Compliments

Compliment (noun) Statement of Praise: someting said to express praise or approval.

A compliment is a funny thing. It can be a lie or a truth. Generally it is meant to make someone feel good about themselves, about how they look or dress or act, or anything really. A compliment is the most common form of a lie; everyone has to admit that they have lied to someone by giving them an untrue compliment, so as to not hurt the other person’s feelings.

Some people give out compliments easily, both true and untrue. Others find it harder to give compliments, for various reasons. There are positive and negative aspects of both types of compliment-givers. I know people who are the “easy” compliment-givers and I know others who are the “harder” compliment givers. And I have noticed that the easy compliment-givers expect more compliments in return than the hard compliment-givers.

I have noticed, and also regretted in some ways, that I am the harder compliment giver. I have tried to find reasons for this and none of them seem to quite fit the reason why I find it hard to give compliments to other people.

Perhaps it’s because I don’t like receiving compliments myself?
Or maybe it’s because I don’t notice if someone is looking particularly nice on day?
It might be because a lot of other people give compliments and I don’t want to be repeating what someone has already said?
It possibly may be because I don’t have the right words to describe what a feel without sounding corny?

Whatever the reason is, I always feel uncomfortable and out of place when I give someone a compliment, even if it’s something like ‘your hair looks nice today’ or ‘that was a really nice thing you did’. I can say it to another person later on but never to the person’s face at the time of occurrence.

I find though, that the English Dictionary doesn’t contain enough words to express how I feel. I have never been very good at emotional situations; not happy or worrying or excited situations, I’ve never had a problem with those. But the really deep situations, like saying ‘I love you’ to someone and really mean it or to comfort someone using words because I can never find the right ones. I think that the old saying 'Actions speak louder than words' is very relevant to me. I do know some people who that saying doesn’t really relate to them; they use words an awful lot and don’t find it hard to say something and really mean it (to say something and not really mean it too, for that matter) but not me.

I think it may come with being shy. Even though I am far from shy when I am around people who I know really well, my shyness is still there when it comes to saying how I really, really feel. I don’t even say ‘I love you’ to my parents very much at all, perhaps maybe twice or three times a year? For some reason the words feel like rocks in my mouth and I can’t seem to spit them out. Like Calamari once said
“The more you say those three words, the less meaning they have.”
This is so unbelievably true, more so than I think some people realise.

The same thing is true for compliments for me; if you tell someone that they are beautiful every single day, eventually the words loose meaning and you can’t ever give that meaning back to them, which in a way is sad.

So always be careful what you say and how you throw your compliments around; after a while the start to lose meaning. Perhaps show your feelings in a different way: smile at them or make them laugh or help them do something. This has much more effect and even better is that it never loses meaning, no matter how many times you do it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry to my friends and family, and acquaintances and even just people on the street. I know I don’t give out very many compliments but I try to show how I feel with means other than words. But the truth is that I do think that ALL of you are beautiful EVERY SINGLE DAY and I thank you for making my world a more beautiful place.