Be Nice, But Not Too Nice
As we begin a new year, many of us embrace the idea of a fresh start. For some, this includes wading back into the dating pool, eager for love and connection. However, without addressing unresolved issues from the past, we risk carrying emotional baggage into our future relationships. This can make dating a frustrating cycle, even for those who seek a kind, loving partner.
Yet, when a truly nice guy enters the scene, many of us find ourselves pushing away their kindness. It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s a pattern that countless gay men recognize. And, if we’re unable to accept kindness, we’re bound to struggle in our search for meaningful relationships.
Why Gay Men May Avoid Kindness in Relationships
We’ve all seen the classic rom-com scenes—the grand gestures, the flowers on the first date. And yet, when faced with this in real life, many of us are quick to recoil. So, why do our alarm bells go off when someone shows us kindness?
The answer is simple: trauma.
An article from The Conversation notes that, while it’s natural to fear negative emotions like anger and anxiety, some people also fear positive emotions like happiness and kindness. This fear stems from growing up in a threatening environment, where trusting positive feelings or accepting support feels risky because it requires lowering emotional defenses, leaving them vulnerable to harm.
For gay men, this often stems from a history of emotional repression. Growing up in a heteronormative society, many of us were taught that our authentic selves were wrong or shameful. Over time, we developed defenses, hiding our true emotions to protect ourselves. As a result, when the opportunity arises to open up and accept love, we struggle to lower our guard.
The Impact of Trauma and Vulnerability
In addition to societal pressures, many gay men have faced mockery, bullying, or even violence due to their sexual orientation. These experiences can make it difficult to trust positive emotions, particularly in romantic situations. We’ve learned to associate vulnerability with danger, making it hard to fully embrace the warmth and kindness that comes with relationships.
This internalized fear of vulnerability isn’t exclusive to gay men—it’s a challenge that many people face. According to Psych Alive, being loved can trigger anxiety because it disrupts long-standing psychological defenses developed to protect us from emotional pain and rejection.
When we let someone in, we risk feeling exposed, and that can be terrifying. This fear can even turn into anger or hostility, causing some to distance themselves from their partner or sabotage the relationship altogether.
Being Loved Can Stir Up the Past
Interestingly enough, moments of love and connection can also resurface painful memories. Close, intimate moments with a partner may trigger unresolved feelings from childhood—fears of abandonment or loneliness, for example. Many of us carry negative self-beliefs, and when someone loves us, it can create an identity crisis.
Psych Alive suggests that people are often more comfortable with failure or rejection because it aligns with their negative self-image. In contrast, being loved or receiving positive responses can feel unsettling, as it challenges their deeply ingrained beliefs about themselves and disrupts their emotional balance.
For some, love can feel threatening because it challenges the unhealthy narratives we’ve built about ourselves. Instead of trusting our partners, we retreat into old habits and defense mechanisms learned during childhood, all in an effort to feel safe.
Accepting Kindness: Why It’s So Hard
Why is it that we often find it easier to give kindness than to receive it? Because accepting kindness requires vulnerability, letting go of control, and breaking down emotional defenses. For many gay men, this vulnerability can be particularly daunting because it may feel like a contradiction to societal expectations of strength and independence.
Dr. John Amodeo, in a 2020 article for Psychology Today, discusses how men in Western cultures are socialized to project independence and stoicism. This conditioning can create a sense of shame when we accept kindness or emotional support from others. For gay men, this is further complicated by the lingering effects of internalized homophobia—a legacy of growing up in a society that has historically marginalized us.
Fear of Compassion: A Barrier to Healthy Relationships
In 2011, Dr. Paul Gilbert and his colleagues developed a psychological measure called the "Fears of Compassion" scale, which breaks down the different ways people are afraid to give or receive kindness. Some of the reasons people fear accepting compassion include:
- A belief that wanting kindness is a sign of weakness.
- Fearing that others won’t be available when we need them.
- Anxiety over whether displays of warmth are genuine.
- Worrying that accepting kindness will make us dependent on others.
While these fears may seem irrational when spoken aloud, many of us can relate to them. We may have felt unworthy of affection, anxious when others show us kindness, or mistrustful of someone’s intentions. These patterns, though rooted in self-preservation, can keep us from forming deeper connections, particularly in romantic relationships.
Learning to Accept Kindness: The Key to Healthy Romantic Relationships
If we want to build meaningful romantic relationships, we must learn to accept kindness. Otherwise, we risk dating people who only reinforce our fears and insecurities, making it even harder to open ourselves to love in the future.
One way to start is by addressing internalized homophobia, which often lies at the root of our discomfort with kindness. In a 1998 article published in Stigma and Sexual Orientation, researchers Ilan Meyer and Laura Dean defined internalized homophobia as the gay person’s internalization of negative societal attitudes toward their own sexuality.
This often stems from growing up in a heteronormative society that teaches LGBTQ+ individuals that their identity is wrong, dirty, or flawed. These deeply ingrained beliefs can make it difficult to accept kindness, as they cause us to view ourselves as unworthy. Overcoming this requires conscious effort, but it’s an essential step toward healing.
To combat internalized homophobia, The Gay Therapy Center has shared several strategies, a few of which are especially helpful in fostering self-kindness:
- Find friends in the LGBTQ+ community who understand and support you, and be patient—it may take a while to build these connections.
- Practice detaching from negative thoughts to assess whether you're being overly self-critical or illogical.
- If you have non-affirming family members, learn to love them from a distance to protect yourself from constant criticism.
- Work with an LGBTQ+-affirming therapist or life coach.
These steps can help us break the harmful cycles created by internalized homophobia and open us up to accepting kindness from ourselves and others. Additionally, practicing acts of self-compassion can help us slowly start to change the narrative we have about ourselves, making it easier to accept kindness from others.
Psychology Today offers these practical methods for being kinder to yourself:
- Looking in the mirror and saying, "I love you."
- Speaking to yourself kindly, as you would to a close friend.
- Avoiding harsh self-criticism when you make a mistake.
- Assessing your current routines to see how well you’re caring for yourself.
- Asking yourself what you need, and then providing that care.
For many, one of the simplest ways to begin accepting kindness is by learning to accept a compliment. Psych Alive explains that we often struggle to accept compliments because our inner critic tells us we are unworthy of the kind words being offered. This can increase stress and anxiety, but it's important to recognize that our inner critic, while trying to protect us, can become overactive and cause us unnecessary pain.
Practicing self-compassion allows us to calm that inner critic so we can learn to accept our core selves and allow ourselves to receive compliments. These are crucial in relationships as they help deepen bonds and can even support the healing process from trauma. As Rookie Magazine pointed out in a 2015 article, genuine compliments come without strings attached—the person giving them expects nothing in return. Taking compliments at face value is a small but significant step toward allowing yourself to accept kindness.
The Power of Kindness in Relationships
As we move into this new year, it’s crucial to focus on accepting kindness, both from ourselves and others. This isn’t just important for romantic relationships, but for all relationships in our lives—with friends, family, and colleagues.
By allowing ourselves to receive kindness without suspicion or fear, we take the first steps toward deeper, more meaningful connections. It’s a journey worth embarking on, and it starts with a simple act: opening our hearts to love and compassion.
Let’s make this year the one where we stop running from kindness and start embracing the love we deserve.
And remember. Every day is all we have, so you've got to make your own happiness.
For more information on this topic, listen to Episode 38. Learning to Accept Kindness.
Tune into your favorite podcast player every Tuesday for new episodes of A Jaded Gay.
