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the finest mofo this side of the west side's Journal
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2009.07.17 10.05
compliments
It has recently been brought to my attention that I am crap at taking compliments. Not for the traditional reason of humility via self-doubt, simply unwilling to accept them; but for my tendency to interpret an attempted compliment as something worse than what the giver intended.
I wish I had a slew of examples to provide, but I can only remember the one that caused a hubub last night:
"Have you lost weight?" Which is very close to "You look like you've lost weight."
People ask me this alot, actually. People, this is a bad compliment for a variety of reasons. It suggests all kinds of things that are not good, and only in very specific scenario does it actually work as a compliment: namely, the complimented is trying to lose weight AND is succeeding. If either of those elements are lacking, the compliment fails. If I am not trying to lose weight, then you have just commented on my body changing shape against my will. That's commentary, not a compliment, and possibly a reminder of my failure to gain weight, were I trying to do so. And, worse, if I haven't lost weight, then the best case scenario suggests that you remember me fatter than I am, and the worst, you've just reminded me that I am a failure in my pursuit to not be a fatass (but at least I"m fooling YOU?).
I don't know whether I'd rather be remembered as a skinnier person and when you see me, you're surprised by my girth, or the reverse, but either way, I'm not missing out by not knowing which is true.
As Meredith pointed out: the good version of this compliment: "You look like you've been working out."
Whether I have been or not, you're telling me that I look fit. So if I haven't been going it means it isn't having a deterimental effect on my presentation, and if I have been going, you're noticing my effort and that just fills me with pride.
Even simpler: "You look good today." I say this whenever I think it. This compliments everything about someone's choices for the day in one quick sentence. Particularly thanks to the forer effect.
I put alot of care and consideration into my compliments to avoid accidentally offending someone. The object of a good compliment should always be something the complimented has control over, something they've chosen or worked for: their fashion, their hairstyle, the hilarity of their teeshirt. You should usually only compliment physical variations if you know the subject had an active role in its development. "Nice boob job, claire!" Heh.
Occasionally, I will compliment an aspect of someone that they did not choose, but only if I think it's something that rarely gets taken notice of, and I try to phrase it in a general way. I remember telling people, for instance: "You have nice earlobes." Or "I like the way the back your neck curves." And those kind of compliments I reserve for people I know respect me and enjoy my perspective. People don't care if a jerkface tells them they have a nice ass. On the contrary, that could make you feel self-conscious about your ass, to know that it attracts the attention of jerkfaces.
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2009.07.13 18.44
The Matrix Redeemed
I loved the Matrix. I've seen it over a hundred times. I loved ALMOST everything about it. There's one significant element of the story that always bothered me, though, with two parts to it: 1. Using humans as a goddamn energy source is retarded. Why not cattle? 2. Even if say there were no other animals on the planet, there's no good reason for using sane,sober people, if you're just trying to sap the heat and electricity out of them. Why not corral the humans up and addict them all to heroin or something?
Turns out, the original concept for the matrix is WAY cooler. It had the machines using the actual functioning neurons of human minds as the transistors for the vast supercomputer that made up the AI of the machines. That is so badass it hurts to think about.
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