I've been told I'm too nice. How can I build better boundaries?

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Ok, so if you do something for someone, they’re better off, right? Good boundaries starts with the realization that the answer to the above question is not always yes. You have to figure out the circumstances in which saying no is better for that person than saying yes.

Having a hard time figuring out which is which? The reason you have a hard time figuring it out is the same reason why being too nice is not an attractive quality. You’re less interested in their actual well-being, and more interested in being nice.

My girlfriend has a lot of guy friends. They buy her things. Most of the things they buy her, she doesn’t need them. This one guy got her a piece of ruby jewelry that probably cost a fortune. She told me this as we were sitting down for dinner, she had turned him down for dinner that night, the only way the guy got the opportunity to give it to her was because the day before her and I couldn’t agree on what to eat together so she went with him and I went to eat what I wanted by myself.

The next day we’re sitting down to eat and she tells me what had happened, and we laugh about it. As if buying her jewelry is the key to her heart. One guy asked her what kind of car he should buy, she said something off the top of her head, and then he went out and bought that car to try to impress her. She is not the kind of girl to get impressed by cars. She was more impressed by my practical and still good-looking Mazda3 than in any sports car. Before we started going steady, she often commented that out of all the guys she dates, my car is the one she likes spending time in the most.

The key thread in all this is that if I’m looking to do something nice for her, I make damn sure that she’s going to like it before I do it for her. If she doesn’t show enthusiasm, I forget all about it. I used to buy her stuff without asking first. I never saw her using anything that I bought her like that. But if I make sure first, she tells me for weeks how much she likes the thing that I bought her.