Guys, can you accept a compliment?

Compliments make me very, very suspicious. Unfortunately I assume that the complimenter is trying to be manipulative.

I agree with both wolfman and Quasi. I have received so very few compliments in my life that they tend to stick out. And usually when I get them, they are the sort of “Hank Hill” deal from friends.

Like, “Damn that was funny, GH.”

Or, “Hey, I really liked your game tonight, GH.”

Or, “I think you’re a good looking guy,” and “Hey, you wanna dance?”

… both of the latter were from gay guys, and since I’m not gay, I did take them as compliments but I constantly lament that they were not instead given by women.

The one I have gotten the most often in my military career has been, “Damn, man. How can you drink so much?” Which is, of course, a matter of pride in the armed services.

Yeah, I’ve been complimented by a gay guy before and that one felt more sincere than any coming from women. I guess that’s because, since I’m not gay, I can separate any other emotions from the compliment. If I’m attracted to the woman who offers the compliment, i’m too flustered to know how to take it.

No, I don’t take unsolicited compliments so well. I get emabarassed, don’t know what to say, blush, try to deny it (that’s a good one) and just get kinda aw’ shucksy.

On the other hand, if I meet someone and they have an interest in my hobby, I’ll show him some of my work and if he thinks it’s good, that’s pretty cool.

Usually people compliment me on things they obviously don’t know much about but may someday learn about. People compliment me on the quality of my doodles, and I can’t take them seriously because someday they may see some real art and know I was an A-hole for lying to them by accepting the compliment. This could throw a wrench in my plans for world domination.

Compliments on activites that I am actually good at, or that I think they’ll probably never see a good example of, I will take ENTIRELY TOO WELL. It will really go to my head. If someone compliments me on my Minesweeper time, I’ll say, “YES, my Mine-fu is truly superior to all other forms.” And forever after that day I will believe I am the best.

Needless to say, overestimation of one’s abilitis is miles worse than underestimation, because you start looking like a snob and you stop your training. I went to the Minesweeper championships and left in defeat. Or something like that.

I like it when my boss sends me an email saying something like “nice work” or such. I can easily accept that - same with customers that bring red wine for solving their stupid problems :slight_smile:

I’ll get back to you on compliments about appearance if I get any.

I agree with much of what’s been written, especially the idea of ‘deflecting’ compliments with self-deprecating comments. My paranoia about someone complimenting me can best be summed up in the example of something I work really hard on, and think that I do well, but I’m not actually sure - public speaking.

People always compliment me afterwards, but I get into a state asking myself whether they’re complimenting me just for the fact that I had the guts to get up and speak in front of hundreds of people (which is not something I find difficult), or whether they really think that what I said has some merit.

Having said that, I was also once universally panned for my singing in a band I was a few years ago (and by ‘universal’, I mean across several continents). There’s no doubt in my mind that paranoia over a compliment is a heck of a lot nicer than the feeling of being criticised like that.

I think there’s an important distinction to be drawn between being “good” at something and being “the mack” at it.

Sometimes people (and not just lads, I tell you) interpret “You’re really good at X” as “You are The Mack at X, there is none finer”. This brings up all sorts of conflicted feelings we have about being the best at something, what that means in terms of personal worth etc. It’s almost like we feel we need to be the top of the class, or else we’re nothing. When we’re told we’re “the mack” at something, we believe we’re top of the class for a bit, until we think “hmm, no, I’m not the best ever”, and then we get to feeling like a fraud. Now that’s just plain silly, because we don’t go around saying we’re the damn mack, and the person who gave the compliment didn’t either. They just said we were good.

The flip side to being top of the class is being bottom of the heap. If someone compliments us on a subject in which we thought we were bottom of the heap, clearly we mistrust the compliment.

It’s good to learn how to accept compliments as just “you’re good” without trying to work out if we’re really top of the class or bottom of the heap.

That was somewhat rambling, but those are/were my issues. Maybe some of the lads here share those issues.

