If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say. . .

 About a year ago, I wrote a pretty strongly worded piece about being the recipient of backhanded compliments.  I described how another woman simultaneously complimented and insulted me in a single breath.  I implored my readers, especially my female readers, to stop doing such things.  Men don't behave that way.  Give a compliment because you mean it, otherwise don't say anything at all. 

In the course of one evening, I was the recipient of both a snarky and a genuine compliment, one compliment from a man, the other from a woman.   One guess as to who gave me which one.

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Last Friday,  I was was shooting some portraits for a mother's group to which I belong, at a dance studio when this whole thing went down.  The venue was split into two rooms and the main room where I had been shooting.  After each child had their portrait taken, they then moved into the adjoinig room for their practice. The parents, however, remained in the main room until the children were done.

Up until that point, I had been casually talking with some of the parents as I made sure each child had been photographed and that their names had been spelled properly.  As I went to grab some gear out of my bag, one of the mothers called to me to ask about her daughters' photo.  She was concerned that her daughter wasn't dressed up enough for her portrait and wanted to make sure I thought she looked alright.

As we walked back over to my set-up where I could check my list, this woman says, "I heard that you are also one of the mothers in this group? Is that true? That is just disgusting!"

"What?" I spun around to see who she was talking to.

"You're a mom in the group? You look like a kid! That is just disgusting!  And you have three kids? THREE? You're so skinny! That is just disgusting!"

At which point, I took a deep breath, confirmed that her daughters' photo had been taken, that it was lovely, and then I walked away from her, using long, strong strides that brokered no argument that our conversation was finished.

Rather than wondering about my professionalism, my head was swimming like, "WTF just happened? Really? Why is this ok? Why does this keep happening?"

Well that's the thing of it.  It's not ok. It's never ok. As a matter of fact, it's disgusting.  I don't see what these other women see.  And this is by no means a pity party I'm about to invite you all to attend.  It's not that I don't realize that I'm attractive.  I have my good days.  I'm just saying, my awkward phase was a hard one to pass through, so that colors my perception of myself

 This woman, who I had never before me, felt familiar enough with me to attribute my size and my youthful appearance as something worth her disgust.  Her own sense of self, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with me.  She doesn't know me.  She doesn't know what battles I've fought or continue to fight. 

The rest of the shoot passed without incident. I packed up my gear and met up with one of my girlfriends, N,  for dinner at a restaurant not too far from the dance studio.  Upon arrival, I see N at the bar, chatting with some other patrons.  After we say our hellos, she includes me in the conversation she is having with this father and son who are having a drink before they head downtown for another event.

As we waited for our table, we shot the breeze with this duo. The son we learned had just turned 30 and the dad. . .well, I don't know what his story was. He talked enough for the both of them, but he was mostly asking us questions about how N and I knew eachother, what we thought of the Saints game and then. . .what year we were in college.

This dude thought I was a junior or a senior in college. When I said that I was 35, married with 3 kids, he straight up called me a liar.  Then he apologized, saying that I was beautiful and that I must have some really good genes.

That was it.  There was no side dish of derision served up.  There wasn't any underhanded coda to his remarks.  He paid me a compliment, which I accepted, and then we talked about something else.  Had this exchange not happened, I probably would have never sat down to write this piece, but over the week-end, the whole thing was a splinter in my side.

You may say that I'm naive and of course an older man is going to pay a young woman a compliment, especially if you're standing at a bar and everyone has a drink. I'd like to think that he and I could have had that same exchange in any venue -- at the gym, at a church, in a bookstore.  It doesn't have to automatically mean that there is an agenda going on.  A compliment was given and a compliment was accepted.  Done.

So, all that being said, I'm working on my arsenal of retorts for when situations like the one at the dance studio arise.  I wasn't prepared last year when the woman said, "You're so skinny, you whore!".  I wasn't prepared when this other woman said, "You have three kids? You're so skinny! That is disgusting!"

I'm going to be prepared going forward.  Part of me wants to just go for the jugular and retort something like, "It's disgusting? You're husband doesn't think so," but I'm too classy for that (plus, that just came to me).  Maybe if someone says I'm skinny, I'll offer to take them to gym with me.  Or offer to slap the burger and fries out of their hand.

Or maybe, I'll just walk away with long, strong strides, effectively ending the conversation, for as George Bernard Shaw said, "Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn."

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.
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