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We often assume that kindness is a universal good, that warmth is inherently soothing, and that a genuine gesture of connection will be received as something nourishing. And yet, many of us have experienced the opposite: We offer something simple and warm, and the reaction that comes back is withdrawal, defensiveness, or even hostility. It’s one of the most perplexing interpersonal moments—not because of the loss itself, but because of the dissonance. Something given with clarity is returned with confusion. Something light is experienced as heavy. Generosity becomes a burden.
Whenever this happens, people tend to jump to two conclusions: “I’m wrong” or “They are wrong.” But human interactions are rarely that simple. In many cases, kindness doesn’t “fail”; it simply meets someone whose internal world does not have the capacity to receive it.
In my work, I often talk about how our emotional and neurobiological states shape our relational behaviors far more than our intentions do. We like to imagine that we react to others, but very often we react to the state we are in—the state our nervous system is defending, preserving, or barely keeping together. Kindness lands differently depending on the system in which we are currently living.
Some people—especially those who reside chronically in a sympathetically dominant state (angry, intolerant, driven to escape)—feel every gesture of warmth as a potential demand. Their body is primed for vigilance, not receptivity. Others, who live in a collapsed parasympathetic state (depressed, avoidant, numbed) and carry little self-worth, may interpret kindness as the beginning of an emotional transaction they believe they cannot sustain. And many who have carried shame for years simply cannot metabolize the experience of being genuinely seen.
We imagine kindness as a soothing balm. But for some, kindness, warmth, or closeness penetrates too much, too quickly. It awakens emotions they cannot regulate—longing, inadequacy, guilt, vulnerability—and instead of softening, they protect themselves by withdrawing or reframing the interaction in a way that maintains their internal equilibrium.
This is why I find it useful to distinguish between different kinds of people who appear “nice.”
The “real nice”: Some people are genuinely generous—they have discovered the pleasure of giving, which is rooted in parasympathetic safety. These are the individuals who feel most like themselves when they contribute, help, soothe, or uplift. Their kindness isn’t a strategy; it’s a form of vitality. It protects them, not because they expect a return, but because generosity is the place where they feel expansive and grounded.
The “pleasers”: There is another group that looks similar from the outside, but their niceness comes from a very different place. These are the individuals whose nervous system lives in chronic parasympathetic immobilization, often combined with low self-esteem. Their “pleasing” is not an expression of altruism; it is an expression of fear and neediness—usually formed through neglect or traumatic circumstances that forced their system to adapt by disappearing. They are good candidates for emotional predators because they do not feel entitled to boundaries. They give because they are afraid of losing connection. Their smiles hide submission. Their niceness is a survival strategy.
The “placaters”: And then there is the third group—the placaters, as I describe in my books—who appear agreeable but embody a quiet internal rage. They use niceness as camouflage, not for connection but for protection. Their kindness is compliance, their softness is resignation, and beneath their agreeable tone, you find resentment that has nowhere to go. They are not soothed by giving, nor strengthened by it; they simply learned to avoid confrontation or punishment as a way to adapt to violent or threatening people. Their niceness is tense, fragile, and easily shattered.
Each of these groups responds to kindness differently.
- The generous person receives it and expands.
- The fragile person receives it and collapses further.
- The placater receives it and resents it.
But the most complex responses come from those whose neurobiology blocks their ability to “take in” the good.
Some people have nervous systems that learned to downregulate positive affect because positive emotion historically preceded danger, loss, disappointment, or obligation—circumstances that taught them to stay away from anything that felt warm or connecting. For them, kindness registers not as safety but as risk. Their brain cannot integrate the good because doing so would require vulnerability—the same vulnerability that once cost them too much. The insula may detect warmth, but the amygdala interprets it as a threat; the prefrontal cortex cannot override the learned associations quickly enough. Kindness becomes an internal conflict instead of a shared moment. This rigidity was adopted long ago as a way to confront and control threats.
Receiving warmth requires a degree of regulation. It requires elasticity and flexibility. It requires the ability to tolerate positive activation without interpreting it as a precursor to loss. If someone does not have that capacity, kindness enters their system as something destabilizing. Giving becomes an offense to their incapacity to receive. They defend themselves not against the person who is kind, but against the internal sensations that the warmth evokes.
That is why people sometimes push away the very thing they long for. Why someone can say, “I want connection,” and then panic when connection appears. Why they can initiate closeness and then retreat the moment they receive a response. Nice gestures awaken a part of them that is unprepared, unpracticed, or unregulated. These patterns or adaptations may originate early in life, when an avoidant attachment style was the safest path, or later, when avoidance mixes with rigidity because the less one takes in, the less one has to control.
We may easily misinterpret interactions with these individuals as personal rejection, but in truth, they reflect an incompatibility in the connection, not a lack of worth in either person. Kindness seems misplaced only because it cannot land in a system unable to hold it.
And this is where discernment becomes essential. Kindness should not be withdrawn; it should be directed wisely. Some people flourish in the presence of warmth. Others regress. Some open. Others defend. The difference is not in the quality of the kindness but in the architecture of the nervous system receiving it.
When warmth brings out the worst in someone—when it evokes defensiveness, avoidance, or hostility—the response should not be to become smaller, colder, or more guarded. The task is to recognize the mismatch, to understand that their reaction comes from their internal wound, not from the external gesture, and to step back without losing personal coherence.
Kindness does not lose its value when it is rejected.
It simply meets its limit.
