I need to start making a conscious effort to be nice, or I'm going to turn into one of those negative disagreeable sorts who go around with frown lines all over their face...the sort you try to avoid if at all possible. When I was younger I was soooo gentle....I remember being unable to give my horse an injection that he really needed because I just couldn't bring myself to jab my friend with that needle. When I was a little older and married, my best friend (an ardent feminist who had no problem at all with incorporating 'bitch' into her self-image) told me rather disgustedly that I needed to grow a spine. She was right, of course....my husband was yelling at me constantly, making nasty humiliating scenes in public, forcing "marital duties" on me.....and I felt like divorcing the jerk would be "mean". It's almost like the instinct for self preservation was entirely lacking (shaking head).

I've learned how to be mean when I need to be. The problem now is that I can't seem to find the gentle girl that I used to be, anymore.

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Yet I still adore gentleness in other people, perhaps more than any other trait.
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It's one of the cardinal traits I breed for in dairy goats, one of those things that I simply will not compromise on. If a doe is mean, she goes, period.
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I don't think there's any faster way for a man to make me fall for him than to save the day and make things right when I'm all upset and I don't know what to do. The more gracefully he does it, the better. :-)
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Just like the fastest way for a man to earn my hatred is to kick me when I'm down or to be cruel when I'm weak. I despise and disrespect lowlifes who make the worst of an already bad or awkward situation.
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A quiet, shy voice, eyes that don't bore into mine.....yeah, that's what I like.
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And see, I've got a double standard going here, because even as I value this SO highly in other people, I'm a hypocrite. I haven't been keeping up on it myself, I've been letting myself slide into the abyss of bitchdom. That has to change.