Is being a nice person overrated?

[Spck]

I’d love to hear views on this. I’m late 50s so have a fair amount of life experience. Have always tried to be a ‘nice’ person by helping friends in need and supporting family in need. But for various reasons I’ve been let down by various people I’ve helped.
So don’t pounce and say you shouldn’t expect anything nice back. But rather I would like to know what do you think makes a good person and what is the point of trying to be a nice person? And if there is really no point in being nice, I’d love to know how you set your moral compass.
For me, I’ve decided that immediate family are the main people to invest my time in as they are the ones who always have your back.

@Carly366 thanks for sharing that and to everyone else. But I really identified with your post @Carly366. I’ve helped a number of people recently, family as close as sister and close friend going through a crisis. I didn’t do it to gain anything back, just because I genuinely think we should be there for one another. And then those people have just been v dismissive going forward.
I suppose that was the point of this thread because I do like to think that one would go the extra mile for others but I don’t think many people do and I am trying to see where it all fits together.

Whether I’m nice or not depends on whom you ask, and I imagine you’d get wildly different answers if you did. I’m quite content with that. I don’t feel the need to be likeable or considered ‘nice’, rather I’ll be respectful until I’m given reason not to be.

I do think that women generally are far more concerned about being considered ‘nice’ than men are.

I've realised on multiple occasions that if I basically kick up a fuss things get done almost instantly. Realised this after being all lovely over and over and over again and getting nowhere. Kick off and it's sorted instantly. Really annoying as I don't enjoy being a dick.

@MoreSleepPleasee this is so true and why I have become more cynical with age. I don’t enjoy that but I’m afraid in a lot of cases it’s true

i'm nice but not at the expense of my own mental physical or financial health.

Once men start to get judged on them and to self-judge their worth on how nice and kind they think they appear, and then use that to value themselves with, I may reevaluate. Or not. But that won't happen in my lifetime anyway.

I know lots of women who are arseholes, equally men. Ditto for knowing nice men who pride themselves in being nice, and women. Sadly there are fewer men this way, though I find unkind women are fairly commonplace.

What's your point? @daretodenim Maybe it's a class/culture thing, I moved to here age 20 and am from a middle-upper class background, so my experiences of expectations on (British) women vs men is probably be skewed.