This lovely quote came from Susan Huddis Koppelman, author of “The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe” and Other Stories of Women and Fatness during a Facebook conversation.
A few days ago I wrote a blog about dealing with weight loss compliments. The comments on that blog got me thinking about the way that we compliment in general – how many of our compliments deal with appearance. On Facebook discussions about the event, some people defended the idea that if someone asks “have you lost weight” it’s basically the same thing as saying “you look good” and should therefore not be an insult.
I have a problem with that because it continues to feed into a culture that says that thin is better. One of my readers returned to work after losing a great deal of weight due to stage four cancer and a coworker said “boy, cancer looks great on you!”
It’s not just weight loss though. We compliment on clothes that are “flattering”, where flattering often has the meaning of “makes you look closer to the cultural stereotype of beauty”. I have a friend who told me that he didn’t like my outfit because it made me look bigger.
I’m not saying that compliments about appearance are bad, but they can be tricky since so often they reward conforming to social stereotypes rather than authenticity. Also, they are easy and they allow us to avoid finding out anything deeper than those that we can see during a handshake.
As a society we water the flowers that we think are beautiful, and often that defaults to the flowers that conform. Roses are beautiful but so are sunflowers, carnations, tulips, daisies etc. But if you only water the roses it doesn’t matter how beautiful the other flowers could have been. There are a whole lot of beautiful flowers that aren’t being watered in our culture because they don’t happen to be roses.
I happen to think that all the flowers are beautiful and so I’m a fan of watering them all. (Don’t worry- I’m at the end of my use of the flower metaphor now).
While you may enjoy compliments about your appearance, your weight, etc., it’s important to realize that because of a history of not being complimented, and being shamed and stigmatized or other personal reasons, many people do not enjoy compliments about appearance. So it pays to be able to compliment something else.
Try asking someone “what have you been up to” and then listen with interest.
Instead of complimenting specific clothing, try complimenting fashion sense. Compliment intelligence, wit, athleticism, work achievement. Commenter Sharon suggested saying “It is always so nice to see you!” as a substitute for “you look great”.
Again, I’m not suggesting that you give up on appearance compliments altogether. I’m a fan of saying “hello beautiful!” or “I love that outfit, it looks fab on you!” I’m just saying let’s challenge ourselves to see beauty in all sizes and shapes (including, perhaps, our own) and let’s temper our appearance compliments with other compliments. Let’s water all the petals on all the flowers (ok, I was almost done with the metaphor). What are your favorite non-appearance compliments?
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Dances With Fat 
When I saw the title of this post, I remembered the story about the Cherokee grandfather telling his grandson that there are two wolves that live in every human heart, and that they fight one another every day. The black wolf is our evil and pathologically selfish impulses, the white wolf is our kind and good impulses. The grandson asks the grandfather, “But which wolf will win?” Grandfather answers, “The one you feed…”
Love the idea of watering ALL THE FLOWERS, dammit! Every flower deserves to bloom in its own way, from dandelions to pampered orchids. And they are all so, so very beautiful as their own selves.
Thank you for this post, your “bully pulpit” here is getting some good publicity in my social circles.
“there are two wolves that live in every human heart…”
Love it, love it, love it!
I tend to compliment people on happy colors, cool scarves, fun earrings, great shoes. Seems to work.
That is a beautiful story, I love it! I’m really glad that you liked the blog, and I think this is the first time anyone’s called it a “bully pulpit” – I kinda like it!
~Ragen
Great post and very thoughtful words. I sometimes forget about how compliments could be taken differently to different people. I have encountered many people that take offense to a compliment I try to pay them, and they call me rude or patronizing and say “I wasn’t looking for any compliments or encouragement, I was talking about ___” I understand those people have some issues to sort out, but I keep having to remind myself that not everyone will take a compliment like I do.
I like to compliment people, but I also try to make it a personal challenge. “You look great” is a cop out, to me. I usually try, instead, to find something about that person that reflects their own choices or achievements (and I don’t include weight loss or gain – ever). Lastly, the compliment has to be specific for me to enjoy the challenge.
For example, “Beautiful earrings – I love unique artisan pieces like those!”
“that shade of green really brings out your eyes!”
“I always feel comfortable when I visit your house!”
“I love what you’ve done with your hair!”
“Your children are so well-behaved!”
“your speech made so many good points, like (x) and (y)”
Also – since I’m a knitting teacher, I often get to look at people’s hand crafted items, and I always find something positive to say.
I think of it like Pollyanna and her happiness game. It’s fun to try to find something good and interesting in every person.
“boy, cancer looks great on you!”
SERIOUSLY? Oh my god.
