I wanted to acknowledge a specific and unusual type of Nice Guy I’ve encounted recently. He’s the one who got into some trouble when he was younger.

Most Nice Guys have been people-pleasers for as long as they can remember. Whatever childhood or teenage rebellions they got into, it was always discreet and controlled, carefully avoiding trouble. Until recently, I thought all Nice Guys avoided trouble when they were younger.

But lately, I’ve met a few who actually described being hellions in their youth. They got into fights, committed petty crimes, and pushed back hard against authority. They got into trouble at school and at home, and caused harm deliberately. Although they still had a strong sense of Nice Guy injustice – e.g. never choosing “weak” victims – they may have even indulged in being a bully.

At some point, they started to realise they were getting into too much trouble. One client started to notice himself being socially isolated and targeted at home. Another, while going through the foster-care program, realised he wasn’t able to find a home because he kept getting moved along due to being too difficult.

That’s when they decided on people-pleasing as a strategy. They came to the conclusion that ANGER – the emotion behind their aggressive behaviour – was to blame for all the trouble they were in and the pain they caused others, so they abruptly decided to lock their anger down in a cage. They dialled up agreeableness to the maximum setting, and just started doing whatever calmed and soothed the authority figures in their life.

Nearly overnight, they transformed into being passive Nice Guys who avoided conflict, did what they were told, tried to find pleasing rules to follow (e.g. religion), and gave up their autonomy.

This is what I call the “pendulum swing”: going from one extreme to the equally insane opposite extreme. In this case, from aggressive and disobedient to passive and meek. It comes from the Nice Guy false dichotomy belief that there are only two options: nice, or jerk.

When they grew up, they were upset to discover that their anger was not fully locked down. They experience scary outbursts, and fantasize about hurting people who disrespected them. They feel torn between trying to be “good” and trying to deal with their rage. They fear that one day they will just “snap”.

What they’re missing is ASSERTIVENESS – the third option – a healthy masculine direction of that angry energy into bravery, boundary-setting, and creative behaviours.

They need to realise that anger is not to blame for the trouble they got in, and the disapproval they received as boys. Their anger was trying to protect them from painful experiences, but they lacked the maturity to understand how to funnel it into cool, unreactive assertiveness.

If they can learn how to transform that feeling into a fuel source for powerful self-respecting actions, they will no longer need to contain it. People will then learn to treat them better, they will better be able to protect themselves from others, and they will stop taking bad reactions personally (and stop trying to fix everyone).