Lately, I’ve been inclined to voice the nice things I think about people, rather than keeping them to myself. I figure we all like to be complimented, and it makes me feel good, too, to brighten someone’s day.
But some people seem to have a hard time accepting a nice comment. Case in point: I’ve had a cordial/lightly flirty conversational relationship with a man for a few months now. We’re both married with kids and we’re not looking to have a torrid affair, or even a tepid one. Still, we’ll exchange bantering innuendo from time to time, between comments about the weather and complaints about work - good clean fun… [sub]at least that’s how I see it[/sub]
I also happen to think he’s a very attractive man. Had our lives been completely different and had we met eons ago before either of us married another, I’d have dated him in a heartbeat - not merely based on his looks, but mainly based on the rapport we share. I’ve paid him a few compliments - on his sense of humor, his wicked wit, his voice, and his looks. He always seems to deflect them with self-depricating humor - as if he doesn’t believe me.
I’m not out to seduce him, I’m not looking to borrow money from him, I’m not fishing for compliments in return. But I am confused.
Guys, is this a guy thing? Is it a defense mechanism? Do you not like being complimented? Did your moms never teach you to smile and say “Thank you” to the nice lady?? Should I just keep my opinions to myself? Should I be complimenting something else? “Hey, buddy, nice keyring!”
Or am I overanalyzing? [whine]I’m just trying to be niiiiiiice!![/whine]
I don’t think this is so much a guy thing as an everybody thing. We are taught not to brag, not to inflate ourselves. And for some of us it’s very hard to graciously accept a compliment, no matter how well deserved it is. We belittle ourselves in return, play down our talents, instead of appreciating the fact that someone has recognized what is good about us.
Something I learned years ago, and something that Mr. S’s art teacher drummed into her students:
How to accept a compliment
Simply smile broadly and say, “Thank you!”
Omit the self-deprecation, the “What, this old thing?,” the “Oh, I’m really not that good.” Such comments diminish the pleasure that the compliment giver derives from complimenting you. It’s OK to be attractive or to be good at something. We talk about “committing random acts of kindness and senseless beauty” – it’s just as good to have them committed upon oneself.
Oh, I take compliments, just fine hon. Depending on who they come from & when. Like
yesterday I was riding my bike to lunch (you know what this does to a guy, hair
flying around & sweaty) & a women said ‘you look very nice today’, so I said, ‘thank you &
are you sure cause I was just riding my bike.’ she said ‘yes’…
I, for one, enjoy a compliment as much as the next person–unless it calls something I’m insecure about to attention. The most notable example of this would be my musical hobbies. For some reason, I always feel like I’m being paid compliments out of politeness rather than sincerity in this area. Who knows why? :eek:
Anyway, your male associate may be deflecting your compliments out of some sort of perverse guilt rather than impoliteness.
[could be completely wrong]
Women, in general, don’t seem to have any problem with kidding/flirting frivolously. I don’t think its a mind game or anything-- just a way of relating to a guy they find attractive. Completely innocent.
[/could be completely wrong]
I don’t speak for all guys here, but some part of me is always vaguely considering the “possibilities” when I relate to an attractive woman in a playful manner-- but then, I’m a passionate guy. That part of my psyche could be disturbing to the rest of me if I’m in a relationship with someone else at the time. (Sort of a subconcious suggestion of infidelity or something.) Devaluing the compliment might be a psychological reassurance to him that he is not letting things move beyond their current state-- despite the fact that you both know nothing will come of it. Your “advances”, while innocent, might be ever so slightly unnerving to him. Just a thought.
p@cific@812, I never considered that he’d see this as a come-on! Guess I assumed his mind works like mine, which is a scary prospect, to be sure. Methinks perhaps I need to monitor myself a bit, just in case. Life can be so complicated!! <exasperated sigh>
When I receive a compliment I say “Thank you, I appreciate that.” I get the ego stroke, and the complimenter gets a sincere expression of appreciation. Everybody wins.
My deeply-ingrained sense of modesty has kept me from being able to accept a compliment for years. Someone complimented me, I’d deflect it quickly with the self-deprecation. I only recently became aware of what I was doing. Now I force myself to say “thank you” and smile while that little voice inside me screams.
Thats’s exactly how many of us guys were raised, particularly in the midwest and mountain west . A manly man never cries, never hugs, never dances, and doesn’t accept a complement.
Just too elaborate on my post, cause I thought of a good example. Think of Hank Hill on the King of the Hill. My dad and all the men I grew up around were just like Hank. Now imagine if someone came up and said and said Hank was funny in front of his group of friends. If Hank just accepts the complement with a thank you, it comes off as arrogant. The proper thing for Hank to do is be uncomfortable and deflect it to change the subject as fast as possible.
