Would you like a gag with that compliment?

Receiving a compliment is weird. It's kind of positive, but it's also kind of negative in one sense. While I like to think I'm quite good at accepting compliments, (not because I'm vain, or think the person is right in what they say) but purely because I think sometimes, it's better to accept a compliment, than deny it and somewhat publicly humiliate the complimenter by throwing it back in their face. Its like, that just isn't very polite. I also feel that if I deny a compliment, someone might actually take offense and feel that I'm being weird and stand-offish, when that wouldn't actually be the case.

Meanwhile, refusal to accept a nice remark or comment made by someone, whether it be a friend, relative or stranger, can actually make you question yourself further. Someone recently told me they thought I was pretty, and I immediately jumped up, defensively, and shrugged off their compliment, when deep down I could have (and should have) just smiled and realised that actually it was a nice comment coming from a nice place. While this person was complimenting me, I was going over and over in my head listing the things that were, in my opinion, wrong with myself, both internally and externally, and why, in my opinion, this comment was not fitting for little old me. Compliments are sometimes back-handed, yet this is unintentional. Cue a Mean Girls quote: "Oh my god, I love your bracelet, where did you get it?" and shrink back with disdain and hatred we collectively share for arch-nemesis and ultimate bitch, Regina George. What about these: "Is your hair different, it looks nice" makes you think "does it look a mess usually?" "Have you lost weight?" Is that a hint that you probably need to shed a few pounds? A comment on your physical appearance makes you feel analysed and subjected, and yet happy/sad/worried at the same time. I don't ever think I've had bundled of self-confidence, but every so often, there will be peaks and troughs, just a everyone has.

When someone comments positively about me, maybe I don't believe them because previously, someone who has said the same or a similar thing, turned out to be lying/not really bothered/not who I thought they were, so maybe their judgement isn't to be trusted. Am I afraid of what the compliment means, in both surface meaning and deeper meaning? Yes. What if someone I like tries to flatter me and I turn all gullible and believe every word they breathe in my presence, then later turn out to have been taken for a ride, and end up looking stupid and foolish. Yet another reason to avoid accepting and believing compliments. An outfit praise, a "thin" comment or a realisation that my hair is different to what it was yesterday can all spark the same gut-wrenching reaction. We jerk backwards. We recoil. We hide away from the positives and seemingly attract the negatives like magnets. It is, of course, proven that while you can receive a hundred compliments and doubt every single one, yet one insult or negative comment, and it will dwell and stay with you for years.

Ross: Rach, come on, look, I know how you must feel.

Rachel: No, you don't, Ross. Imagine the worst things you think about yourself. Now, how would you    feel if the one person you trusted most in the world not only thinks them too, but actually uses them as reasons not to be with you.

Ross: No, but, but I wanna be with you in spite of all those things.

Rachel: Oh, well, that's, that's mighty big of you.

Ross: You know what? You know what? If things were the other way around, there's nothing you could put on a list that would ever make me not want to be with you.

Rachel: Well I guess that's the difference between us. See, I'd never make a list.

Better off? What would they know.

People hate to hear it, but sometimes the person you want the most is the person you're better off without.

It's true. It's one of those, well-known, yet scarcely mentioned facts-of-life. It gets the same reaction as telling someone that they've missed the last bus, or when someone spoils the end of a film. You don't want to hear it. You want to defy nature, hum loudly and close your ears to everything that person just breathed. But, unfortunately for us all, that's not possible. I have a tendency to put people on a pedestal. So much so, that they'll never be able to live up to my dreamed-up expectations, or it would be wondrous if they did. Disappointment breads contempt, or so they say. Everyone hates those people. Those happy people you see when you feel horrible, down-in-the-dumps, the one whose life is perfect, when all yours is, is chaos. It makes you want to scream, cry, throw something off the wall. The same said reaction when someone dares to breath a few words you never ever wish to hear.

"(s)he's no good for you." 

I hate that. It doesn't matter who says it, your best friend, a mere acquaintance  or a family member, it still has the same effect. That self same, gut-wrenching, all-encompassing feeling of despair. Just because you're well aware that your love life is going quickly down the pan, (whatever of it there was anyway).

"That is just like you Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you, and I hate you, Harry. I really hate you."

The last thing anyone wants to hear, is that someone they have feelings for is;

a) no good for them

b) a total douchebag

c) not interested

d) all of the above

It's horrible. While the provider of this brilliant foresight may have your best interests at heart, for a small moment, you want to scream at them. You want to tell them that no matter how true their point is, you're not interested, or you're willing to put all of that to one side, because this person means more to you than something superficial. No one wants to feel insignificant, used, naive.For every piece of filthy rotten yet from-a-good-place insight, there's a little part of you wondering why this person dares to utter such hideous words. Sometimes you don't need an agony aunt, an adviser or a critic. Sometimes all you need is a friend. Someone to share the good times with, the shoulder to cry on and the one to laugh with.

After all, there really is nothing more hopeless, deflating or condescending than knowing that there's someone waiting to say (somewhat gleefully) "I told you so."