When offered a compliment as a child, I either thought of the compliment as “true” or as “false.” If it was true, I would say, “Yes, that’s true.” If it was false, I would say, “No, that’s not true.” Language was about information to me then, and I couldn’t understand compliments as a social nicety, though my father pestered me to say, “thank you” when someone said something nice. It was hard to figure out when it was nice and when it was a sarcastic compliment (“Nice hair!” “Nice job!” “Nice paper!” can all mean either what they seem to mean or the opposite).
As an adult, I’m warier around compliments than I was a child, precisely because I understand now that they are part of a world of social currency that I am poor in and that I only vaguely participate in. When people offer a compliment to me, I can see now that they think that this is a gift. If someone says to me, “You’re beautiful,” I have come to accept that this has a value in social currency and that, like the fae, I am now in this person’s debt and “owe” them some kind of return gift. People more adept than me at this kind of thing will easily return the gift in kind by offering a similar compliment. I am more likely to reject the compliment as I might reject a gift I didn’t want and think should be returned to the store for a refund.
