Stop Pretending You're Nice

I move through the world like a human Weeble-Wobble. Bouncing, tilting, and absolutely ricocheting off furniture thanks to a vestibular disorder that makes balance more of a loose guidance than a rule. 

I pinball through life. Boldly. Enthusiastically. Sometimes diagonally.

And I’ve done a lot of work to proudly take up space in a body that does not always allow me to walk in a straight line.

But every once in a while, even after all that work, I’ll run into a doorframe and feel that old reflex kick up:

“Oops — sorry.”

Apologizing. To. A. Door.

Not because the door was harmed. Not because I did something wrong. But because somewhere along the line, I learned that my existence — my impact, my movement, my needs, my presence — should feel… minimal. Padded. Contained. Easier for other people.

And I’m not alone.

Women don’t wait to be told to shrink. We start doing it long before anyone asks.

It’s automatic. Invisible. Practiced thousands of times before we ever learn the language to describe it.

And that’s the part no one talks about: The shrinking begins long before the pleasing.

We learn to make ourselves smaller in the micro-moments:

• The first time we’re told to smile.
• The first time we’re praised for being “easy.”
• The first time our anger makes someone uncomfortable.
• The first time our sadness feels like “too much.”
• The first time we realize our needs come second, third, or dead last.

We shrink before we even know we’re shrinking.

We soften our voice before anyone reacts. We edit a thought before anyone interrupts. We dilute ourselves before anyone complains.

And then we call it “being nice.”

But that’s not niceness — that’s survival training.

It’s the muscle memory of a nervous system that was rewarded for vanishing and punished for taking up space.

It’s the choreography we learned in homes, classrooms, churches, workplaces — where our worth was tethered to our usefulness, our adaptability, and our ability to keep the emotional peace.

Women aren’t praised for being whole. We’re praised for being harmless.

And after decades of this, we start apologizing to doorframes.

When my divorce was finalized, the legal forms gave me two options for my last name:

A) Keep it 

B) Go back to my maiden name

Neither option fit.

Both names belonged to women I had successfully outgrown — women who shrank themselves on reflex, women who bent and contorted and accommodated until their own edges blurred.

There was no version of me to return to.

Instead, I filed a new motion. A third option. A name of my own making.

A name that didn’t shrink. A name that didn’t apologize. A name that didn’t require me to fold myself in half to be tolerated.

Choosing a new name was the first time I saw the shrinking for what it was: a story I had inherited, not a story I had to keep.

And just like realizing the magician never actually saws their assistant in half, once you see the shrinking, you can’t unsee it.

You start noticing every micro-flinch where you pull back from yourself. Every apology that sneaks out uninvited. Every moment you downgrade your own existence to keep things smooth.

It’s not your personality. It’s your conditioning.

And conditioning can be rewritten.

You don’t owe the world a smaller version of you.

You don’t owe anyone the easier, quieter, softened version — the one that fits into their comfort instead of your capacity.

You are not “so nice.” You are not “low maintenance.” You are not “easygoing.”

You are someone who learned to survive by shrinking.

But you get to live by expanding.

You get to take up space. You get to disappoint people. You get to have needs, edges, volume, preferences, boundaries, gravity.

You get to stop saying “sorry” to doors and start telling the truth to yourself.

Niceness didn’t save you. Shrinking didn’t protect you. Self-erasing didn’t buy you peace.

You’re allowed to stop pretending.

You’re allowed to be whole.

You’re allowed to be big.

And you’re allowed to be exactly as much as you actually are.