Randene's Rants : Compliments
Jamie Randene
Ah, the beauties and flatters of a compliment! The tiniest sign of recognition and your day seems so much brighter; but is it really? Compliments are tricky. They can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, such as the following:
“Wow! They really like my shoes!
They’re just fishing for compliments.
Well, this is awkward. They obviously only complimented me to lift the tension.
They hate me and are complimenting my ugly shoes to make fun of me.
As much as some people stress about the legitimate reason for a compliment, people also weigh how to respond to such an admiration and the thoughts of the admirer. Depending on the tone and word choice of the commentator, their replies can go from a wide range of varieties:
The surprised and genuine- “Oh! Thank you!”
The awkward, much obliged compliment return- “Thank you! I really like your shoes too!”
The fake or humble- “Thank you, but your shoes are better!”
The too cool for school- “Thanks but I don’t like them.”
Once your mouth has said its thanks, you’re left wondering what your admirer’s true thoughts may be; after all, their thoughts could be as deceiving or heartfelt as their objective, such as:
Those shoes are too cute!
Are you going to compliment me?
You just complimented my shirt because I complimented your shoes.
Yeah, my shoes are better than yours.
What a show off.
They like my shirt!
In the end, who really knows what’s behind the real intention of a compliment? For all I know the person was actually sincere and I’m just over analyzing a simple gesture of kindness. Nevertheless, you should just take the compliment as genuine because the deceiving mind behind the unnoticeable, backhanded compliment is as dumb as the use of the word borrow, in a paper situation.