Most of the time, I am a very enthusiastic person. If I find something I love — a food, a product, a mindset, a book — I passionately recommend it to everyone I know. I want to enjoy myself, and I want you to enjoy yourself too. A good friend describes me as the person to go to when you need a cheerleader. And this is mostly true. If someone I love has a bad day, it seems like the perfect occasion to celebrate. They got through it, after all. I’ll bring the champagne and the potato chips!

“Because I am naturally optimistic and gravitate toward the positive, people can sometimes mistake me for being ‘nice.'”

Because I am naturally optimistic and gravitate toward the positive, people can sometimes mistake me for being “nice.” For much of my life, I think I did too. I wanted to be nice, or at least thought of as nice. And because I’m very animated and very loud about my excitement for others, it seems like I would be nice. It seems like I’m here for the party, which is nice! Right?

But the truth is, I’m not just here for any party. I have strong opinions, a big mouth, and as this Instagram post so accurately puts it, a face with subtitles. 

I don’t want to chit-chat with my neighbors, for example. I want to be able to unload my groceries or go out to check the mail without getting trapped in a 20-minute conversation. I do not respond cheerily if another dog walker approaches me and my two reactionary dogs from behind. (I stand by this though — that is just bad etiquette!)

“I don’t want to chit-chat with my neighbors, for example.”

People have violently opposed reactions to the fact that I don’t value the social performance of the thank you note. I personally don’t need one, and I’ve always struggled to carry out the follow-up steps (find stationery, get their address, hunt for a stamp) in a timely manner. What to actually write in the note itself always fills me with panic — how to keep it from sounding like I just filled in a template? And what if I actually had complicated feelings about whatever it was — the gift, the action, the favor? Is it worse to write something flowery that I don’t mean, or to skip it altogether? (Do I overthink this? Yes, undoubtedly yes.)

I can do the whole surface-area-smiles and no-stakes-small-talk from time to time, but I hate it so much that I generally lose interest if it doesn’t give way into something more substantial fairly quickly. I see the beneficial function of social niceties in the abstract, but I have a hard 30-second limit before I start to feel trapped by them. And everyone can see it on my face. 

It took me a long time to come to grips with the fact that all of this makes me not, actually, very nice. But I am kind, and there is a difference.

What is the difference between nice and kind?

Let’s get the dictionary definitions part out of the way – cliché as it is, it’s important that we are all working with the same concepts before we go further. 

I’m using the word nice here to mean: 

  • pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory: We had a nice time.
  • (of a person) pleasant in manner; good-natured; kind: he’s a really nice guy: Joe had been very nice to her.

(Notice this definition includes the word kind. More on this later.)

I’m using the word kind here to mean: 

  • having or showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature: She was a good, kind woman. 

At first glance, it’s easy to think that these words are interchangeable. And in one sense, they are, they can be, and they’re certainly used that way — both words describe people and actions that are generally “good.” But there are key nuances that are important to note: Nice is pleasant and agreeable, while kind is generous and considerate. Being pleasant and agreeable are tonal qualities; these are adjectives that describe the way something is done, not the act itself. Generosity and consideration, on the other hand, are the actions.

“Being pleasant and agreeable are tonal qualities; these are adjectives that describe the way something is done, not the act itself.”

Think about it like this: It’s 8:30 a.m. on a Monday morning at your local coffee shop. The line is out the door. A mother is trying to get her young child to choose a pastry, and in the process, all the chocolate milk boxes in the display cases get knocked onto the floor. “Oh no, I’m so sorry,” the mother says to everyone around her, clearly embarrassed. “Please, go ahead,” she tells the person behind her. “No worries,” the person says. He’s an older man in a business suit. He smiles at her and says, “I’ve been there!” He steps over the mess and orders his drink, then turns back to say how he remembers when his kids were that age. The mother’s smile is pained, as she’s trying to gently pry one of the milks from her child’s hands while still responding. The man is friendly, even polite. He’s clearly trying, in his own way, to mollify her embarrassment.

He’s being perfectly nice. 

Then the child spins out of her mother’s grasp and throws the chocolate milk to the floor. A puddle forms, soaking the carpet. The mother starts to pull the child out of the line, trying to catch the eye of one of the baristas to wave down a mop. “I’m so sorry,” she says to the next person behind her, then turns to her kid. “We’re not going to make it to music class now. We’re going home.” The kid wails, and the mother picks her up to get out of the line. “Excuse us, I’m so sorry,” she tells the next person behind her. But this person waves her away, leaving the line themselves to stand by the puddle. “I’ll get someone,” they say. “You go ahead.”

