The Cost of Being Polite: What a Slice of Bread Taught Me

It started with a slice of bread.

I asked my empathy buddy if she was okay with me eating while we were meeting. And then I stopped and realized: that wasn’t a real request. 

If I had been honest, I would have said: “I want to eat this bread. Right now. I’m hungry, and if I don’t eat, I’ll probably get a headache and be cranky for the rest of the day. And I’m open to finding a strategy that also works for you.”

A stupid slice of bread — and suddenly something much bigger was on the table.

Fake requests and polite lies

This tiny moment cracked something open: How often do we “ask” without really asking? How often do we expect people to say yes because „that’s what polite people do“? And how often do we swallow what we want because we’re too scared to name it?

I’m tired of being polite. Tired of being nice. I never agreed to these unspoken rules of our society.

• You expect me to play along? Fuck that.
• You expect me to “behave like a woman”? Fuck that.
• You expect me to be quiet, kind, and accommodating? Fuck that.
• You expect me to let you put me in a box, slap a label on it, and leave me there for the rest of my life? FUUUCK THAT.

What I actually long for

I so long to be real. I so long for people I can say things like this to: “You know what? I’m actually pissed right now. I’m annoyed. I want to scream.” People who respond with curiosity: “Ohhh, you’re annoyed? Is it about me?”

That level of honesty creates safety for me. Not the smiling, endlessly-nice, endlessly-understanding performance I often see in NVC spaces.

Realness creates trust. Realness creates safety. Realness creates vulnerability.

When someone says, “I’m so fucking angry right now. Is that too much for you?” and I can feel their honesty and also know they deeply care… that’s when I relax. Because then I know the ground I’m standing on is real. And then I can bring my full self too.

For me, NVC isn’t about being nice. It’s about being real — while caring for the other person.

Why conflict doesn’t scare me anymore

Many people learn NVC because they want fewer conflicts. Haha. I also thought that was the gain.

Since learning NVC, I actually have more conflicts. Because I finally dare to say what I need. Spoiler: people don’t love that. And I get it. It’s tiring to search for solutions that care for everyone’s needs. Democracy is exhausting — and yet, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

So, no, NVC didn’t teach me to have less conflict. It taught me how to handle conflict. It taught me to trust that behind every expression there’s a message worth hearing. And once we reach that point, the conflict becomes something I am actually grateful for.

The hardest part: being honest with myself

But the real challenge isn’t listening to others. 

It’s listening to myself. To the tiny inner voices I try to shut up because they disturb me, annoy me, scare me. Listening to what they have to say and finding the beauty in it is hard. And still, whenever I truly listened, I found something beautiful.

Except for one thing: the part of me that still defaults to being polite. The part that still asks fake questions instead of naming what I actually want. I thought I had made real progress. And then one slice of bread showed me that I still have a long way to go.