I'm really not a very nice person

[notaniceperson71]

So on the surface I am a very nice person, respectable middle-aged lady - kind to everyone, the only person at work to hold the door open for the cleaners, judge people that are rude to waiting staff etc etc

But internally I really am not a very nice person and think the most awful things, I openly admit that most of these are jealousy so not a very nice trait I know for example:-

My close friend's DH has just lost his job, I am being supportive but in reality I am secretly pleased, they might have to downsize from their five bed detached house and cut back on their multiple luxury holidays.

I have a crush on a married colleague (I am also married) and if I had the opportunity to shag him with 100% assurances that no one would ever find out then I would!

One of the ladies in our friendship group has recently started to gain wait and is not ageing well (she was always the slim, pretty one) this pleases me.

I love it when my colleague makes mistakes at work, it makes me look good.

My cat shits in next door's garden, I actively encourage this.

Is anyone else secretly evil or am I just a cunt in disguise?

That phase gave me chills! In a car with both dds with hungry lioness’s pacing around us all I had to do was open the car door - something I do all the time

this thread has made me feel quite uneasy

when my dad was in the last stages of cancer, he wouldn't see anyone except family

I think he might have been right that some people he thought were friends would have actually been pleased to see him suffering

I have always chosen friends really really carefully but this thread makes me wary of bothering to try to make any more

MrsTSwift, you have missed the point. Of course the OP would not be unsympathetic.

This whole thread is really about honesty and self awareness and the opposites: lack of self awareness, sanctimony and hypocrisy.

The OP ramped it up for comic effect.

The clue is in the catsh*t!

I think most of us have these "shadenfreude" moments....what makes us "good people" is that we do keep them inside!!!!! Or only share for a laugh with our DP or BF!! I thought it was funny, no therapy or flowers required!

That's your opinion, Teacher, I disagree with it. There's nothing honest about this thread.

I think most of us have bad thoughts from time to time but we don't vocalise them, don't need validation for having them and to stir up a herd.

I think most of us have bad thoughts from time to time but we don't vocalise them, don't need validation for having them and to stir up a herd.

Yeh, there is something odd about how we are “accepting” this to be the norm.. I can’t think of anything more vile than being happy at someone’s misfortune, if you see them as a friend.

I can however understand, if that person is a snob who put you down, bullied you... entitled person who thinks they have it perfect and sneer st others. I can see how failing can do them some good.

But if it’s a friend that I care about... hmmm

I once had a friend who was sneering at me. I didn’t realize how I felt about her sneering until one day I noticed myself wanting something to be “less perfect” about her life so that I don’t feel so shit around her. She was always highlighting the imperfection in my life and it started to make me feel so horrible.

The moment I had this thought about “I wish I discover something bad about her life so I know she isn’t as smooth sailing as she makes it sound while she point out how sad my life is without me even asking for that”... was the moment I backed away from being a best friend to being a once a year catch up friend.

So OP, and everyone else, perhaps you don’t choose your friends carefully. Perhaps there is something about your relationship with them that’s not enriching to you and coming in the way of making you a genuine friend to them. I would suggest that says something about the friendship and perhaps you need to invest less.

The idea is, it’s normal to at times have these thoughts but they indicate there’s something that needs fixing, treating... because no they’re definitely not nice and shouldn’t be nurtured or celebrated as “normal”.

They’re not what should be your norm. They’re a symptom of a beginning of a troubled soul. Deal with what’s causing it. And then you will know you are cured once you reclaim your empathy.

I find that it's a human thing and it is weather and kind of instinctive. But if you are a good person you will simply try not to feed those feelings or aft on them. I feel I sincerely wish good to the people I care about but if I experience envy and conflicted feelings about my friends achievements I just don't let them stay in my head for long.... I KNOWI really want them to do well.

IABUQueen
I once had a friend who was sneering at me. I didn’t realize how I felt about her sneering until one day I noticed myself wanting something to be “less perfect” about her life so that I don’t feel so shit around her. She was always highlighting the imperfection in my life and it started to make me feel so horrible.

=
That resonated with me. I had a friend like that, have had a few in fact. The one that hurt me particularly was always keen to be around me but I used to feel like crap when she was and I couldn't work out why.

