Strong women

I read

I've always loved strong women, which is lucky for me because once you're over twenty-five there is no other kind. Women blow my mind, the stuff that routinely gets done to them would make most men curl up and die, but women turn to steel and keep on coming. Any man who claims he's not into strong women is fooling himself mindless: he's into strong women who know how to pout prettily and put on baby voices, and who will end up keeping his balls in their makeup bags.

Faithful Place, Tana French

... therefore, I think!

Now, I understand when we are told to be "sweet" ... it's only for the image that we project in order to get what we want !! ??? I have such a hard time with this game.

We hear that we cannot be too nice; to be nice is a quality. However, the problem starts when we are "always" nice or too sweet. Just as a survival instinct, a person sometimes needs to put her/his foot down and say it as it is.

To be frank/honest without being abrupt, to be understanding without being condescending, to be sexy without being vulgar, to be funny without being offensive that what we should all aim for. I hate, yes you read it, I hate people who play the nice card ... all the time. I find them to be phony. I just cannot trust them. Don't know why it is just so.

They say that you should not trust anyone, but some people are even less trusted than others because of their behaviors  You might immediately think of someone who is mean or surly, but in actuality, there are two specific types of personalities that people mistrust: the too nice and the too funny.

When a person is too nice, it immediately puts other on guard. What is it that they really want? What are their motivations for being nice? We can’t fathom that someone would be so nice for no reason, so we assume that there just has to be some type of ulterior motive behind their behavior.

A perception can be a deception.

That also reminds me of something I have heard on the teleseries Mad Men: Episode Nixon-Kennedy.

"I don't understand. I try to do my job, I follow the rules and people hate me. Innocent people get hurt and other people, people who are not good, get to walk around doing whatever they want. It's not fair."

Think about it, it is often the brown nosers, the Smithers of this world that get away with it ... for a while!

Personally, I favor being yourself ... just be and be happy.

Source: Jamie Brown