[ED, abuse, dysphoria, suicide mentioned briefly]

Compliments do such heavy lifting as multitaskers, I’m surprised my Food Daddy, Alton Brown, hasn’t featured them on Good Eats. And not surprisingly, once you dig into the nature of compliments, they tend to be propelled by the needs of the giver, not the receiver. It broadcasts a LOT about our own filters.

We use them to:

To ease our own social anxiety
To alleviate the fear of the unknown
To put a fine point on our perceptions so life feels safer
To butter people up when we want something (including friendship or intimacy)
To build rapport
To say “I mean you no harm!”
To disarm or gain power in a conversation
As a shortcut around unresolved issues
To express joy over our own surprise or delight
To off-gas relief (“oh, you bought a new dress!” [subtext: Thank God, I was worried you were getting depressed!])
To express our own insecurities and fish for affirmation [“Your hair’s so nice. Mine could NEVER do that.”]
To reinforce our special lens of someone’s nature, especially if we’re intimidated by them [“You’re so tiny. You must be SWEET.”]
And sometimes, to snatch the teeth right out of the mouth of someone else’s agency [“You’re like, really pretty.”]

And anyone in their right mind would stop reading right here, saying, “I give compliments because I want other people to feel good!”

Sure, Jan. Me too. :wink:

Real talk, no shame: We all give compliments because we want to feel more comfortable, even if it just means putting a nervous person at ease so we can relax too. And that makes total sense, given that we’re social creatures, and most of us are afflicted with enough empathy to compel us to soothe a crying child or include the new kid (hopefully). When one of us wins, we all win, and that’s a good thing.

So…here’s where we get into the weeds.

There’s a big difference between complimenting someone’s choices (“I love your bag!”) or self-expression (“Damn, Slick, you’re rocking that new hair!”)…

…and projecting a compliment through several filters of your own baggage and bias about something that person has no control over. Like their shape, color, accent, looks, mannerisms, or body.

(I have a suspicion that writers are particularly inclined to this, as we tend to have scads of empathy, we literally describe things for a “living,” and we love playing gods armpit deep in our own make-believe. You know it’s true. And you fucking love it, you brilliant raging megalomaniacs.)

And while it’s true that we have no power over others’ perceptions of us, we do have power over whether or not we catapult our fantasies about other people across their personal boundaries.

Nice people. Folks with their own rich lives and selves, who are just trying to drink their fifth cup of coffee for the day, minding their own damned business. Folks who may smile politely but spend the rest of the day recovering from a well-intended “kindness.”

This gets especially dicey once you step outside your own cultural sphere and into an event (like a Book Fair or writer’s retreat or a signing) that’s full of people with different experiences, cultures, and worldviews. And since most of us really want the Group to win, the last thing we want is to disrupt someone’s equilibrium or hack away at helpful footbridges.

My hope is to compile a quick reference list here, drawn from my experiences, research, and the experiences of my friends and loved ones.

So, here are some reasons to Not Comment on the Bodies of Others Unless Invited:

It’s Not Your Body.

That’s it. That’s the list.

We all find ways to make peace with the nonexchangeable skinsuits we’re issued at birth. Our bodies carry subtexts of eating disorders, disability, illnesses, racial trauma, body dysmorphia, abuse recovery, infertility, cultural wounds, unresolved grief, and social trauma…while housing joy, bliss, energy, and creativity. These are things you can only understand once you’ve earned a person’s trust, not wheedled your way into it.

A chronically ill person may not want a comment on their weight loss.

A trans person’s skin might crawl at the same gendered compliment that your SIL beams over.

A person with an eating disorder might benefit from your smile over simply being with them.

It’s best to not assume.

Personal anecdote: My whole life, I’ve been slathered with comments about my face, sometimes in bubbling exclamations and sometimes sneered…”Noxema girl” “Disney Princess” “Girly girl” “Anime character” And in my younger years, “1950s Pinup girl” and “Barbie doll.”

Dear reader: I am nonbinary. And unfortunately, since social convention dictates that anyone discouraging such compliments be swamped with even MORE of them (because such protests must surely mean the kindness is working!), the person insisting on the “truth” of their very specific version of me to me usually tends to double down. Despite my saying “I don’t love that take,” or that my clothes weren’t coding feminine, or my lack of makeup, or, or, or. It can be difficult to disabuse someone of their initial read of your body.

These days, it sparks an eye-roll and the decision that it’s probably time to shave my head again. In past years, though, especially in my 20s? Purging, self-harm, suicidal ideation, society anxiety, anger at myself, many tears, and frustration over not feeling at home in my own body or culture. And sometimes caving to the pressure to perform a persona that felt crappy to me.

As much as we love building characters…

You can’t tell a person’s character from their body. Your interpretation of their body may be wildly (painfully) different from their own story and experience. And while we can’t be personally and directly responsible for the feelings of others, if our goal is truly to build (real) understanding and rapport, it would be best to leave people’s interpretation of their own meat suits to themselves. If they decide to, they will share it with you. Or not.

This forces us to do what we do best: Be creative in our communication.

We can take an interest in other people’s life stories, in recognizing their lovely nuance and layers without taking shortcuts, by denying our own anxious need to put a fine point on them too quickly.

We can give genuine feedback and, once we understand the goals others have set for themselves, we can affirm them loudly and often.

From observing people who have developed skills around this, I’ve realized that the fastest way to get to their level is to work on my own anxiety (a definite work in progress). Once my lizard brain is quiet, it makes it easier to observe things I’ve missed, and ask interesting questions and make observations bourne from curiosity rather than fear.