I wised up when she ante'd up because presumably she didn't get a reaction from me. Once she'd shown her hand that was it, I was finished with the friendship. It was quite a long-standing one 10+ years but, if a friend uses you to bolster themselves all the time then it's no friendship.

I have two close friends and it's a separate friendship with both. I don't want more friends, don't need them.

In real life I'm a fierce friend but there is some behaviour that to me is intolerable. That was my earlier post about different 'blackness' and barometers. We have that as a safeguard to keep ourselves away from others that wish (or celebrate) harm for us.

I find the cheerleading here on this thread absolutely sicking and ridiculous in equal measure. As a parent you wouldn't want someone like the OP anywhere need your children so why would you find their behaviour acceptable to anybody else?

It's bizarre but that's what this place seems to be lately. Troll-ish threads and posters tripping over themselves to agree with the OPs of them because 'jolly fun and frolics' seeing other people get wound up and rounded on because they're (wrongly) perceived as weaker. Pathetic.

There is a section on Wikipedia on his this is related to low self esteem. People with high self esteem don't need to do it as much...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

Researchers have found that there are three driving forces behind schadenfreude: aggression, rivalry, and justice. Several studies have produced evidence that self-esteem has a negative relationship with the frequency and intensity of schadenfreude experienced by an individual. [4] This means that the less self-esteem an individual has, the more frequently and/or more intensely they will experience schadenfreude. The reverse also holds true - those with higher self-esteem experience schadenfreude less frequently and/or with less emotional intensity.[4]

It is hypothesized that this inverse relationship is mediated through humans' psychological inclination to define and protect their self- and in-group- identity/self-conception.[4] Specifically, for someone with high self-esteem, seeing another person fail may still bring them a small (but effectively negligible) surge of confidence because the observer's high self-esteem significantly lowers the threat they believe the visibly failing human poses to their status or identity. Since this confident individual perceives that, regardless of circumstances, the successes and failures of the other person will have little impact on their own status or well-being, they have very little emotional investment in how the other person fares, be it positive or negative. Conversely, for someone with low self-esteem, someone who is more successful poses a threat to their sense of self, and seeing this 'mighty' person fall can be a source of comfort because they perceive a relative improvement in their internal and/or in-group standing. [5]

Aggression-Based Schadenfreude primarily involves group identity. The joy of observing the suffering of others comes from the observer feeling that the other's failure represents an improvement or validation of their own group's (in-group's) status in relation to external (out-groups) groups. This is, essentially, schadenfreude based on group versus group status.
Rivalry-Based Schadenfreude is individualistic and related to interpersonal competition. It arises from humans' desire to stand out from and out-perform their peers. Another person's misfortune elicits pleasure because the observer now feels better about their personal identity and self-worth, instead of their group identity.
Justice-Based Schadenfreude comes from seeing that behavior seen as immoral or "bad" is punished. It is the pleasure associated with seeing a "bad" person being harmed or receiving retribution. Schadenfreude is experienced here because it makes people feel that fairness has been restored for a previously un-punished wrong.

Hummmm

This thread is so ironic. OP is being open about the imp on her shoulder but, aside from the cat, all that she describes is going on safely in her head.

Those who have come on to say how horrible the OP is, and have really assassinated her personality, are externalising their thoughts, and causing far more harm.

if those people would say the same to their friends, it is THEY who are the actual nasty ones here.

The lack of self awareness by some posters here, who are consistently nasty people across the boards, is really quite amusing.

Maybe they have self esteem issues?

YY I have had this quite a bit in the past (left MN and then name changed to come back) for example things like meanness at being anxious in certain situations (they would never be, would just get on with it etc) or would be better / nicer / generally putting me and others down. It is rife on MN.

Take you nice mask off and come online to vent

@DoubleNegativePanda me too.

Outwardly I'm kind, caring, there to support and help others, loving wife and mother and generous friend.

Inwardly I have these horrible thoughts, mainly stemmed from jealousy. People losing weight (despite me being slim), buying nice houses, having other successes. Awful jealous thoughts and bitching out loud at times.

