“Nice” Is a Costume and It’s Making Everyone Sick.

🎵 I turned this into a song.

You can stream it everywhere—Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, TikTok, all of it. — Just search Loui Crow and press play.

How False Guilt, Fawning, and Fake Connection Got Confused With Love

Let’s start where it hurts. Being “nice” is not the same as being kind.

Kindness is real. Kindness has breath. Kindness has a spine.
But “nice”? Nice is what we wear when we think truth will cost us everything.

Nice is what I used to wear when my nervous system whispered:
“Don’t rock the boat. Don’t say no. Don’t be too much.”
Nice is what I wrapped around myself like a shroud just to survive rooms that punished honesty.

But let me tell you—
Nice people are exhausted.
Nice people are angry in secret.
Nice people cry in parked cars after conversations where they were never actually seen.

Nice is not love. It’s a survival script.
It’s a performance we were rewarded for—until it nearly took us out.

And I’ve dropped the act.

Let’s call it what it is:
Nice is a strategy to avoid rejection.
It’s emotional contortion.
It’s people-pleasing dressed up like virtue.

Not because we’re fake. But because we were trained to believe that staying silent was safer than being real.

Here’s the sacred difference:

Genuine care says: “I see you. I have capacity.”
Fawning says: “If I don’t show up, you’ll leave. Or punish. Or make me the villain.”

And underneath fawning?
False guilt.
The kind of guilt that punishes you for choosing peace.
The kind of guilt that calls you selfish for healing.

I’ve lived in that cage. I broke the lock.

And now I know:
Saying no isn’t rejection—it’s restoration.
Walking away isn’t cruelty—it’s clarity.
Needing rest isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom.

False guilt isn’t sacred.
It’s a parasite passed down through broken systems that call exhaustion “love” and silence “maturity.”

And trauma bonding?
That’s not closeness. That’s shared collapse.
That’s masking fear as intimacy.
That’s calling pain a party because we don’t know what to do without it.

You know what else I’ve had to unlearn?

That “unconditional love” means unconditional access.
It doesn’t.

Love doesn’t ask you to disappear to prove it’s real.
Love without truth is just performance in disguise.
Real love says:
“I choose to honor myself and you. But not at my own expense.”
“I love you. And I won’t burn for your comfort.”

Let me go deeper.
There’s a part of me—the fire-forged one—that never wanted to be digestible.
She wanted to be honest. Precise. Unapologetic.
She didn’t come here to be liked. She came here to tell the truth.

And that’s what I’m doing now.

Because being “too sensitive” was never the issue.
Being untrained in boundaries was.

Empathy without boundaries is a flood.
Compassion with sovereignty is a light.

I’m not a sponge anymore. I’m a lantern.
I don’t carry everyone.
I don’t absorb everything.
I witness. I feel. I choose.

Because that’s the difference between martyrdom and magick.
Between burnout and brilliance.

And here’s the kicker:
When you stop playing along—when you stop performing your own erasure—people will call you cold.
Let them.
That’s not your coldness.
That’s their confusion meeting your clarity.

I’m not here to be manageable.
I’m here to be real.

And baby crow? So are you.

You’re not mean for molting out of fake connection.
You’re not selfish for wanting more than martyrdom.
You’re not wrong for walking away from the table where love always came with a side of self-erasure.

You’re just done wearing costumes.
You’re just ready for sacred connection.
You’re just finally remembering:

Kindness has a backbone.
Compassion has boundaries.
And your truth was never too much.

Welcome to the you beneath the costume.
We’ve been waiting.

🖤