I’ve really begun to detest it when someone says to me, “You look so good, have you lost weight?” Does this mean the only way I possibly COULD look good is if I dropped a few? With this in mind, when I greet someone I try to steer clear of mentioning anything to do with their body and stick to things like, “Hello gorgeous/handsome!” or “Hey, hot mama/daddy!” (depending on how well I know the person, of course). Everyone likes to hear those things…and I figure the ones who aren’t comfortable with being called beautiful or hot probably really NEED to hear it and I’m happy to plant that seed.
I totally agree with you. I’m just wondering though what your houghts are on complementing a pregnant woman on her appearance. I find a lot of women have issues with weight gain and loss of their figure during pregnancy. I, personally, felt the best I’ve ever felt when pregnant, both health-wise and self esteem-wise. Others struggle. I always compliment though. Especially since so many people thinks it’s fine to comment on a woman’s weight gain during pregnancy. A “you look so beautiful!” can go a long way. Anyways, just wondering what your thoughts are.
This is even trickier than the original issue! I hope it goes without saying that you should not guess – if you are going to compliment someone on being pregnant you’d better damn well know that they are pregnant. After that “Congratulations!” (if you know that they are excited about having the baby), ask them how things are going, about baby names, about the nursery etc. and then compliment them on what they’ve got going on.
~Ragen
I think Dave Barry pegged it — if she hasn’t said, never assume a woman is pregnant unless you actually see a child emerging from her body at that moment. 😉
Decades ago, Lucille Ball was a guest on the “Tonight Show.” Joan Rivers was the substitute host for Johnny Carson. “Oh you look wonderful. You’ve lost so much weight,” Rivers crooned to Lucy. Lucy, who did not suffer fools, responded curtly. “No I don’t. The only reason I’ve lost so much weight is because I just spent weeks in the hospital. I nearly died. If you think dying is worth losing weight, you’re wrong.” Joan Rivers, the fat bigot of all times was utterly stymied. She had no retort. They went to commercial immediately after. I never forgot that. I loved Lucy before, but even more afterward.
Heres one: “Whenever you enter a room it feels as if the sun’s just come out; It becomes bright and cheerful.”
Another event that brings a lot of weight comments is a wedding. I can’t tell you how many people shared with me that they were hoping to lose 20 pounds by my wedding – “I haven’t seen so&so in 15 years! She can’t see me like this.” Other comments when I was trying on dresses – “you’re going to have to watch what you eat if you want to fit in that in a year.” Uh, no! Even post-wedding – “Wow, it looks like you have kept your weight down since the wedding.” Actually I haven’t, but that is okay with me.
What bothers me the most is that people think these comments are okay. I try to be polite and straight forward in my responses. I think a little education would help.
My favorite compliments are really sentiments of gratitude – “I really appreciate all the hard work you do.” I like that type of recognition.
I love it when someone looks into my eyes and says “You look great,” because it feels as if they are enjoying me totally as a person. It’s like saying “I’m glad you’re here so my eyes are rejoicing to see you.”
You know, how I take an appearance-based compliment depends a lot on the source. Comments about weight-loss are NEVER ok, but a “Wow, you look nice” or “You look great!” is welcome if it’s not from someone who has a history of only caring about my appearance. My favorite aunt often says “You look great!” when I see her, and for me it feels like an appreciation of my entire person. Whereas if my mother says that (not that she has in a long time), it feels creepy…but obviously she has a history of valuing my appearance too highly.
A dear friend told me the other day, “…you have no idea how much good energy you bring…” That compliment meant the world, and I needed to hear it more than he realized. I love compliments like that.
I work in a high school counseling students (well, intern – i’m still finishing college) and the number of girls I see who admit to having some kind of eating disorder is amazing (in a bad way of course.) The thing is since they get more compliments or attention from boys they are egged on to the point of destruction. And when they can no longer keep the weight off they become disgusted with themselves and I’m sad to say the other kids are often times not very supportive.
I’ve been campaigning to have some of the magazines pulled from the library (Vogue, Cosmo, Seventeen) which I think are detrimental to young girls (and sometimes boys) self esteem. Every week the covers…even on the ones aimed at young girls feature a severely photo-shopped young actress/musician/model with some kind of sex “advice” (“How to be his best hookup ever” on Seventeen a few months ago – ignoring how to keep the girl protected or gee, how to enjoy HER OWN experience cuz obvs sex is NOT about the girl) and some kind of get a tight butt/get tight abs/ get smooth perfect thighs/ grow three inches overnight type thing.
I can tell they think a crazy femi-nazi who just needs to accept how things really are. Bleh.
Okay. /End rant. Sorry.
Good for you! Also, you have my dream job.