Its something I'm now consciously working on. I'm actively trying to stop bitching about anyone and I'm trying to replace those nasty jealous thoughts when they arise

The lack of self awareness by some posters here, who are consistently nasty people across the boards, is really quite amusing.

This.

I read the first post and just knew one particular poster would be on here, spouting their usual nastiness, or perhaps bluntness as they would probably call it, and I was right But hey - At least they’re consistent.

I’m another who is feeling very uneasy having read this thread.
I don’t know if my very strict religious background has conditioned my thoughts so that I “catch” any thoughts that might be negative or unkind, and dispose of them immediately. It’s difficult to describe, but it’s a sort of discipline I believe is employed in CBT. Not that I’m selling religion, I promise you. I decided it wasn’t for me years ago. I’m just pondering whether my early conditioning led me to fear the consequences of ‘evil’ thoughts.

For whatever reason, I don’t indulge in them. (The accusations of virtue signalling are asinine - how on earth can it do one any good when it’s double-blind? You don’t know me and I don’t know you so what’s to gain?)

BUT I do agree that we can tell. I’d always been slim but my body just stretched and never went back after late (in life) multiple birth/pregnancy. I told a ‘friend’ - who incidentally had been very large for as long as I’d known her - that someone had called me fat one day. She burst out into loud, hearty laughter; couldn’t help herself.
You just think to yourself - on what level does this person value me or enjoy me as a person, if they’re clearly delighting in my distress? Obviously the friendship couldn’t continue.

I was once really horrible to a friend.

My dd was never invited to parties from year 5 onwards. Her dd went to every single party going.

She would always tilt her head and look at me disbelievingly or shrug when I told her dd was never invited.

Her ds now never gets invited to parties. It's rotten for him. She complained about it and I said, "Well now you know what it's like. It's horrible."

She took real umbrage. I wasn't pleased her ds was excluded but I was glad she now has a sense of what it is like for your child to never be invited to parties.

I genuinely don’t see the point in being focused on other people’s lives. Their successes and failures are nothing to do with you. Live your own life and maybe stop being so surface nice, be more genuine, then you may have less internal resentment.

Came on to say everyone can have unpleasant thoughts occasionally. But some of these are horrible!
But when DPs pissed me off I do secretly hope he gets ill. He has a fear of vomiting.
Wow. That is truly evil!

AgedWine since you asked, I think your reaction to your uncle's comment was totally OTT. So he said you were too old to be pregnant, so what? At 27, you should have had the self confidence to rise above his comment instead of worrying about it for the rest of your pregnancy. And then gloating about your cousins misfortunes? It sounds like you're the bitter and twisted one here.

I haven't read full thread but I recognise this.

Outwardly I'm the nicest person you could meet. I'm often told I'm too nice and people can genuinely see I'm pleased for others.

That's true.

I LOVE when nice things happen to nice people.

But over the years I've had unkind and jealous thoughts. I know they're irrational and I don't like it but also know where they come from.
It always been when people have tried but failed to look down their nose at me, been smug about something or had it easy and never faced hardship. Never really and truely been empathetic to others troubles in the past.

And then they face something and fall apart. I'm not pleased for them and absolutely will 100% support them even if they haven't done me.

But I do have fleeting thoughts of feeling pleased they have experienced what many of us do and always hope it'll make them outwardly nicer!

I hate the thoughts but do think it's human to have them.

I agree I am totally more shocked at Agedwine post than I am the OPs.

The irony of so many posters lecturing the OP on being a wicked horrible person followed by tearing her to shreds. Such kindness

I genuinely don’t see the point in being focused on other people’s lives. Their successes and failures are nothing to do with you. Live your own life and maybe stop being so surface nice, be more genuine, then you may have less internal resentment

This, in spades.

I'm not nice. I don't really think mean thoughts about most people. I just don't think about the vast majority of people at all.

I put on a pretty good face though, and am quite happy within myself so I don't worry about it anymore. I used to when I was young.

As I said on another thread, I am pretty sure I am not an actual sociopath because there are people I deeply love and care about. But the vast majority of people are just noise to me and I don't care what happens to them if it doesn't affect me.