“But you’ll lose your place in line,” the mother says. The person shrugs. “I’m not in a rush. No worries.”

This person does not smile. They do not make jovial conversation or try to relate. They actually look unfriendly, sort of surly, putting headphones back in as if to block out further conversation. The mother says “Oh! Thank you so much,” and the person barely nods. She moves back to the front to make her order.

“Later, when the mother tells her partner about the stranger who helped her at the coffee shop, she’ll be talking about the surly person, not the ‘friendly’ one. “

Later, when the mother tells her partner about the stranger who helped her at the coffee shop, she’ll be talking about the surly person, not the ‘friendly’ one. The surly one stayed with her kid’s mess so that they could make it to music class. “The line was out the door,” she says. “I’m sure they were there for an extra fifteen minutes!”

That person was kind. And that mother was me.

It didn’t matter that they weren’t smiling or chatty, that they didn’t try to make jokes or say any single magic phrase. At that moment, none of those things would have helped me. I was trying to soothe my child and still somehow order our breakfast and also make it to music class, the one activity we had all week. I was embarrassed and overwhelmed and I couldn’t get the attention of the barista. The best I could have done as far as social niceties went was exactly what had played out with the businessman moments before: A strained, frazzled pantomime of conversation that divided my attention and made it harder to monitor my kid or regulate my own emotions.

The act of kindness wasn’t only taking over the spill and giving me the place in line; it was excusing me from any additional interaction in that highly charged moment. 

Why there’s a cost to only being nice

The first time anyone ever drew my attention to the distinctions between being nice and being kind was only a few years ago. A friend of mine — a scholar, historian, and critic who works in academia studying the intersection of race and disability — was telling me about a university course she was teaching where she suspended deadlines upon student request, no questions asked. As long as she received the material by a drop dead date in order to make the school’s grading schedule, they were good. This was in the immediate aftershocks of the pandemic, and her class was virtual. She noticed many of her students were taking class from their homes, often from their beds. “Camera-on only for those of us who feel up to being perceived today,” she told her class, going against the growing trend of Zooms making the camera mandatory in the name of accountability. “Otherwise, please join us in the chat or by audio.”

“‘Camera-on only for those of us who feel up to being perceived today,’ she told her class, going against the growing trend of Zooms making the camera mandatory in the name of accountability.”

“Wow,” I said. “You must be the nicest professor they’ve ever had.” My friend shook her head, looking mildly offended. “That’s what some of them tried to tell me too,” she said, her voice dismissive. “I’m not being nice. I’m being kind.” Because of her work, she was all too aware of the invisible hardships that can interfere with her students’ ability to fully participate in her class. At the time, people were still sick or caring for someone else, trying to re-emerge in a world that had changed but was pretending it hadn’t.

“There are so many cruelties baked into the administrative protocols I’d otherwise have to follow. I don’t need them to prove anything to me about what they are going through or justify the level of difficulty they’re having. It’s just a class.”

This demonstrated willingness to suspend any demand for explanation moved me deeply. I’d been recently denied accommodation for my own return to work after maternity leave. I’d jumped through all the hoops and obtained doctor’s notes and written official requests with proposed timelines of adjustments that could meet the institution’s and my own needs as I worked through postpartum anxiety. It was a temporary proposal, a way to help me ease back in as I figured out how the grueling pace of my career worked with the even more demanding needs of breastfeeding. I’d given that job so much, and I was asking for a small, short-term accomodation to help me through a lifechanging experience. I was counting on them to see that.

“I’d given that job so much, and I was asking for a small, short-term accomodation to help me through a lifechanging experience. I was counting on them to see that.”

They were careful about how they denied my requests, offering instead a demotion to part-time work that would have cut my income detrimentally. They acted like it was out of their hands. My boss ended the meeting, inexplicably, by exclaiming “Oh, I get a hug!” pulling me into an embrace that caused me to burst into tears. As they walked me to the elevator, they chatted about their own postpartum days years before, laughing about the sleepless nights as I moved zombie-like in their wake. “Can’t wait to have you back!” they said cheerily as they waved me away.

