Someone Who's Pretending To Be Nice Usually Has 3 Habits You Won't Find In Genuinely Kind People
Andrea Piacquadio | Pexels When a person wants to appear nice, their gestures come from a genuine place.
But for people who are pretending to be nice, they often lack habits and traits that are obvious in truly kind folks. And when you're around someone who is authentic and compassionate, they'll never do these things.
A person pretending to be nice has these habits that you won't find in truly kind people
1. They talk about you behind your back
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When people never learn how to politely disagree, they come to believe that only their opinions matter. Whatever anyone else says or does is meaningless compared to their personal opinions.
When they pretend to be nice to your face, they might seem cordial, but as soon as you're gone, they start throwing shade. Maybe you have spoken to someone who suddenly started speaking rudely about another person, despite having just acted so nice to that same person earlier.
As author and wellness expert Polly Campbell pointed out, "Even watching someone else act rudely leaves us feeling stressed, defeated, and likely to underperform. Rude behavior turns everyone off and makes it less likely we will reach out, help others, or do business at the location where the rude behavior occurred."
Fake nice people will speak bad about others behind their back. They might even gossip just to gain attention or talk negatively about someone they don't like. This sense of entitlement means they're more likely to spread uncomfortable misinformation.
2. They're only kind to certain people
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Selective empathy is when people are kind and compassionate towards people they think are "worthy," while ignoring the suffering of others. In fact, people tend to feel less empathy for those they deem immoral or antisocial.
People who are only pretending to be nice tend to weaponize empathy for their own gain. They're kind to people for their own benefit, not because they genuinely are coming from a good place.
Maybe they show fake kindness to their parents because they want to ask for money. Or they're faking kindness with a colleague because they want a raise at work. It sounds like high school drama.
When people use niceness to manipulate others, as a a study from Nursing Ethics explained, it's in an effort to control them. But for truly kind people, they would never do anything like this. They're compassionate through and through, and don't have a limit to who they share that kindness with.
3. They give backhanded compliments
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A person pretending to be nice might give someone a compliment that's actually quite rude or a dig at their appearance. When they say something like "you look really pretty when you actually try," they're insulting how you look.
What feels like a compliment is really just an insult. And even if you do happen to call them out on this rudeness, they might downplay it and claim they were simply joking.
But by saying "I was just joking," they're covering up how they truly feel, and may feel too ashamed to say it outright. Using a backhanded compliment is their way of expressing their inner thoughts, even if it's not actually nice to begin with.
But genuinely kind people will never give out false compliments like this. They'll take notice of little details and focus on lifting you up rather than putting you down. And that's what makes them so special.
Allison Peterson is a writer with a degree in English from the University of Nevada, Reno. She writes on relationships, lifestyle, and mental health topics.
