Well there’s nice and then there’s too nice. We should all be nice people meaning polite, sensitive to others, helpful when we can. Some women, hoping to get or keep a man, take it too far. Here’s a partial list of the too nice behaviors that come to mind:

1. You hate football but pretend you like it and act really excited about a game whether it’s in your home or one of his friends has invited you to their home. You make lots of little snacks, fill the fridge with beer or whatever you think they like to drink and are so cheerful it appears that you may have had a lobotomy in the past twenty-four hours. You greet each one of his friends and partners, if they have them; with so much enthusiasm it’s clear you’re faking it. In fact, you’re so faking it that it’s obvious and you’re such a great cheerleader you drink too much, talk too much, cheer too loud, because you believe this is going to make him love you more. Actually it’s pretty repulsive behavior because you’re taking up all of the air in the room. It would be better if you said you didn’t really care for football but would watch it with him if he really wanted you to, which doesn’t require you getting a degree in “over the top hostess” but allows that you will sit with him if he would enjoy your company because no one is coming over to watch the game with him or just say you don’t care for football and go do something you really do enjoy doing, like engaging in one of your hobbies, hopefully you have at least one, and then get together after the game is over even to socialize with his friends. You’ll feel better and so will he.

2. You want to please him so much you gush over everything he has to say even if it’s the stupidest thing you’ve heard in awhile. Again, it’s the gushing part that puts him off. He knows he’s not that interesting so he knows you’re faking it and if you’re faking it you must be desperate to get or keep a man. Not an attractive quality in a woman.

3. You never expect anything from him. You do all of the housework, all of the yard work, all of the cooking, cleaning, shopping, taking care of the kids and you work full time and you even volunteer to make “beer runs” if his friends are hanging out at your house. You tell him you like doing those things and it’s not a problem because you know how hard he works all week. Psssst, he knows this is B.S. and that you have no self-respect and no self-esteem. You’re willing to work way too hard to keep your man. He doesn’t respect you because, well, what’s there to respect, you’re the poster queen for the doormat club.

4. You want to have sex all of the time not because you actually want to have sex and fake the most fantastic orgasms. Initially men appreciate the all of the time part but as the relationship develops sometimes he’d just like to sit and watch a movie with you without having you crawling all over him or sitting next to him with your head on his shoulder or your hand on his thigh for the entire movie. Oddly enough, when you are that available other women actually look more attractive. You’re too easy, there’s no chase and the chase is part of the fun. You wear him out and ultimately you drive him away because you have revealed that you’re very anxious about pleasing him and he can’t just “be” around you. If you’re performing you’re also requiring him to perform even if you tell him you just want to please him. Men like women who are independent and don’t give up their identities in service to the man they love. Men want to be with a self-assured woman who believes he loves her and is going to continue to love her and won’t stray or leave her if she just acts normal, meaning give it a rest and lay on the other couch to watch the movie, give him some breathing room.

5. You expect nothing from him. You don’t expect him to be a partner and help pull the wagon, you don’t expect him to please you, you don’t expect he’ll stay with you if you don’t wait on him hand and foot and make sure he knows every second of the day and night how much you love him. Oh, and ten text messages a day? Really? Don’t you have a life? That’s the problem, you’ve made his life your life and have become unbelievably boring in doing so, a sure fire formula for his attention to drift to an attractive woman who has an independent personality and some fire in her.

6. Like I said, this is only a partial list but you get the idea. If he doesn’t leave you he won’t treat you very well because you don’t expect to be treated well. You taught him how to treat you. It’s not too late to change.