I am lousy at accepting compliments. I’d like to think I was raised with fairly good manners. I listen carefully. I’m empathetic. Etc, etc. However, when someone says something nice, I also make self-depricating coments. It’s something I do a lot and have no clue why. Isn’t that what therapy is for??

I’ve tried recently to not have a automatic reaction of self-deprication ( It’s not like I get many compliments anyway :rolleyes: ), but I’ve tried to simply thank the person. I was complimented last night, a man I know said that I looked good. I thought I looked like a drowned rat, and a pudgy one at that ! Instead of being polite, I made some remark about my belly. AS I was doing it, I realized I was being impolite.

Hard to change a mindset that’s been with you since you were like… 5 ?

Cartooniverse

’Toons, maybe the guy happens to like pudgy, drowned rats! :smiley:

For some reason, this reminded me of the time someone complimented my hairstyle. My flippant response: “Thanks, it’s rented.” No wonder I didn’t have many friends…

I tend to deflect compliments with humor too.

People tell me what a nice thing I am doing for so and so, I say, “Yeah, my parole officer makes me do stuff like this.” If it’s about being smart, I generally just assume a country kid voice and say “I cain’t hep it, I’s born dis way.”

Reading the thread makes me understand it a bit better. My parents were almost totally undemonstrative. Never once did I hear praise for an accomplishment, or an encouraging word on anything I attempted. Looks? Ha! I don’t remember when my mother told me I was ugly, but I certainly never doubted that she felt that way.

So, I don’t like compliments. They are unfamiliar, and it feels wrong to agree. Let’s change the subject. Being smart is certainly the most common reason I hear of compliments, and being nice is the second. I like the Straight Dope, because no one here is all that impressed with me as a smart guy, what with the plethora of smart guys around this place, and being nice doesn’t come up all that often. :slight_smile:

My ortho daughter at work is sincerely distressed by my dismissal of her compliments. She gathered up her courage for days and finally almost cussed me out for it. (close as she could come, really) She said it made her feel that I didn’t care what she thought about me, because she was not good enough, or smart enough to have an opinion about me. This is my darlin’ child. As sweet and kind a young woman as ever you might know, and one of the Angels who swooped down and cared for my own daughter for me when I needed it so badly.

So, I have to be more willing to be complimented, especially by those for whom I care. I do try. I still don’t much like it, though.

Tris

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao-Tzu ~

Compliments are meaningless to me if they are on unwanted side effects of my true passions or things I maintain as ‘tools’ of research, or on residue of transcended states. It’s like; “Yeah, I am a nice person - but your focus has nothing to do with where that value is situated in my mind; the second I stop using this shit, you wouldn’t think twice about complimenting me - maybe we can try this again in another 5 decades…” goes back to work
Compliments reveal a lot about the people giving them - a triangulation of time perception, knowledge and cognitive age. That people actually use them against the person doing the complimenting makes me sad.

-Justhink

Another aspect of compliment is residue of tension that comes from chasing the dreams they hold with whole-hearted vigor; only to have them shattered. When not only the ideal of the compliment is embraced; but resultingly transcended (by not actually having any of the ‘promises’ those dreams held come to pass; compliments can be bittersweet memories of the vast quantity and quality of work invested into the idol of that compliment, ultimately having to transcend the idol itself, because it cannot process the depth of the compliment … slightly different way to articulate the last observation.

-Justhink

It depends the timing and method of delivery. If done the wrong way compliments can look like flattery.

I could accept a compliment if it were true. Nobody tends to compliment the things about me that might, in some way, be worthy of complimenting.

For example, nobody ever says, “You’re so smart!” They will, however, say such strange things as, “You’re a cutie!” The first would be (somewhat) true, the second is demonstrably false.

Not only do accept compliments, I expect them. Actually, I’m terrible at accepting compliments, I get all flustered and dorky. Maybe it’s because I hear so few of them.

