Thursday, October 13, 2005

what do you make of this? the old back-handed compliment

i have 8 minutes to write this and then go and pick up princess and her friend from school. friend is coming back for a play.

yesterday morning i saw a friend of mine. a girlfriend. she is older than me, and single, and depressed. just to put it in context. also, she is turkish so she has little hope of marrying again unless her parents find her a man, which they have refused to do.

as soon as she saw me, she was telling me how great i was looking, how well, how my skin was glowing, asking how my bf was, and i told her really good, we are going really well, and she said my HAIR was looking great, and i said i'd had it done, that's why

and then she said, have you put on weight?

at that moment i was cramming into my mouth a lovely little ricotta and polenta cake-y thing her mum had made, and was about to have a sip of my turkish coffee.

chewing with bits of crumbs falling out, i said "maybe, i don't know"

she said, "keep it like that, it suits you"

i will leave you with this, please let me know if you have friends who do this to you

it's annoying isn't it?

16 comments:

Melba said...

oh dxxx. yep i hit return and it posted just the title.

read it again my love.

you are quick.

Melba said...

PS + X

DJ said...

Well firstly turn on word verification for comments.

Secondly coming from someone from the European continent, its hard to say if they mean "You've stacked it on dear" or if they mean "If you were a wog, you'd be marrying material"...

Tough call.

magical_m said...

she said:

"keep it like that, it suits you"

translated, that means:

"please keep stacking on the weight - it makes me feel better about myself"

don't worry about it - she must have low self-esteem.

Melba said...

hey dj, i haven't had spam for ages, must be something about this posting.

dj, you might be right. she is turkish and she knows the mediterranean men, they like the meat on the bones. i haven't stacked it on though.

magical_m: i think you might be closer to the truth. she might be envious. it didn't really cut me cause i am feeling good, but it just gets under your skin, and kind of just sits there.

BEVIS said...

Nah, she probably means nothing bad by it. A compliment's a compliment. (Some are better at giving them than others.)

I say take it at face value and feel good about yourself. A bit of weight (and you said yourself you haven't "stacked it on") is better than many chicks think it is.

... Or call her a desperate slag and see if the amusing banter continues from there.

Melba said...

no dxxxx, the hair is not being treated. it's still flat i haven't washed it since saturday. i don't need to wash it that often, due to the dry coarse nature of it which i have mentioned several times already. i'm trying to make it to saturday when i have to present at a seminar. may not be looking so hot then, we shall see, and i shall DEFINITELY keep you posted.

and as for the little too skinny before, well i am smaller than her, but not by that much.

bevis. thanks for being a supportive boy. i'd only seen this friend like a week before the school hols. it's not like we hadn't seen each other a year or even months, and i'd gotten larger.

AND i forgot to mention i was there to try and fix her hot water service, like i'd done before. now before any of you start seeing me in overalls with a wrench, or a spanner, or anything like that, it's just that i am good with things like that.

i lived in japan and worked out how to set up and program a VCR IN JAPANESE, as well as use a rice cooker IN JAPANESE. and i don't speak japanese. this is how good i am.

i also rewired my mum's old bird-style ceramic electric kettle/jug thing years ago. this was when i first realised i was good at this sort of thing. now i find myself being called out...

GS said...

A scene in an inner city pub last year:

AOF: *moan* I am the heaviest i have ever been in my life

close 'friend' of AOF: Oh no i have seen you look much bigger than you are now!

AOF: *waits for the ground to open up and swallow her*

LadyCracker said...

I'm sure you look gorgeous MG.
xx LC

Justine said...

Maybe she meant it like, um, you know, your cheeks look full and peachy.
I get this all the time so so I have to put the best possible spin on it :-)

sublime-ation said...

I hate comments like this! Why do people feel the need to comment on other people's weight? Do we tell them, 'oh, you know, your nose could do with a bit of hair-plucking'? or, 'gee, your breath is stinkier than it used to be? I had one former friend of my mother's who used to say shit to me liike that, once I was wearing my friend's pants and she said 'amazing you could fit into them.' I was speechless. Of course, she was insecure about her own weight.
That said, your friend, being Turkish, probably meant it as a compliment, could be a culture clash...like the Italians, they tell you these things straight out. My African friends tell me I've put on weight as a compliment, even though I've told them it's not really cool to say that to an Aussie girl...
At least she didn't say she hated your hair!

LadyCracker said...

http://ladycrackerland.blogspot.com/2005/10/so-that-will-be-two-page-feature-next.html

Case in point MG, you are not alone

Melba said...

i love you all

ladycracker, you are a real sweetie

elaine said...

mg, I don't care what anyone says. I think you're just lovely. Inside and out.

Jellyfish said...

Yeah, I've blogged about this as well. I cop it occasionally, and one of my friends cops it constantly. I think who ever said that she was probably doing it to make her feel better about herself (magical m?) was probably right.

Geh - it is a foul habit people get into, though. They ought to just belt up.

Melba said...

hey elaine, i love you. and hey jelly. thanks for commenting from afar.

this post seems to certainly have brought out the common experience for a few of us.