Complimentary Insults

Everyone loves compliments and I am no exception. But there are some compliments that I believe are designed solely to make you feel good for the moment but are actually insults in disguise. And I seem to be getting more of these as time goes by.

“Hey, you look great today” said a colleague and I felt nice about it and thanked him.

But then I thought “Wait a minute, I look good today ?. As opposed to what ?, all these years when I looked like crap, huh ? !!!”. Now I don’t talk to that colleague anymore.

I really feel sorry for the ladies who get far more compliments than guys.

Remember, all compliments are always in comparison to your normal self. So if someone tells you “Hey, you look lovely in that dress”. It may sound nice but what it actually means is that you normally look hideous in all other outfits but somehow this particular dress makes you look lovely which is so surprising that I actually had to tell you about it.

This is when you slap the person who said that.

Infact, I think it is better to make a frank insult than a deceptive compliment. For example, a few days ago, I was showing a few photos from a last year’s trip to a couple of people at work. And one of them with all seriousness said “You look good in those photos, I can’t believe that you have changed so much in one year. What happened ?”

As surprised that I was by this unfiltered expression of opinion (‘truth’ would probably be a better word but I will stick to ‘opinion’, alright), I was still able to have a good laugh at it.

Thankfully, the uglier I seem to have got, the better my sense of humor seems to have become. Extrapolating it further, this means that the day people begin laughing uncontrollably at my blog posts is the day when I shall have to start walking around with a towel over face

The moral of the story is that compliments are far more insidious than what they seem. I would any day prefer an honest insult to a sinister compliment. It’s another matter that most of the times, I can’t even tell the difference.

So if you really want to make me feel good, just tell me something like “What’s wrong with you today, this post is so ordinary”. Now, that’s what I call a compliment.

But if somehow you actually think this post is funny, then I guess it is towel time for me...