What Can Be Wrong With A Compliment?

Have you ever felt put down by an apparent compliment?  A lot of people have.  Wonder why?  It may have been what Transactional Analysis labels as a sweetheart compliment.


So what is a sweetheart comment?  It is a compliment with a zinger built into it.  The mother of all sweetheart compliments I ever heard was when a woman told her coworker, "You must have gotten some new clothes, because you have been looking nice lately".


What is the compliment?  You have been looking nice.  What is the zinger?  There are two, actually.  One is the word lately.  It says that before lately you have been looking noticeably badly.  The second zinger is the coworker must have gotten new clothes because she could not look nice without the aid of this clothing.  The lady who received the barbed comment did not take it lightly.


More frequently one hears someone say something like, "You look nice today."  The statement again implies today is the only time you look nice.


So what would be a more complimentary compliment?  Just a simple, "I like your shirt, your outfit, your dress."

Today on television I heard a cohost of a talk show tell a guest "I am proud of you."  To tell another that you are proud of them implies you hold a superior position to them.  Perhaps you have the advantage of age and experience.  There was no appreciable age difference to warrant the person's pride in the other.  If Betty White had told Jennifer Anniston she was proud of her, that would have been acceptable.  Betty could be conceived of as an older adult encouraging a younger person -- a nurturing parent comment.  It is also acceptable because Ms. White has many more years of experience than Ms. Anniston.


There was also a career imbalance in this case.  A person of far lesser star achievement was complimenting a person who was a much greater star.  It was, therefore, inappropriate for her to place herself in a superior position as though she were the big star to be encouraging others.  The person giving the compliment insulted the other because she assumed she was of more note than the real star.  It just shouldn't be done.


Here, a better thing for her to have done was just say, "I've enjoyed your work so much".  That way there is no putdown involved.