Do You Ever Get Tired of Compliments?

[tonyb]

When my wife pokes fun at me my usual retort is.."No wonder my self esteem is so low" Her response is usually..."A howitzer could not dent your self esteem."

It’s no reflection on you or anyone else here to observe that among the people I know in the “real” world well enough to claim to actually know, those who project a public persona of high self-regard are the most personally insecure.

The surest signs of it are almost incessant references to oneself and compulsive exaggerating (when it doesn’t cross over to outright lying).

I’m left to ponder if such characters are so lacking in self-awareness that they can’t recognize how insufferable they are, or if they just don’t care that they are.

 

[belfastboy]

It’s no reflection on you or anyone else here to observe that among the people I know in the “real” world well enough to claim to actually know, those who project a public persona of high self-regard are the most personally insecure.

The surest signs of it are almost incessant references to oneself and compulsive exaggerating (when it doesn’t cross over to outright lying).

I’m left to ponder if such characters are so lacking in self-awareness that they can’t recognize how insufferable they are, or if they just don’t care that they are.

My comment was about my wife being the smart ass that is not reluctant to take me down a peg ….or two!

 

[Zombie_61]

...What I have yet to figure out is how to respond you look like so and so? I get this often and always have of one person or another. Some repeatedly throughout the years but have yet to figure out an acceptable response. Thank you feels weird to me and some even respond the same. But what are you to say?

I've also had this happen to me throughout my adult life. I've heard the same "celebrity" names again and again, a new one on occasion, and a few times a name I was unfamiliar with. The comments were usually well-intended, so my response was some polite form of, "Do you think so?" And if it was the name of someone I hadn't been compared to before I'd say something to the effect of, "Oh, that's a new one." Either response usually led to some friendly chit-chat. I agree that saying "Thank you" in response to such comments seems odd since my resemblance to whoever they mentioned was completely unintentional.

Veering back towards the main topic, compliments--both giving and receiving--can be a minefield of social faux-pas. Over the years my experiences have taught me to only give someone a compliment if it's sincere. Be brief, polite, stay on target, and don't get overly "familiar" unless you know the person well; even then, it's best to err on the side of caution.

With regards to accepting a compliment, I haven't had a lot of experience with that but someone close to me once scolded, "Why can't you just say, 'Thank you'?" I hadn't really realized I was doing it, but I apparently had a tendency to attempt to convince the compliment-giver that they were wrong. Now that I'm aware of that ill-mannered behavior and have corrected it, I can say it is indeed much more polite and easier to simply say "Thank you".

 

[Old Mariner]

For me, no. But that may because of a past history of others trying to grind me down due to being different (in more ways than one).

So...no, I will take all the compliments I can get, thanks.

 

[Tiki Tom]

"Why can't you just say, 'Thank you'?" ...I can say it is indeed much more polite and easier to simply say "Thank you".

I have finally learned this lesson. It is so much easier to simply say “thank you.” After that it just fades away quickly.