Don’t give up! Keep fighting for our young people!
comments (so-called compliments) about appearance seem to involve hidden messages about class status, and are often a way of saying: “i see that your social value has increased”; thus, the person *giving* the compliment is simultaneously elevating (often unconsciously) her/his own social status–by implicitly proclaiming the privilege of judgement.
metabolic syndrome (with insulin resistance, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue, chronic hunger, and the beginnings of peripheral neuropathy–among other things) brought me to the brink: i had to find a way to heal from within–or become progressively more debilitated (and/or more dependent on medications and medical interventions, thus, more dependent on our dysfunctional and classist “health care” system.) in my case, a change in diet reversed the most severe symptoms within a few short months and, ultimately, resulted in extreme weight loss.i was not prepared for the weight loss or for the social weirdness that came with it. i do not feel proud or special because of weight loss. often, i feel confused. whenever i look in the mirror and feel more attractive, or when i interact in public places with more self confidence and a greater sense of power, i know these experiences of reality reflect specific kinds of bullsh*t (domination), based on damaging and demeaning systems of social and economic injustice. i realize now: the internalized oppressor that i fought so hard to overcome as a fat person can quickly morph into a new form. i think a lot about hannah arendt’s observation: “The humanity of the insulted and injured has never yet survived the hour of liberation by so much as a minute.” and i pay attention to how easily we can dehumanize each other (and ourselves) with seemingly “positive” comments about physical attributes.
I am completely blown away by the Hannah Arendt quotation. It made me shiver with its truth. And I compliment you on your integrity for facing its truth and struggling with it. I wanna water your flower!
I wanted to share with you that I recently came home after 2 and 1/2 years in South Korea. I was apprehensive about it, because people tend to tell me I lost weight (wrongly, not that it would matter to me if I had) or otherwise talk about my appearance when they see me again after a while. I spoke to my mother (who has done this often) about it before I came home, and the only appearance-related thing she talked about was that my hair had gotten very long, and for the rest of it, just told me she missed me and it was so good to have me home. Thank you for giving me the tools and the confidence to address the issue with her before I came home!
I think “I missed you!” is probably my favorite compliment, because it really is! It means far more to me than “it is great to see you” because it implies an active wanting you in their lives, even if they are the “out of sight, out of mind” people, like most of my friends. Of course some people don’t mean it, but some people don’t mean other compliments either.
Two years ago I went on something I called The Mission, which was basically a personal challenge to learn to flirt more effectively (it was fun), and part of that was a rule that if I saw something I liked, I had to complement it. The challenge is long over, but that’s stuck, so I tend to give lots of complements on lots of things, from the way someone pronounces “bagel” (beggle) to the way someone’s bafflingly awesome at punning in World Theatre History. Our culture makes things that aren’t appearance complements hard sometimes – telling a new friend “your voice is fabulous, can you narrate my life?” is somehow riskier than “those shoes are cool” – but once you’re consciously on the lookout for things you enjoy, it gets easier to find them and frame them in a genuine, non-creepy way.
Oh yeah, my mom got tons of compliments on how “great” she looked when she was DYING of cancer. Someone asked, “Angie, what’s your secret?” She said, “Chemotherapy. It’s a really great diet. You should try it sometime. You just can’t keep anything down!” On the other hand, she herself took some kind of twisted comfort in “Look, Cherry, I’m a size 6 for the first time years!” She bought herself a new dress, and she was buried in it a few months later.
Compliments are complicated. I feel uncomfortable being complimented on my body. Even though I’m on the fat spectrum, I’m on the smaller side, and my body often “passes” for not-fat or not-that-fat. I get compliments on the parts of my body that are not fat – “Wow! You have AMAZING legs.” Or the parts that are appropriately fat: “Damn, girl! I love your tits.” No one says, “You have such a cute tummy! I really love how it’s round and firm but soft and jiggly on the surface.” I’ve started to grow uncomfortable when people gush over my legs: it’s like, wait a minute. What does “great legs” mean? Shapely, in a particular kind of way. Thin. Right. Lesson learned.
Your smile just made my day!
I appreciate the way you……….
Some complements I tend to get are things like
“Hey blondie! That shirt is lovely! Is that a dragon in the lace?”
“You’re so smart!”
“Wow, that’s so creative”
“I love the emotion in your stories”
“The typography is great!”
One that I enjoy, but is slightly look related:
“Your eyes are really light. Like honey, or caramel. You make me hungry.”
No idea why I loved that one (probably because caramel’s my favorite candy, xD)
Then again, complimenting someone on their wit or intelligence could very well come off as classist and/or ableist. While people probably love hearing they’re smart, I’m not sure it’s actually an attribute that should be preferred over physical appearance.
People have such a human tendency to read compliments as saying “everything else sucks”. I even heard that in my university the psychology department stopped giving positive feedback to students in seminars, because complimenting someone’s work made everybody else think “wow, so my work’s shit”.
