compliments 101

I kept thinking about this theme over the evening (which was spent on the top of SAS radisson with an apple martini and three fun danish girls by the way) and I thought about a rooky mistake I made on saturday concerning compliments. Let me enlighten you.



On saturday we had a bachelorette party for one of my friends, the point was to drink her under the table and she ended the evening on the floor just wearing a rudolph-the-raindeer red nose, a tiara, and a micro-skirt so I think we succeded. But my story is not about her. Its about Tina. She was one of the 12 girls partying with us that night. 6 of the girls I knew quite well, the rest I briefly met ant Tina I met once a long time ago. Tina has some real wicked eyes. (And I mean wicked, not beautiful, cause beautiful might get you thinking of a maybe-its-maybelline classic poster girl eyes). her eyes have this almost see-through grey-green colour that reminds you of a cat or an emerald or both at the same time. I guess I thought about telling her right away (according to my own compliment-principles) but I got caught up in the champagne-drinking and salsa-dancing and forgot somehow. During the day Tina and I had tons of fun. We ran around Oslo looking for brooms, old schoolmates and Orlando Bloom (loong story) and got drunk all the while. In the evening we ended up using straws and flags as microphones and ran on the couch singing to dirty dancing.

Closing in on four o'clock we find ourself on the tiny freezing cold porch, but our salsa-feet held us warm while we were hunching over our cigarettes and giggeling. Then she turns to me and says: wow, I think you're the absolute coolest girl! And what do I do? I say:
Oh, you're so cool too - and you have wicked eyes! Rooky mistake - big blunder! Only time you can get away with returning a compliment like that is if you're a guy and the gilr you're returning the compliment too wants to sleep with you. Otherwise, one of two things will happen: 1. the other person will think you're undermining the trust you've been showed by being giving a compliment (often giving a compliment is based on trust and courage - at least in Norway) or 2. the person will think you think you HAVE to give a compliment. And thats bad - there's nothing worst than a forces compliment.

Compliments 101 says: give your compliment when you think it - DO NOT WAIT. The lesson is also: take a compliment, compliment the other person for being brave enough to give you a compliment, do NOT shove it away, undermine it or say: you too! you will always appear false. Its better to recieve it with grace and greatfulness.

Class dismissed