A #DezNat thread about kindness vs. niceness:
Nice=Agreeable. It focuses on how others perceive you. Therefore, it is an egotistical characteristic. It poses no risk to self. In fact, it preserves self. But has nothing to do with your fellow man.

Kind=Proceeding from benevolence: Desire to do good to others. It is a selfless characteristic. It risks self. Sometimes being kind requires “tough love”, and therefore can make people dislike you for not being agreeable(nice).

When being kind, you forget yourself. IOW, you don’t worry about preserving your self. You are only concerned with whether your actions are benefitting your fellow man. It causes a completely different action/result that may damage your self,

but hopefully brings goodness to those around you.
Example: My friend was depressed and was going to drink an entire bottle of Robitussin. I was amazed how hard and uncomfortable it was for me to make sure he didn’t do it.

I wanted to be nice, but being agreeable would have let him walk out the door to his personal destruction. “But at least no one got mad a me.” I physically had to stop him from making a very bad choice. He was very upset at me.

If I just wanted to be nice, and worried about losing a friend more than helping my friend, I would not have stepped in. That was twenty years ago and he now lives on the other side of the world. Guess what? We’re still fantastically close friends.

So, I would argue a nice friend is actually not your friend- not your brother in the gospel. Conversely, a kind friend is always your friend, whether you realize it at the time, or not. Seek kind friends. Be wary of nice friends.