do we owe people kindness or just politeness

i’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between being nice and being kind. about the roles we play in public, the pleasantries we exchange, the automated “how are you’s,” the soft smiles on command and whether those gestures are a form of social glue or simply a carefully rehearsed mask. i wonder whether we’ve confused politeness with goodness, or worse, replaced one with the other entirely. when someone holds the door open or offers you a compliment in passing, it feels good, sure. but it rarely touches anything deep. it doesn’t comfort you when you’re raw. it doesn’t stay with you. and increasingly, it feels like we’re building a culture of performance around decency, where people know how to appear kind without having to do the emotional work of actually being kind.

i’ve been guilty of this too. i’ve nodded and smiled while emotionally disengaged. i’ve told someone “take care” with no intention of checking in. i’ve responded with heart emojis because the truth felt too complicated to type out. and i’ve also been on the receiving end of that same dynamic: people who say the right thing, who make the right gestures, who follow the right script, but leave you feeling lonelier than if they’d said nothing at all. it’s not cruelty. it’s not malice. it’s something else… he growing distance between form and feeling, ritual and reality.

politeness is choreography. it’s learned, rehearsed, repeated. it makes strangers feel safe. it smooths over friction. it creates social rhythm in places that would otherwise be emotionally chaotic. and there’s value in that. politeness is what makes waiting in line bearable. it’s what makes sharing a cramped elevator tolerable. it’s what keeps small talk at the doctor’s office from spiraling into existential dread. but it is not intimacy. it is not concern. and it is not care. kindness, on the other hand, is messy. it requires presence. it cannot be automated. it is not scripted. it shows up in uneven, inconvenient ways — often without the polish of manners, without the approval of onlookers, without a post-ready aesthetic. it’s not always sweet. it can be awkward. sometimes it even looks cold from the outside. but it reaches you. it makes you feel less alone. and that’s the difference.

what complicates this further is that we live in a time when kindness itself has been aestheticized. we talk about kindness like it’s a color palette — soft, beige, introspective. “choose kindness” appears on tote bags and home decor prints. we caption our selfies with quotes about being gentle. we post reels about our emotional growth arcs, always set to moody piano music. and while i don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to express goodness or care publicly, i do think we’ve started performing something we don’t always practice. we say we believe in kindness, but we flinch when someone else’s pain disrupts our day. we signal our compassion with the right words, but avoid conversations that require patience. we promote healing, but expect people to do it out of sight. social media has made this even trickier. our politeness now extends into the digital realm, where it often disguises itself as emotional fluency. we double-tap on confessions we don’t want to engage with. we say “sending love” without really showing up. we repost content about boundaries and nervous system regulation and trauma-informed listening, all while muting our closest friends. we are not unkind. but we are, increasingly, unavailable.

there’s also a generational texture to all of this. many of us grew up in homes where politeness was mandatory and kindness was conditional. especially for women, especially in brown households. being polite wasn’t just good manners — it was survival. you learned how to offer tea even when your stomach was in knots. you learned how to host guests while holding your own feelings hostage. you learned to protect everyone else’s comfort before learning to identify your own. and so it’s no wonder that kindness feels loaded. it was rarely modeled. we were taught to smile, not to ask. to serve, not to name. to accommodate, not to connect. but that inheritance lives in us. it shows up in the way we instinctively offer politeness as a shield. the way we default to soft language even when we want to scream. the way we say “no worries” even when we’re deeply hurt. and over time, this layering — this endless smoothing over — can start to calcify. until one day, you realize you don’t know how to receive kindness, let alone give it. because kindness isn’t something you can perform. it’s a muscle. it has to be used. it has to be practiced, clumsily and often.

the other complication, and it’s a real one… is that kindness is expensive. not financially, but emotionally. it costs presence. it costs time. it costs the suspension of your own ego. and in a culture that rewards optimization, kindness can feel inefficient. it doesn’t scale well. it’s not always reciprocated. you might spend an hour listening to someone and leave with nothing to show for it. you might choose softness and be met with dismissal. you might be kind and still not be liked. but that’s the thing: kindness was never supposed to guarantee anything. it’s not a transaction. it’s not an investment strategy. it’s a way of being. it’s how we keep each other tethered to humanity, especially in a world that keeps pushing us toward disconnection. politeness makes the world bearable. kindness makes it liveable. and yet, kindness isn’t always gentle. sometimes the kindest thing you can do is tell someone the truth. sometimes it’s refusing to enable a cycle. sometimes it’s leaving when staying would be dishonest. sometimes it’s not saying anything until you’ve processed your own reaction. we like to think of kindness as soft and pleasing. but sometimes it’s direct. sometimes it’s hard. sometimes it’s not symmetrical.

i remember once, years ago, someone i barely knew sat next to me after a particularly hard day. we were at a party and everyone else was laughing, swirling wine, pretending they weren’t sad. i had been doing the same. she looked at me, didn’t say much, just held eye contact for a beat longer than necessary, and said, “you don’t have to act okay here.” it wasn’t dramatic. it wasn’t deep. but it stayed with me for years. she didn’t owe me that moment. but she gave it anyway. and that’s what kindness is. it’s not about always being available. it’s not about being everyone’s safe space. it’s not about sacrificing your peace. it’s about noticing. about choosing to care in a world that keeps telling you not to. about being present enough to see someone fully, and generous enough to respond even when it doesn’t benefit you.

so no, i don’t think we owe people kindness. not all the time. not unconditionally. not when it costs our dignity or well-being. but i do think kindness, when offered freely, can shift the emotional gravity of a life. it can rebuild someone’s trust in the world. it can make grief a little less lonely. it can remind someone that they are still worth showing up for. we owe each other decency. we owe each other non-harm. we owe each other the bare minimums that make life in community possible. but kindness — true, human, interruptive kindness — that’s a gift. and like all real gifts, it only means something when it’s given by choice.