I was leaking breast milk, sleep-deprived, and terrified about how I could possibly ever reconcile my current reality with the rigorous professional life I’d managed just weeks before. Both women running the meeting were mothers. Yet while they smiled and made a performance of care with sympathetic phrases and that weird hug, their words and actions lacked consideration or generosity. They rigidly upheld policies they had the power to change, but they were trying to be nice about it. While I still look back on this conversation as one of the most pointedly unkind experiences of my life, I haven’t even told you the worst part: I hugged her back.

“I betrayed myself to appease bad faith actors in a moment when they were actively not looking out for me.”

I told them I understood, and made the appropriate facial expressions so that everyone felt like I was taking the news well. I thanked them. I betrayed myself to appease bad faith actors in a moment when they were actively not looking out for me.

Just like I had with the businessman in the coffee shop, a deeply ingrained habit of trying to be “agreeable” and “pleasant” and “likable” compelled me to pretend like I was fine when I was not. I regret it. I wish I could go back and tell my boss that I was disappointed. I wish I could have told the man that I wasn’t able to talk at that moment. It wouldn’t have been ugly or mean to do so, no matter how they received my words. But I chose the “nice” route instead, because that’s how I’d been taught to behave.

The key to finding true kindness

Being kind doesn’t hinge on whether or not someone smiles or uses a friendly tone. True kindness isn’t about the packaging at all – see my surly savior from the coffee shop.

“Being kind doesn’t hinge on whether or not someone smiles or uses a friendly tone. True kindness isn’t about the packaging at all.”

We, as a culture, actually love a prickly person with a heart of gold: Think Mr. Darcy of “Pride and Prejudice,” Roy Kent of “Ted Lasso,” April Ludgate and Ron Swanson of “Parks and Rec,” and Omar from “The Wire.”

All of these characters are spiky and complicated, unlikely to perform the “easy” social nicety just to make everyone around them more comfortable. But while they might not chuckle at a space-filling joke they don’t find funny, they all live by a moral code that compels them to do right by others. They might do so begrudgingly, rolling their eyes and viscerally rejecting acknowledgment for their actions (picture April Ludgate whining “Eww” and Roy Kent shouting “No!” as they flee the scene of their good deeds) — but we can always count on them to do the person-centered, kind thing. And when they do, we know they mean it.

While I might avoid talking to my neighbors most of the time, I have exchanged phone numbers with all of them so I can help with mail or pets when they’re out of town. I’ve knocked on a door or left a note if I noticed a car’s headlights still on in their driveway. I pick up other dogs’ poop when I’m out with my own dogs. And yes, I have written a thank you note. Almost never from obligation, but when I’ve felt truly moved to do so (and when I’ve actually had a stamp).

“Yes, I have written a thank you note. Almost never from obligation, but when I’ve felt truly moved to do so (and when I’ve actually had a stamp).”

To be clear: I’m not arguing that authentic kindness must come from a grouch. Being kind and being nice aren’t mutually exclusive, though I personally tend to trust a grump’s motivations for doing a good deed more (my own personal baggage, to be sure!). Using “kind” in the definition of the word “nice” even feels appropriate — kind of like how a square fits into the definition of a rectangle, but a rectangle cannot be a square. To know the difference, we have to pay attention.

Kindness being tied to consideration feels crucial to me: Attentiveness, thoughtfulness, and curiosity all make it possible to discern each individual from another, and to determine what’s needed in each situation. Being nice sometimes is what someone needs. Sometimes kindness means chatting with the neighbor about fertilizer for ten minutes — like after his dog died, and he was clearing out the backyard where they used to play. Knowing the difference requires consideration, an open mind that can perceive a person trying to share just a little bit of their grief by way of manure.

“Being nice sometimes is what someone needs.”

It’s hard to see, and I certainly don’t always get it right. But I try to notice so that in those cases, I can muster the enthusiasm to talk about fertilizer. And I hope that anytime I give a quick wave and avert my eyes as I’m walking from my car to my door, the neighbor will just wave back and let me go. Maybe he’ll be able to see that it’s the kind thing to do.

Stephanie H. Fallon is a Contributing Editor at The Good Trade. She is a writer originally from Houston, Texas. She has an MFA from the Jackson Center of Creative Writing at Hollins University. She lives with her family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she writes about motherhood, artmaking, and work culture. You can find her on Instagram or learn more on her website.