Emerging from the pool, I hear a voice behind me, “Excuse me, Miss …” I keep walking, certain that’s not how someone would address me. “Miss, excuse me …”
I turn around to see a man, older than myself, two lanes over from where I had been doing my laps.
“You swim beautifully,” he says, loudly, over the distance I had crossed to the bench.
“That’s kind of you,” I say, surprised.
“No, it’s a pleasure …” the rest drowned out in the din of hard surfaces in the cavernous space, before he went back to his exercise.
Earlier in my life, when the bloom was on the rose, as they say, I might have wondered if I were being flirted with. But as a 57-year-old bon vivant, I no longer have any illusions about turning heads at the swimming pool, so I was willing to take him at his word.
Swimming is definitely when I feel the most graceful these days: when the absence of gravity decompresses my vertebrae and water streams like silk over my limbs. But I have never seen myself swim. How would I?
All the more reason, I suppose, for how immeasurably his compliment pleased me. It stayed with me for days and made me contemplate the power of a well-placed one.
A good compliment, I have determined, must make the receiver feel truly seen. And I’d rather be commended for something I do than for a superficial appearance.
I have nothing against Midwest Nice and its bevy of easy compliments: “Love your top – Cute boots! – Where’d you get that purse?” It’s a pleasant enough way to interact with strangers over a checkout counter. But none of those compliments has ever made my day, or even lingered in my spirit as far as the parking lot.
I would argue that when someone makes you feel seen, they don’t even need to be saying something particularly “nice”—the effect is the same.
Years ago, when I was living in Paris, my friend Lori called me in the late afternoon and said, “I know you always get a little low at this time of day, so I’ll keep it quick …” I was taken aback, never having realized that about myself—but recognized it as true as soon as she said it. It was the time of day when I would mechanically reach for a glass of wine or a pastry. Nothing has ever made me feel more loved than her combination of emotional intelligence and attention in that moment.
The fact is that we can never see ourselves, fully. This is the basis for Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous line: “Hell is other people.” (And not just because they watch videos with the sound on in public places when you are trying to have your own thoughts.) As social beings, others’ perceptions contribute inescapably to our self-definition: There is No Exit.
Which is why it’s important to have friends who are beautiful mirrors, who reflect back to us the grace in our being and do not linger more than necessary on the warts. The deeper the perception, the more we might feel worthy of the investment in looking. The gaze of the other can be salutary.
There is an art to receiving compliments as well. We have been taught to accept them graciously but we often deflect, reverting to some version of “What, this old thing?”
Becky Larsen was a high school friend and the best receiver of compliments I have ever known. Her eyes would brighten, her voice would soften and she would beam at you like you were the most wonderous being on the planet. You walked away certain in the knowledge that your profound kindness had been seen and validated. If it were a strategy, it would have been an effective one. I hope she got a million compliments throughout her life.
All compliments, shallow or considered, share this quality of lifting both bestower and bestowee in a virtuous cycle of largesse. They nurture connection, offer encouragement, even protect someone’s feelings in the form of a little white lie now and then.
Although I value authenticity and can be direct to a fault, my edges have been softened by years in the Midwest. Nice isn’t the same as kind, which requires more genuine investment, but it’s not a bad place to start.
