Solicited, unsolicited compliment.

I don’t think there is any question that we all love to be complimented and praised. It feels awesome to be told you’re fantastic. A really good, unexpected compliment can literally make your day. Of course, some of us require more compliments than others to stay afloat, which can quickly become annoying. Personally I find that when I’m not satisfied I’ll just compliment myself, but still, compliments are much appreciated and in general a healthy level of reinforcement benefits us all.

The extremely frustrating and irrational expectation is when we want someone to tell us something nice but we certainly don’t want to have to ask for it. I find this occurring most often with the opposite sex being that same gendered friends are usually more aware of each others’ nondescript codes. In general we want to be noticed for things like our outfit or shoes or general amazingness but we don’t want to presumptuously point it out. Then on top of that, we want to hear the "right" thing not just anything. In reality this is a problem on at least two levels, we can’t control what someone else does or thinks and second, we really need to find a way to be happy with ourselves with what we can control, our own opinions.

I rediscovered this little paradox yet again this weekend when I found myself fishing for reassurances from my friend about something rather silly. It didn’t work, as it rarely does. After I walked away disappointed I thought, why didn’t I just say – hey, buddy, it would be great if you would tell me this right now because I really need to hear it, but don’t say it like I told you to say it, make it seem like you were going to say it and don’t forget to mean it. Somehow saying such a truthful statement out loud manages to miss the entire point. Fiddlestix.

Sometimes I think life would be easier if we were all comfortable enough to say so boldly what we want/expect/need from each other but then I think about it for 5 seconds and remember why it is probably best I keep those things to myself…or to a blog.