Do you ever have those moments when you realize that you are the material for comedic fodder? I heard a comedian do a bit on this topic the other day. As I was laughing, I slowly realized that she was describing me. Her main point was that when women receive a compliment, they do one of two things: 1. Dodge/Deny it or 2. Reveal something embarassing about themselves. (And this does tend to be women, I've noticed, far more than men.) She cited various examples, specifically "Wow, I love your dress!" "Oh, I got it for $2 at Goodwill..." and "Have you lost weight?" "My doctor says I have a disease." And there are various other ways of deflection, such as a girl I knew a while back who would turn it back around on you, such as "Your hair looks great today!" "YOUR hair looks great today!" or "I love that dress." "I love YOUR dress!" This is a annoyingly bad habit I picked up as well- I'm trying to quit.
I have only met one woman who receives compliments beautifully. I am always so impressed with how humbly she takes them, making sure to say thank you and being truly proud, but not egotisitical, of her achievements. I love giving her compliments.
My question is this: Why is this so true? It can't honestly be that every woman in America has THAT bad of self-esteem or gets embarassed that quickly, or can it?
I've been trying to get better at receiving compliments. The first thing, I've realized, is looking people in the eye and just saying an honest "Thanks!" Any further information borders on either deflection or embellishment, so I proceed with caution. i.e., A woman this morning at Life Time complimented my eye color (immediately after typing that, I wanted to add an adjective before eye color such as "freaky" or "fake-looking"...but I didn't...aren't you proud?). This caused a problem, because it made me even more wary of looking her in the eye, but I did...and just said "Thanks!" Of course, this small success comes after a long line of failures over the past few weeks... :) But a success nonetheless!
Anyway, I challenge you this week, as I am challenging myself, to take a compliment well. (Not to mention, give compliments liberally...which is a whole other post!) I am going to work on it...
5 comments:
Just have to share with everyone... Beth didn't want to publish this post. But I convinced her to... I think sharing this story is part of taking a compliment well. Your thoughts?
Beth-
I appreciate this challenge. It is so easy to fall into the habit of deflecting compliments.
Very good posting, Beth!
A couple thoughts--first, I've always thought of the "I got this for two dollars" as a way of upping the value of an item, but it occurs to me that this is indeed a way of deferring value. It's true.
For those of us who might have difficulty accepting compliments, we might think about it in terms of the other person, because for women it is so often about the relationship. It does in fact TAKE something for someone to compliment me--it costs them a little. To pass off whatever they are complimenting as nothing in a way disregards their feelings and opinions on the matter. It's worth recognizing that they had something worth saying--even if what was worth saying was about me.
Hmmm...good point, Jessie!
I don't mind so much when somebody says "$2 at Goodwill!" because while that may be deflection, sometimes for women it's also triumph. For instance, my mom loves talking about all the stuff she scores at Goodwill.
But it annoys me a lot when I say something like, "I love the way you did your hair," and someone laughs like their hair really looks awful. Because, like Jessie says, it feels like, "Oh, Suzanne! You're just too stupid to know what good hair looks like!" And it's frustrating because you have no way of convincing them that you're telling the truth, or of making them feel better about themselves.
It was when I started realizing that I did the same sort of thing that I realized I needed to get better at taking compliments, too. And I have.
Nice writing, Beth. And I know good writing when I see it. ;)
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