How to Accept a Compliment and Other Things I Never Learned
As a child, every tickle of a compliment was accompanied by a backhanded slap of inadequacy. I took that to mean that everything good about me was suspect. I was smart, but not industrious. I was funny, but didn’t know where to draw the line. I was “extremely sensitive,” which I am now grateful for, but my family pronounced upon me as if it were a grave curse with a chronic prognosis. Neither of us was wrong.
Their compliments were freely given as the onramp to insult. The shoes are nice, but — distasteful, reluctant face — they maybe don’t do so much for thighs your size. Or, very nice that you got that A. How’d you fool the teacher?
And so, as a Pavlovian grown up that does things that are praiseworthy, my question is this, how can I respond to a compliment without bracing for the slap?
It began around my kids. They were well behaved, people said. “Ah, you have no idea what animals they are when no one’s looking,” I assured them. Which is true. Of every child. Ever. And either way, had very little to do with me as long as I kept them fed and perpetually occupied.
I thought as long as the praise didn’t exist, neither did the insult. Thankfully, I’ve been able to relegate that to the makes no sense out loud pile, although it’s hovering, along with the idea that abject humility is the roadmap to some sort of holy grail.
Each time I lost weight and someone implied that I looked good, I went straight for the food, afraid of losing the comfort of people looking beyond the obese me and peering closely enough to actually see.
Now I know, my visage is none of your business. Unless I ask. Or you share my bed.
“I’ll feel better when I lose another 20,” became a repetitive answer and only caused people to double down on the compliment. I tried heading people off at the pass, asked them not to notice the pounds sliding off me. At least out loud. There were surprisingly few who could manage. I doubt if I could.
Mercifully, finally, I learned to block out the compliments and change the subject. It was either that or continue to expand my list of impulses to swallow and I’d already enjoyed 300lbs worth.
In a flash of brilliance, I hit on another surefire strategy. Thanks, I’d say quickly, I love your shoes! Your hair looks great! Divine deflection was such a find. Nearly everyone wants to talk about themselves. Except me. Although, what is writing if not a precious and uninterrupted exercise in self rumination?
Once I tell you how great you are, we’re off the subject of me and my stunned reaction where a kind word can move me to tears, or send me fleeing. Plus, I hypocritically enjoy heaping praise on people entirely slap free. I can only hope my eyes light up the same way theirs do when I tell them I enjoy their cookies, or their songs make me cry. At least before the cascade of self doubt slams me back again.
Now that I am letting my stories be the voice I have so long denied and they are appreciated by people whose shoes I can’t even see, I’m teetering at the crossroads again.
A simple thank you seems the most acceptable, but then how do I punctuate it? Thanks! Thank you. Thank you. Sometimes I stick a wow in front of it in an attempt to convey just how truly grateful and shocked I am for the kind words. But that hardly feels like enough.
Both in person and on the zoom, the smile can say so much. I’ve seen the cocky sort of half grin, that says, of course you like it. I’ve personally attempted a rushed, shrugging acceptance, eyes down, but that seems like selling myself short now, given all of my imagined and hoped for success.
One of my readers told me my metaphors sing. It has been making me smile for over a week. I want to buy her dinner because I’m so grateful she didn’t then point out the typo I found later. Instead of denying the compliment, I pointed out how much I love the content of hers I read in return. Nothing wrong with that. Right?
As with every obstacle I need to plow through in order to move to the next chapter — challenge accepted. I’m testing stuff out. Go ahead. Heap praise right on me and see what I do. Thanks in advance!
