Please Take A Compliment

Chocolate Cheesecake

Compliments are contentious where I am concerned, especially unwarranted ones. Due to my over analytical nature I admittedly look too much into the ulterior motives behind the compliment. Thanks to the great genes my parents kindly bestowed on me, people often question my age. Upon finding that I am more than legal, conversations take an altogether different realm. Digressive paraphernalia becomes the norm. I end up being an involuntary party to a diatribe I have no business being part of. That is when the creepiness seeps through. A furrow of flirtatious furore disguised as a compliment ensues.

I have had my fair share of obscure compliments that make me question not the compliment per say but rather the person who is saying it; once I have untangled the web of obscurity surrounding the compliment that is. Such was the time when someone stopped mid conversation and complimented me on the colour of my natural lips, then stopped to quarrel with himself as to why they were a certain shade of pink! It didn’t help that I was biting my lips in anguish.

A guy once said to me I was classy because of my taste in using mascarpone cheese in my cheesecake as opposed to the supermarket brand cheese. Up until that point I was of the conviction that mascarpone was the norm for all humanity engaged in baking, but it transpired as not being the case. I was aghast at the suggestive undertone of his compliment. Was he implying that I am a stuck up cow who thinks supermarket brand cheese isn’t good enough for my baking stature?

It was truly mortifying and mystifying on equal measures. I didn’t read the compliment in that but rather saw it as an assault on my baking stratagem. We exchanged cheesecake recipes and I implored encouraged him to try mascarpone in his cheesecake as it would give it an elevated taste. The next time I saw the man he acted like he didn’t know me.

Or the time someone expressed to me their desire to be with someone who had my face. I couldn’t help but feel offended on behalf of the rest of my body. I know that I had a midriff bearing worthy body once upon a time; nevertheless this was an insult in my books not a compliment. Upon noticing my disgruntled mood the man in question attempted to justify his bizarre testament. He attested that he liked the symmetry of my facial features and how as long as his significant other had such accolades anything below the neck didn’t matter as much. I wasn’t buying his fervency!

I don’t mind compliments, at least those that are out of the norm. Give me a compliment on my perfectly arched eyebrows. They are by far the most worthy recipients of a compliment or two. They triumphed through a decade of conspicuous craftsmanship, odd shapes and the occasional mishap concerning a razor. The times they got mistaken for belonging to a face of hardened gangster because they had the odd unintentional lines cut through them. That was one heck of a learning curb. I have now established the perfect symmetry and accepted that my eyebrows will never look identical. I am now at peace with the fact that they are not identical twins but second cousins who share one common denominator- my face!

 

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