How can I control my niceness where my friends are concerned?

To end your nice girl manifesto towards your friends:

• Extend yourself toward people you like and care about.
• Expect friends to be emotionally healthy, self-aware, and working on resolving their issues.
• Require that friends be good listeners, go out of their way for you, provide validation, understanding, sound advice, and solicited (and if you are harming yourself, unsolicited) feedback.
• Seek out people who can put aside their needs and desires and who have your interest at heart.
• Encourage friends to share their honest feelings with you in a tactful, appropriate way, even if their words hurt.
• Anticipate that communicating authentically with friends does not come automatically but takes time, commitment, trust, guts, and energy.
• Surround yourself with people who can take feedback so that you don’t have to sit on your hurt and stuff your feelings with food.
• Have enough friends that all your eggs aren’t in one basket and have different kinds of associations for varying needs and activities (going out, heart-to-heart talks, etc.).
• Allow that friends aren’t perfect and neither are you.
• Expect that friends will share equally the work of forging a spectacular relationship.
• Know that you will make and lose friends throughout life and believe that you will always have good friends as long as you want and seek them out.