N is for Not Nice!

N is for not nice. I am not a nice person, at least in my own head. I have no desire to exchange pleasantries with strangers in the store, library or elsewhere. Small talk is something that just holds no interest to me. If someone begins a conversation, I will be polite, and often find myself engaging in that conversation, and sometimes *gasp* enjoying it. However, I do not seek out nice, meaningless conversation.

The thoughts that often swirl in my head are definitely not nice. However, more often than not I keep those petty words unspoken. I was taught that if I can not be nice, or at least polite, to keep my mouth shut. I tend to be the same online. I often avoid conversations, however once I get started it is sometimes hard to shut me up. I avoid feeding the trolls for the most part, but do occasionally fall into the trap if it involves defending someone else or their work. In any situation I generally do not respond if there are bad things are said about me, but go after someone I that I care about, is important to me, I respect or is weaker than the attacker then I can not keep myself out of it. I try, but the not nice sometimes comes sneaking out. In real face to face situations this is much harder for me, because I have a very expressive face. Even if I refrain from saying things, people can tell that I really want to. On line I can read the comments that get me angry, type my angered response to get it out of my head and then delete it and not engage with those looking to get responses through being ugly. In fact, just yesterday I started feeding a troll, but after a few volleys realized what I was doing and stopped myself from reading more responses. I still have the urge to look.. but so far have managed to avoid it. Now I am curious again, but no. No...

I am polite and occasionally kind and helpful. However, if some people could hear the running commentary in my head. Oh boy! While working in a library I have the chance to work closely with some people that are extremely intelligent and just plain awesome. However, I also get to deal with the opposite, and get to test my ability to hide the 'not nice' me every day. I have no patience for ignorance or the people that refuse to even attempt to do for themselves. The words flowing through my head when near such people is far from nice, thankfully said people are often so self absorbed that if my lack of nice thoughts sneaks onto my face they do not notice. I try not to let that happen, but sometimes the idiot meter goes off the scale and I have to find an excuse to look away so as to not offend.