I came across an interesting article on hellogiggles.com. (I find a lot of interesting posts there. Check ‘em out! It also helps that my idol Zoey Deschenal is a major contributor.) This article is called ‘Three Little Heavy Words’. The author explores the three words that women like to hear, the words that make us feel confident, loved, validated - the compliments or comments that mean the most to us.
She gives a lot of examples like, You look beautiful, You’ve lost weight, I love you, You seem happy. All compliments and all would be nice to hear occasionally from friends, family, maybe strangers (in the right context). She goes on to argue about how each of those things mean different things coming from different people, friends, family, significant others, strangers.
Another argument she makes is whether we should need these kinds of comments. Why can’t I be enough to feel validated? I should feel good enough based on my opinion of myself that I don’t need my best friend to tell me I look nice when we go out together. Sure. I agree. I have also worked hard to be comfortable with myself and not rely on outside support for my self-esteem. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have three little words that make me feel great. I don’t rely on them, but it’s always nice to hear.
After not too much thought, I decided that my three words are, ‘You are smart’. I have always struggled with compliments about my appearance. I get really self-conscious, I guess, and it makes me uncomfortable. But, I’ve worked hard to be smart, educated, and well-read, and I am always proud when someone can see that. To find my words, I thought about the compliment that made me the most happy, proud, ‘validated’, genuinely pleased with myself and the person giving the compliment. I recently started dating a (wonderful!) guy, and the greatest compliment he has ever given me was not ‘You look beautiful’ when I put on that new dress, but when he told me that I was smart, and that he could tell as soon as he met me.
This is lame, and not really an excuse, per se, perhaps an explanation: over my lifetime, I’ve been the ‘smart’ friend. I’ve been friends with the ‘pretty’ girls who got all the boys, and I was the funny, smart, maybe not quite as ‘pretty’ and spent a lot of time boy-less. So, maybe that’s why it means so much to have someone attracted to me because he thinks I’m smart. Similarly, it means a lot to me when my boss or other people in the organization comment on my work on a particularly big or important project.
Honestly, I don’t know if it has much to do with those early years of being boxed in as the ‘smart friend’. I think these words that mean the most to us just shows our priorities, or perhaps the things about ourselves that we are most concerned about conveying to others. Example: a few people in my life have undertaken huge weight loss goals. When I see them and compliment them on how different and healthy and generally great they look, I can see that they feel this way about that compliment: they worked hard to achieve a goal and when someone else recognizes that work, it feels good. I think that being smart is incredibly important and I want people to see my ‘smarts’, my talents, my strengths and abilities first, and when someone recognizes that, it feels good.
What are your words?