A personal complement cannot be accepted, but a skill based complement can. Like saying he grilled a damn good burger, Or did a great job restoring that old Mustang. That’s the way to complement the Hank Hills of the world (Although you will then be stuck in a conversation about every detail of the process ).
I have no idea if your friend came from that world or not, but it might be an interesting experiment to see what happens when you complement a skill he takes pride in.
I’ve never been able to, and I don’t know why. When someone compliments me, somehow all my senses get turned on simultaneously and I sort of overload on the input. I find myself immediately wondering if the compliment was intended sarcastically. I wonder if thanking the person means I’m being vain. I wonder why they are complimenting me on Thing 1, which I did without even thinking about, when Thing 2 took hours of planning and effort and went without recognition (this is mostly for my superiors at work). Probably more than anything, I wonder if the person even really means it or if they are[list=a][li]the kind of way-too-easily-impressed person who compliments everything (movie studios recruit these kind of people to write reviews for Pauly Shore movies … you know the type),[]on some Robert-Fulghum inspired self-improvement kick to compliment three people a day, in which case the compliment has nothing whatsoever to do with me and everything to do with the person’s own to-do list, or[]has me confused with someone else.[/list][/li]
Now, go back and reread that paragraph as fast as you can until you can do it in about 1.3 seconds and you’ll know what it’s like to be inside my head when I get a compliment.
I vascillate between low self-esteem and narcissism to the point where I either don’t believe the compliment is sincere or I take it home and sleep with it as if it were my favorite pillow or blankie.
Looking back, I believe it has to do with not getting a lot of parental support, even though I believe my industrious parents did love me, in their own way.
Just last night, a pretty young nurse told me I looked younger than her 45 year old husband (I am 52), and as she was saying it, she must have noticed the doubt cross my face because she immediately said, “You can’t take a compliment, can you?”.
So I guess I can’t, and if some of you are going to take issue with the “parent” thing in the previous paragraph, and tell me I should “rise above it” or “get a life”, let me tell you that I loved my Mom and Dad a lot, but they just weren’t able to provide me with a lot of stuff I needed mental-health wise. It’s very important, and although it is a much-used cliche’, Quality time counts.
Thanks
If I get a compliment on something I’m not really aware of my reaction tends to be genuine gratitude like: “Really? Wow, thanks!”
If it’s something that I am aware of, then it 's something that I’ll be pathologically modest about and I’ll turn into a stammering Bob Newhart clone: “well, I um, it’s not, um, I mean…” And in a situation like this I will blush. Semp does not like to blush because Semp’s pale face can not hide it. Blushing bad! Blushing is what little school girls do, not strapping, ruggedly handsome 30 year-old men!
I agree with Wolfman about personal vs. skill-based compliments.
Most commonly, I get complimented on my singing voice (usually after a church service) or my intelligence (usually after beating someone at Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit).
My usual reaction is to smile and say “Thanks”, because that’s what I was taught is proper, but at the same time, I undermine the thanks by rolling my eyes, or shrugging my shoulders or some other self-deprecative action.
My logic: Why compliment me on something God-given, that I was born with and have no control over? (Yeah, I guess that they are complimenting me on putting it to good use, but still!)
A better compliment would have been something like “Where did you learn that vibrato?” or “Hey, you play a great game of Scrabble!”. Or maybe, in the second example, ask me for playing tips. Skill-based compliments like these are much more acceptable to most men.
I think the female equivalent would be to tell a woman she’s pretty – something she was born with. Wouldn’t it be a better compliment to tell her you’ve always admired her fashion sense? Or on a given occasion, how nicely her dress fits or how the hue brings out the color of her eyes?
After reading thru this, several of the comments struck kinda close to home - I’m uncomfortable getting compliments also. I like being recognized for doing a good job at something, but I’d rather get a note from the boss than a face-to-face comment. Compliments on my appearance usually are met with: “Yep. I clean up real good!” And I’ve never known how to handle compliments on my writing, since I’ve only shown my efforts to friends, and they’re generally too kind to be honest.
All in all, I think the best compliment would be an awed silence when I pass by. It’d be lots better than the suppressed giggles…
OK, seriously, I agree that complimenting people on something they were born with seems a bit silly. Better, I suppose, to mention something they’ve done - whether it’s the way they’ve dressed their hair or the way they solved the energy crisis. I shall try to remember that - especially if I ever become a boss-type person.
I’m not too great at this, but I think that I’m getting better. It still embarrasses me a bit (about the only thing that embarrasses me, BTW), but now I just say “thanks” and move on. Before it might have been just a flushed face, a smile and a stammer.
If you know each other very well and where you stand, I doubt that he thinks that you’re coming on. And I agree that it’s not necessarily a guy thing.
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