I like it when people compliment my intelligence. It’s nice to know that – as a woman – it’s not just how I look that matters, because that is what I get told/shown day after day after day. And for me personally I have never been good looking (and thin only briefly). But my mind and wit are *mine*, they are worth something and I will always have them. And I think that they, as well as a person’s character, are automatically worth ‘more’ than someone’s looks.
I’d like to have someone compliment me on my appearance. But it doesn’t happen. No-one even mentioned it when I lost weight as a teen and was ‘normal’ for a while (which confused the heck out of me… wasn’t I now supposed to get the guy, frineds, a social life and eternal happiness? Why did life just go on as usual?)
I get that, I really do. As I mentioned, complimenting on someone’s intelligence or wit is hardly insulting for the receiver. Nevertheless it, too, plays into a culture where people are (unjustly) valued over others because of attributes they don’t necessarily have any control over. The IQ is on the same bullshit level as BMI as a measurement tool. “Intelligence” as a social construct is pretty much the result of upbringing and education, and as such it is very much a class issue. It is also an ability issue. Therefore I see it as problematic. Of course, every compliment can be worded differently to sound more or less like a jerk (same as “you look great, you’ve lost weight” vs. “you look great”).
As a personal sidenote, I was the “funny and witty fat girl” for a very long time, because I didn’t think I was beautiful and felt like I had to somehow compensate for the “flaws” in my appearance. Took me long enough to realize that a) I don’t have any flaws, b) it’s OK to not be funny and smart all the time. What I tend to appreciate in other people are kind-heartedness, open-mindedness and willingness to learn.
I LOVE being told how sweet I am. Considering kindness, gentleness, and sweetness are all virtues I try very hard to evoke everyday. I like to bring a light into the room. So when someone tells my mom how sweet her daughter is or if someone refers to me as sweetheart or sweetie I know that I have done my job of being one less pain in the butt. I can’t stand it when people are rude.
I lost weight intentionally and I remember feeling on top of the world when I would get a compliment. I had more friends than I had previously but I am thinking that was probably more due to my happier mood due to all the exercise. I like to be complimented on my looks and especially by men. Probably some kind of underlying daddy issue or something but being raised in a patriarchal house hold where my dad’s opinion meant everything… I love to know I am loved and accepted by the men around me but I am slowly moving beyond that to feeling loved by myself.. thanks to this blog 🙂
We should compliment ourselves more often.
I am so glad you followed up that other post. This was out-out-outSTANDING!!!
Very lovely post… until the last paragraph where you ask for money. This comment made it impossible for me to link to this post. I’m very sorry for that…!
Hi De,
From my perspective there is no need for you to be sorry. Some people support their blogs through corporate ads, I choose to support mine through the voluntary contribution of the people who get value from it. I understand that some people are made uncomfortable that I value my work and suggest that those who get value from it voluntarily support it if they are able and inclined. I don’t require people to pay to read the blog, nor do I ask them to pass my work along unless it is something that they feel that they want to do. So please feel free to read for free and not share the work, it’s absolutely fine.
~Ragen
I’ve often been told I’ve lost weight when I haven’t – I think people assume it’s the nice thing to say… I generally just say “I don’t think so” and move on.
Appearance compliments can be informative, though. I’ve been dealing with a chronic illness, but still working part time. One day I experimented with a new way of fixing my makeup (which is always very subtle) and got several compliments that day from coworkers. But they key was what they said. One guy just thought I looked good and couldn’t figure out why… (“New earrings?” I seem to have looked dressed up.) But two women who knew me fairly well commented that I seemed to be feeling better, or looked rested. Now, in fact, I wasn’t – but now I know how to fake it when meeting with a new client, or in other situations where I do not want the state of my health to be an issue. This is Knowledge.
Here’s a good one (if you can say it and mean it): “You’re a really good mom/dad/partner/friend. Your kid/spouse/significant other is lucky to have you in their corner.” After the weight-compliments post went up, I met a friend of mine whom I haven’t seen for awhile for dinner and said something like that to her. She’s a single mom raising a teenaged boy on a teacher’s salary, and she’s made a lot of tough calls in order to be there for her kid. It makes a helluva lot more sense to give her kudos for that than for whatever crazy cleanse she’s been on lately.
On the other side of the coin, It can be extremely annoying when someone can’t take a compliment. I’m not even talking about weight comments. I’m talking about stuff like “Love that shirt, that color looks really good on you.” And the person’s reply is “Eh, I don’t like it, but if you say so.” or something like that.
Maybe it’s just a sore spot for me because I have a friend who is so negative about everything, and any compliments lands like a turd in a punch bowl.