OPINION: Are compliments a good thing?
I recently read that the actress Gillian Anderson had been appointed Chief Compliments Officer at M&S.
In her profile, she wrote that she ‘specialises in building and scaling joy through style positivity across retail’.
This rather pretentious statement set me thinking about whether the little kind comment which is a compliment should be monetised.
Apparently a woman’s post went viral after saying that she spent her time complimenting strangers. Psychologists maintain that we should try to build up our sense of self-worth from within.
However there is nothing like a validating comment to give us a boost or put a smile on our faces.
General compliments such as ‘You’re amazing!’ or ‘You’re a star!’ can sound gushing.
Specific comments sound more sincere. Having said that, I’m sure that Patti Boyd was delighted to have the song ‘Wonderful Tonight’ written for her by Eric Clapton.
I feel, though, that George Harrison nailed it more in ‘Something’: ‘Something in the way she moves/attracts me like no other lover.’
Troy Hawke (alter ego of comedian Milo McCabe) dons a smoking jacket and greets people outside stores and other venues. He takes specificity to the next level to great comic effect:
‘Sir, you have a marvellous weight distribution between your feet.’
Some of us may enjoy being complimented by a stranger; others may find it intrusive. Jane Austen has little time for those who attempt ‘premature intimacy’.
Then, of course, there is the back-handed compliment. I once lived in a village with lots of dramatic performances being staged.
I’d be the first to admit that Dame Judi Dench has nothing to worry about from me.
When I was in a panto playing Sherlock Holmes’s housekeeper in the manner of Mrs Overall from ‘Acorn Antiques’, one of my friends (?) told me I was ‘very brave’. I took this to mean ‘embarrassing’!
The C18th poet Alexander Pope knew all about being ‘damned with faint praise’. In his ‘Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot’, he offloads to his good friend about critics and the literati of the day.
He senses that they don’t have the courage to attack him openly but use subtle (these days we’d call it ‘snide’) take-downs instead.
In famous lines he writes that they ‘Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,/ And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.’
And if you’re lucky enough to receive a compliment? Accept it graciously otherwise you undermine the person giving it.
I’ll end with a quote Mark Twain: ‘I can live for two months on a good compliment.’