Bill & Ted’s Bogusly Nice Article

Some of the nicest people I’ve ever met were (and most of them still are) complete strangers. Having little-to-no knowledge about someone else’s background tends to make certain prejudices go out the window, which gives first impressions a chance to bloom; and with that lack of historical backdrop, nobody has any room to judge each other. The only downside to that is you could be buying drinks for someone who just killed a man. Though, assuming you don’t put out monetary goodness to random people, he’s probably still a nice guy.

There are plenty of nice people who aren’t good people; plenty of good people who aren’t nice people; and plenty of flamboyant people who aren’t village people. Sometimes though, good people do cross over with nice people. This can be very dangerous, as both groups are polar opposites on the grand scale of awesomeness. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyways, good people always gravitate towards the lame zone of the scale.

When it comes to having a wild time, there’s nothing more boredom-inducing than good people, and nothing as awesome as nice people. I’m the type of guy that needs to be entertained at all times, so if you’re boring, chances are you’ll have to catch me later on a further position in the chronological network. An answer like, “Whatever you want to do, Travis” whenever I ask where people want to go, is entirely unacceptable. Good people wont even go so far as to argue with me if they don’t like my idea, unless it’s a particularly “troublesome” idea that offsets their overall goodness factor. Boring.

Truly fun people, who still fall under the nice category, have their own ideas and aren’t afraid to share them, because they know, deep down inside, that whatever they have to offer is going to result in fun-juice all over the place. These selfless fun-junkies aren’t worried about conflicting opinions, because they’re well-armed with a sweet martial arts move known only as: Round House Kick To The Face. What makes nice people so different from good people? Well, the most obvious difference, between the two, is how you go about identifying them.

Nice people are, by far, the hardest kind of people to point out. They could be pretty much anyone. Picture Neo and Morpheus walking down a crowded street at noon, ogling a blonde girl in a red dress because she looks nice. No problem, except for the fact that people who supposedly look nice don’t always follow up on that expectation; instead, an agent comes up behind Neo and puts a gun up to his big Keanu-shaped head. “Whoa!” Stop. Chill out Neo, it’s just a training program, so no worries. Lesson being: Don’t trust the lady in the red dress until you’ve at least properly added her as a friend on MySpace.

It’s time to deal with the one-hit-wonders, good people, and their not-so-useful bits of divine knowledge. The calling card of a good person, oftentimes, serves the same function as their death certificate. When in a group situation, good people like to angle for a more conservative way of getting things done; in other words: I can’t work with them, because when I do, they shoot down my methods as being either lazy or unethical. Now, I’m no Machiavelli, but when attempting to accomplish menial tasks, such as open-heart surgery, I opt for the ends-justify-the-means philosophy. If we’re five minutes away from getting a failing grade, and we have the ability to look in the back of the book for GPA-saving answers, let her rip all over the place. However, if I find myself without a tolerable work partner, I may just have to go to China, where folks actually know how to get stuff done and work together. Good people, be gone!