
AND REMEMBER: You WILL make mistakes. (So don’t beat yourself up about it too much, you Nice Guy, you.)
Step #1: Diagnose Relative Generic-icity
Okay. So some stranger has gone off and committed an Embarrassing Act, and you’ve been caught in the cross fire. They caught you watching — Eye Contact — and you’re too proximal to their embarrassment to just shift away. So now you’re wondering: Is it time to get my SNGMBLMPFBAT-on?
Before you go any further, it’s important that you run diagnostics on the Relative Generic-icity of the Embarrassing Act.
✅ Embarrassing Act is generically embarrassing.
Example: A guy walks into a sliding glass door. While I have never done this (surprisingly), lots of humans (and dogs) have. I’d probably just go ahead and mention that I’d also made rapid face-to-glass contact to make the guy feel a bit better.
❌ Embarrassing Act is specifically embarrassing.
Example: …Deep-sniffing a program. You *don’t* sniff programs. (Even if you do.)
If it’s generic, if it’s something you’ve seen countless times on TV, it’s a universally human comedic bit. You’re in green territory. If not… keep your mouth shut, bud.
Step #2: Be Vague
Whatever the case, be vague. Don’t commit. You don’t sniff programs all the time. Maybe you sniff them on occasion. Perhaps. And you ALSO didn’t do it just one time last summer when you saw Absinthe in Las Vegas. That level of specificity either a) breaks the illusion of the SNGMBLMPFBAT by looking like mocker-y or b) suggests that the act was so emotionally memorable to you that you’ve gone and cranked up the embarrass-o-meter on both you AND the person across from you. (Also, this is just an all around terrible example because you *DON’T* sniff programs! Ca-peesh?)
✅ “Oh gosh, are you okay? I can’t even count how many times I’ve bonked my head on a sliding glass door.”
❌ “I sniff them. All. The. Time.”
Step #3: Be Mindful of Body Language
This goes beyond a simple SNGMBLMPFBAT and into the greater world of lying best practices. Tread lightly and use your powers for good, Nice Guy.
Physical Energy:
✅ Big Fluid Gestures
❌ Compulsive Micro-Movements (Foot Tapping, Nose Flicking, Lip Chewing)
Hand / Arm Position:
✅ Relaxed Arms, Open Palms (Open palms are Nice Guy palms)
❌ Closed Arms, Collapsed Posture
Eye Contact:
✅ Regular Eye Contact, Slow Blinking
❌ Shifty Eye Contact, Rapid Blinking
❌ ❌ Extended, Unbroken Eye Contact (“Oh, I sniff them. I sniff them *all* the time.”)
OPTIONAL Step #4: The Good Samaritan SNGMBLMPFBAT
Are you running low on your Good Deeds? Looking for a quick-fix way to make a difference in the life of a stranger?
Then go ahead and say a big, fat “eff-it” to steps #1-3.
Example Scenario:
Person: *Accidentally back-hands someone in the ass on a subway*
Me: *Sees Embarrassing Act*
Person: “Oh… I… Er..?”
Me: “No, I get it. I do that.”
*Makes hard, unbroken eye contact, bounces knees, wrings hands.*
“…All the time.”
Congratulations. Now you’re the weird one. “Person” feels comparatively normal in the Case of the Purely Accidental Ass-slap. If there is a heaven, you might have won yourself a complimentary celestial toaster.
Now, go forth and SNGMBLMPFBAT!
Weekly Recs
⛰️ DO: Hike up to Monkey Rock. Look at monkey rock.
There’s a rock up there that’s carved to look like a gorilla. ‘Nuff said.
🧠 LEARN: The etymology of “capeesh” [kuh-PEESH].
It’s 1940’s Italian slang, originally spelt “capisci” from the Italian word capire “to understand.” Other spellings include capiche, kabish, coppish, etc.
📝 Writer-ly Thought…
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” – Kurt Vonnegut