Why is it so hard for others to accept a compliment

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33 minutes ago, OTrainer said:

@MasterTalathian47342

Why should anybody accept a compliment? We’ve all grown up in a patriarchy where the act of complimenting a person is imbued with power dynamics and is not value-neutral. There’s an assumption among the powerful however that a compliment is positive and should therefore be accepted. But the experience of complimentees is often that a compliment is manipulative (e.g. an attempt to make them feel good about themselves- for what purpose or end? How they respond may encourage the complimenter and create the impression of access to the complimentee); a compliment is a challenge to their self-image; a compliment is a trap to encourage them to appear vain; etc.

So a common response to compliments from complete strangers on a dating site is naturally to reject or deflect the compliment, and make it crystal clear that this is an unwanted interaction and to close this approach down.

I say all this as a man who compliments. 95% of my compliments are to females and about 5% are to males. I try to be aware of my own intentions when doing so and so I am aware that on many occasions I am not just innocently complimenting - I am initiating an approach which I hope may develop further. And of course there are those compliments which are more spontaneous and which lack an ulterior motive- I complimented someone here last year on a photo of them which captured an offhand moment where they were laughing, and it was such a beautiful moment to capture and I sent them a message to say that. Even as I sent that compliment I was aware of how I was exercising my feelings of entitlement to comment on aspects of another person and their life.

I may not have intended my compliment to be an approach, but I should not be surprised that it may be interpreted and treated as one, given the contexts (patriarchal society; dating site; etc.) and so the resulting question might well be:

Why is it so hard for complimenters to accept that their compliments are unwelcome?

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