Oh, I can accept compliments all right… as long as I keep under control the din of subconscious voices that want to deconstruct every word said, if I’m just being myself, or doing something not for the sake of it being noticed, and someone gives me positive feedback, I’m pumped – and appreciative.

A lot of us have been conditioned that “aw, shucks, 't ain’t no big deal, really” is an archetypal attitude. “Just doin’ m’job, ma’am” is early on imprinted on us as a very proper thing to say. And it’s not just guys, as mentioned before, who are taught it’s “polite” to direct attention away from ourselves and toward the other person as quickly as we can (if anything women can be even more self-effacing).

Another possible factor: Some of us are uncomfortable because, even if the other person may not be fishing for compliments at the time, WE are lousy complimenters ourselves (we never know the right thing to say) and we know it. So getting one does fluster us.

Oddly enough, considering how poorly I accept compliments, I am (and have been deliberately trying to be), fairly good at giving compliments. I find it is the best way of all to encourage the types of things people do that make my world, and I hope theirs as well, a better place.

The first thing is privacy. Never compliment someone in front of a lot of people. Maybe one or two people also directly involved, but often not even that. Alone works best. That way, if the compliment doesn’t elicit the emotion you intend, pleasure, pride, confidence, whatever, it at least doesn’t embarrass the person in front of others.

The next thing is timeliness. A day late compliment is a slap in the face. If it was all that damned nice, what the hell were you thinking about last week? A belated compliment is usually just a substitution for a genuine thank you failed to give at the time. What you need in its place is a sincere apology, for being ungrateful.

Another big one is to compliment people for things that they do, not things that they are. The beautiful woman has heard it all a hundred times. But to tell her that her smile and laugh make you feel like smiling and laughing along with her might well be a thing she did not know. It is part of why she is beautiful, but it is also something she does, and it is an expression of her self, rather than a genetic accident she did nothing to accomplish.

If you happen to know the person very well, it helps if you compliment them for the things that they value themselves. Very generous people often get little in the way of recognition for their selflessness. Folks get used to it. They come to expect it, in fact. So, mention to them that you just realized that you assumed they would be kind, and generous, and suddenly realized just what that means about them, as a person.

Even in less serious matters, such compliments can be delivered very easily, and even jokingly. I was asked, recently if I thought that “Jane” was wearing a particularly nice outfit today. I hadn’t seen Jane that day, and I said so. Then, as Jane walked in, I added, “. . . but if Jane was not wearing a very attractive outfit, surely everyone except me would have noticed.” She glowed. It is a fairly trivial thing, but she obviously cares about it. She also knows that I care not at all about fashion, and am a dreadful judge of taste in clothes. For me to tell her that her outfit looks good is no compliment at all. But the implication that everyone knows she is tasteful, and elegant in her dress encourages her in a thing she values about herself.

I suppose this ends up being a hijack, and if so, I apologize.

Tris

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle ~

Well, I get complemented a lot for being smart; however I don’t genuinely believe that I am. I’m actually in the top three for every subject I study (there’a four students, including me, who fill up the three in just about everything); and top in a couple, but I still don’t think I’m a genuis or anything.
So I really don’t take it well when i’m told I’m smart. I just mentally shrug it off and get on with the day.

Also, I can’t STAND being complemente don my musical ability. I’m a talented amateur at best!

When I get told I’m cute, well, that I like. That I appreciate. Wether it’s by someone my age, or somebody old, so long as they’re not a blood relative (because it sounds really fake), then I love it!
And finally. when I’m complemented on something small (like, for example, in Karate class, being told I peform strongly) then it seems a lot more like it’s genuine and I deserve it, and I take that better.

I’m very poor at accepting compliments. I come from a family whose motto is “I don’t think that idea will work”, so we have tendency to not look positively on most things, especially ourselves.

The funny thing is that I get complimented on things that I want to get complimented on. It seems like I get complimented on things that I really aren’t important to me.

That makes it even harder to accept the compliment.