Many times before I go sleep, one of the ways I'll wind down is mindlessly scrolling through different meme accounts on Instagram. It keeps my attention without being taxing, there's usually something to laugh at. It's generally just a light and fluffy way to wind down the day. But, every now and then, those meme feeds drift more into social and political thought. I'm not necessarily opposed to that, although it's usually heavier thinking than I'm looking for at the moment. It was one of those twists when I stumbled on a post from a girl talking about her younger brother. He apparently got a compliment from a girl at school on his new shoes, and he was just over the moon about it. Not anything about that particular girl, but just the fact that he got a compliment, and it absolutely made his day. He apparently was still thrilled with it like a month later. She didn't understand it, saying that girls get compliments pretty much constantly. And, you know, I completely understood that. I've been a bit of a funk. I'd say recently, but it's really been for a long while up to the present. I just don't feel very good about myself, and I can't seem to get myself to do the things to correct it. I am taking some steps professionally, like getting this Master's, but otherwise, things have been rough with me personally. I haven't been creating things,* I haven't been eating great, and (relatedly) I'm not real happy with my fitness or appearance. Some of it just can't be helped. Just genetically, I wasn't ever going to have model-type looks, and clearly I was never going to be tall, which I've been led to believe will cover up a great many other flaws.** I'm not looking for anything or anybody, but it would still be nice to feel reasonably attractive, you know? And I just absolutely do not. *Though the hope is this blog will help that. **Yes, those are all separate links on each word. No, it was not hard to find and I could have easily done more. So, yes, compliments have most definitely felt rare. In fact, I think they're downright non-existent from people outside the family tree. At least for a long while. But I the ones I have gotten definitely stick out. I can still remember a random compliment my sophomore year of high school very well. A girl* was staring at me a bit, but a little bit zoned out. I couldn't really tell if she was trying to get my attention or if she was really even registering me at all, lost in thought. So I said something to her. I don't remember that part, because I didn't know what was coming next. But I do remember her response. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and she smiled and looked away for a second. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was just thinking about how you have, like, perfect eyebrows." *Yes, I most definitely remember who, but I'm not telling. I won't even tell you what class, but it did happen during school hours. And I can't actually swear to it, but I am still absolutely sure that I blushed back in response and took the compliment as gracefully as I could. Which was probably not very. Probably a stammered out "Thank you" and no follow up whatsoever. I don't believe she had any sort of romantic interest in me, it was just a simple compliment. And it stuck with me, because it really does not happen for boys. Look it up. A very quick look at Google brought up so many results. Here are three quick ones: Why Men Never Get Compliments 39 Things Women Will Just NEVER Understand About Being a Man (Point 33 in particular) Men Desperately Want to Be Complimented It's a real thing. I promise you, that is not even the tip of the iceberg. Some of this I feel pretty comfortable blaming on men. This is definitely not solely a male trait, but I do think that, generally speaking, men are worse at receiving compliments. At least American men. It goes against everything we've been taught about masculinity in our culture. Showing much feeling at all beyond anger and excitement* is frowned upon at an early age, and our media backs that up. Showing any sort of "soft" emotion is a good way to make yourself a target for a lot of teasing. I, uh, have some experience with that. So compliments put men in this weird position of trying not to look soft, while also not trying to come off as an asshole or egotistical or something. So, when a compliment does get put out there, it often gets a weird reaction, that person is probably not going to keep offering compliments. So, yes, as a whole, men need to get better about receiving compliments.** *And even excitement has to be carefully curated and directed at "acceptable" things. **I'm not even going to get into men who believe every compliment is a come-on and turn them creepy. That is another real problem and worthy of its own entirely separate discussion. I'm not really going to address it here, but believe me, I am aware of it. Unfortunately, doing that is going to take practice, which puts things in a real vicious cycle. There is going to also have to be some culture change, which is going to take a long while. I am hopeful that it is starting to happen, but it's likely going to take several generations before we really see it take root. But I think there are cultural conversations that are having some beginnings, at least, around toxic masculinity and about how we raise boys that are promising. I have a daughter, so that is it's own thing about how we raise girls and fight those expectations, but I feel like those narratives have gotten a head start. It is relatively easy to find articles and examples about raising girls against some of those "traditional" expectations, and I've tried to do a good job of keeping mindful of that with Beth and being careful with gender roles. She's only three, though, so I expect that will get a lot harder as she gets older. Raising boys, though, I feel has been a newer conversation, but one I've tried to keep tapped into. Something I might need to be mindful of in the future, you know? And I know how I was raised. I've come to learn that I had it pretty good in the parenting department, but there are still things I can think of that I would definitely want to do differently and ways I was shaped, both inside the home and by culture at large, that I would want to try to avoid or fight against if I had my own son. And just the simple act of giving and receiving honest compliments is one of them. It's a small thing, but a well-placed compliment can really have a huge effect on a person. Who knows what kinds of butterfly effects we can cause with a few nice words? Comments are closed.
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