“So ridiculous man, she didn’t even care. All she said was ‘thanks’, then she went off with that dude she’s been talking to,” As my class was wrapping up and I was putting in my headphones, I could hear someone complaining about being “friend zoned” by the girl they’d been talking to. They continued to speak about how, no matter how many nice things they did for her, she just wouldn’t be more than friends with them. I kept my earbuds in but didn’t start playing any music, so I could hear the rest of the conversation before I packed up my books. “Being nice gets you nowhere,” my classmate complained. I turned to my left to see who had been speaking, and caught them on their phone, continuously swiping left on Tinder. As the two people I’d been listening to walked up the stairs and out of the library, the same “nice guy” who complained about his niceness not being rewarded, turned and said “Dude, all these girls I find on Tinder are beaten.” For those of you don’t know, “beat” is another term for ugly or disgusting.

I found myself thinking about this conversation later on when I was headed to dinner. I wish we could get rid of the term “friend zone” altogether because it promotes the idea that other people owe you for your kindness, regardless of if they asked for it or not. People aren’t obligated to act the way you want them to, just because you’re nice. The continuation of the joke of the nice guy being kind but not getting to sleep with the girl he likes as a reward for it isn’t funny anymore. People are convinced that being nice should result in whatever they want being handed to them, when really, respect or appreciation should be the only expectations.

The doors to my dining hall are so heavy that I can replace my weekly (or monthly) workouts with opening one once. As I went to open the door, in the reflection I saw someone walking toward the dining hall with what seemed like heavy bags. I held the door for them and even pushed myself up against it so they didn’t have to worry about holding it themselves. They went through the doorway, and I got no sign of thanks in return. My immediate response was to be grumpy and call the person rude (I was also really hangry so anything made me annoyed). Then I realized that, on a smaller scale, I was reacting exactly like the person I’d been judging before about being friend zoned. The person I held the door for didn’t ask me for my help, and may not have even needed it. Yes, it’s important to be polite, but at the end of the day, would I have even held the door had I not been looking for some sort of justification that I was a nice person through a “thank you”?

In a general sense, not just pertaining to the “friend zone,” I want to bring up the point that no, the nice guy doesn’t finish last. We just have skewed perceptions of what being nice is, and what the result of our niceness should be. Being nice does include being empathetic, making an effort to understand what someone needs you, and not placing your expectations in the reactions of people toward your good deeds. It does include being known as loyal and reliable for being there for people. It includes the satisfaction out of making a tangible difference in someone’s life (no matter how big or small), not just a superficial difference. What it doesn’t include is only being nice at the times it’s convenient for you to be because then it’s not being nice for the right reasons. It doesn’t include being nice for a reward. What it also doesn’t include is being someone’s doormat, which is why I think people often confuse not getting the response they want with being taken advantage of. If you’re saying “being nice gets you nowhere,” then you’re being nice for the wrong reasons, which isn’t really being nice at all.

Now this is not to say that if you’ve felt any of these ways you’re not a nice person. Sometimes you can be the nicest person and go out of your way for people, but can have higher expectations of people’s reactions toward what you did for them. There’s nothing wrong with this, but at the same time, being open to changing your expectations can be useful. Not everyone is capable of returning your feelings, or favors, and that’s okay. The trouble ultimately lies in setting expectations for people that they were never obligated to meet.