If Everyone Is Saying It, It Must Be True

I was taught that when someone gave me a compliment I was to say “thank you” whether I agreed with them or not. Don’t argue, don’t protest, just say your thanks and move on. Manners and all that.

And that’s what I do. “You have such pretty eyes.” “Thanks.” “I love your skirt!” “Thanks.” “I like the way you verbally eviscerated that guy.” “Thanks.”

It’s become an automatic response to the point that I don’t really pay much attention to the compliment (unless it’s a truly unique one or backhanded or related to weight-loss because I don’t think saying, “Hey, you’ve lost weight!” is much of a compliment, but that’s another post). It’s not that I don’t appreciate people saying nice things to me on occasion; I enjoy that very much. But I just don’t read that much into it.

When I got my hair cut, I expected some people to notice because it was such a dramatic change. And I anticipated the reactions of a few people would be saying they liked my hair, whether they really did or not, as a way of acknowledging the drastic change in a nice way. In short, I didn’t pay too much attention at first when people said they liked my hair because it was the people that I expected to say something.

But then people I didn’t expect started saying the same thing. My hair attracted more attention than I thought it would. And I started to think…”Gee, maybe everyone does think my hair looks nice.”

At some point I’ve moved from “people being nice about my hair” to “this is the general consensus about my hair”.

Which is weird for me because I don’t typically think of people holding good opinions of me. I know I’m regarded as a failure by certain people and society thinks I’m a fat waste of DNA, and I’d be lying if I said those opinions didn’t impact me at least somewhat, but my opinion of myself is so high that it kind of minimizes the worth of those opinions.

So here I am, already thinking my hair looks freakin’ fabulous, and people are backing me up. It’s just strange. I’ve never had this sort of positive consensus before, particularly about a physical aspect of my being. I mean it’s nice, but it’s strange.

This is one of the few instances that I like going with the crowd, especially since for once they’re agreeing with me. If everyone is saying it, then it must be true. My hair looks good.

I could go mad with this sort of power.

But no. I like my head able to fit through doorways.