They used to say, Nice guys finish last. We may want to rethink not-nice as a way of life. Right about now, the world could use a dose of niceness.

My brother said our mother was the epitome of “nice,” and that is true. Mom always tried to be nice and sometimes she went above and beyond to be kind to other people just because. She once followed a car that had dangerously cut her off and ended by holding the poor driver while they sobbed out their entire life tragedies on her shoulder. Gary is like that too. Saturdays in the 1970s we walked through every pawn shop on First Avenue in Seattle looking at guitars. Homeless men would tell him their life story and he would hand them change and sometimes they cried too because someone cared enough to hear them out.

That is my model for decent behavior. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Where have I heard that before?

People have done wonderfully generous things for me recently, but that’s not why I try to be “nice.” It’s how I was raised. As a teacher, I tried always to resect my students, their opinions, their lives, and their choices. I think my students mostly appreciated that. I can’t say the same for most adults. Some adults seem to operate under a different rulebook, and that has meant I’ve been particularly accommodating to people who seem to feel absolutely no obligation to return the favor. They took what they wanted because I was willing to give, but a smaller favor asked in return was “inconvenient.”

Women are groomed to be nice and look where it’s gotten us. Politicians are not always nice. Sometimes they forget the obligation their position demands, to put the general good above their personal needs and goals. Few do that—do any? It’s too much to expect? If a woman talks loudly or complains about a man’s

I loved Bernie Sanders back when he was a state politico, a mayor doing good and saying the things that needed saying. As a closeted socialist, I always agreed with his message and his politics. And then he won national office and I still liked what he said while recognizing that he didn’t accomplish much of anything—his voice was important. We needed him to stand up and say the right and decent things. Looking closely, I had concerns.

And then Bernie ran for President, and [male] former students started taking me out for coffee to convince me Bernie Sanders was the future. No. He wasn’t. I’d agree that we need to recenter America, recall that the current complaints of Maga Republicans describe a Democratic party that sounds more like Nixon than LBJ. Was Bernie Sanders ever capable of carrying the nation forward? Alas. He was punting above his weight—is that the correct sports analogy? (I’ll set aside his personal life.) He helped Trump gain office when his ego wouldn’t let go. Most recently, that he defended Platner well past the point where he should have backed off doesn’t surprise me. It’s about par—another sports analogy. I’m glad Sanders says he finally asked the man to withdraw from the Maine race. It was about time. It was only women being abused and despite millions of documents in the Epstein files, only a woman has been indicted and sent to prison. She was sent to a nicer prison once she said nice things about Trump. It was first women who lost rights to their own bodies, but heaven help us if eggs or gasoline cost a few cents more.

Last week, a very nice man told me that being nice only encourages others to take advantage. In my 70s, I am finally noticing that.

Sometimes it takes us a long time to find ourselves, especially as women groomed from birth by our culture to be “nice,” accommodating, self-sacrificing, patient, small, and silent. I am told I am perceived as a strong and capable person, but sometimes—often I haven’t felt that. I always reconsider the truth of any complaint about my behavior, I return again and again to failures even decades later. My father used to quote Cromwell’s line: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” I understand that some people never experience doubt, never consider the possibility of their own error or simply do not care if they are wrong, and that realization forces me to step back. It astonishes me, that selfish confidence. That arrogance.

For a Dinner Table, people like Bernie Sanders are not on my list anymore. I am no longer willing to tolerate politicians or dinner companions who will throw women under the bus. I voted for Biden, but I don’t like him either. I blame his treatment of Anita Hill for the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, a man without decency. And then the whining and sniveling outburst from Brett Kavenaugh—no woman would have survived such a loss of temper. Those men failed to recognize when they should have withdrawn, and men failed to stop them. They betrayed me and half the American population by setting aside our most basic concerns in order to advance politically.

I expect and demand better. And despite my whinging, I will continue to do my best to be nice. I feel that imperative to give more than I receive. In so many ways I have been fortunate. I strive to do good because, as dear Gary often says, only partly in jest: “I feel better about myself as a human being.”