A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Hi Friend,
You’re amazing. Special. Talented. Exceptionally good looking.
These compliments probably don’t mean all that much to you, and that’s fair. This email is going out to hundreds of people, and so they can’t be especially personal. But let’s pretend that I meant them (and chances are good that I probably do). How do you react to a compliment like one of these? Or even a very specific compliment? Let’s say you have a beautiful garden that you spent a lot of time on, and I walked up to you and said, “Your garden is so beautiful. I especially love the hyacinths. I can tell you spent a lot of time on it.” Are the type of person who can say “Thank you”?
Some of my favorite responses to give to compliments are these. Please add to this list!
“I mean, thanks, but you really don’t have to say that. I’m working on making it better. I’m growing.”
“Me? What about YOU!? Look at your hair / work portfolio / daughter’s wardrobe / ability to sauté food! Yours is truly amazing. Let’s talk about you and your abilities instead.”
“LOL, thanks. HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA! I really know how to dumpster dive, huh? / SOMEtimes the things I say make sense! / I’ve completed Level One!” (Or some other joke; the jokes are usually pretty specific. Joke deflection. You get it.)
“Seriously, it was way easier than it seemed like it was. I basically cheated to accomplish this thing. I went through a back door. I made a failure look like a success. I manipulated a system I know how to manipulate. It really wasn’t anything.”
“I appreciate you saying that, but I see all the flaws in the thing you have complimented. And I won’t bore you by telling you all of them, because that will seem selfish, and like I am fishing, but really, the thing you have complimented is horrible and so am I. QUICK! Let me change the subject so you don’t feel like you have to comfort me!”
I am slightly better via email. I have time to silence my reflexive reaction and stop and say, “Thank you. That really means a lot to me.” But I generally try to pivot and then ask the person something about them, or try to connect their compliment to something happening in their own life.
It’s likely that you, on some level at least, relate to this. A recent study of 400 people in Boston found that 70 percent associated compliments with feelings of discomfort. Which is WILD, because we also CRAVE praise and reassurance and words that make us feel chosen or special. Then, when they come, we don’t know what to do with them or how to trust them.
For me, it always feels like it must be a trick. Like the person has a secret agenda, where they’re trying to bring me down by luring me into a false sense of good-enough-ness, and then they’ll show up one day while I’m on my period and be like, “Ha ha, remember when I told you you looked nice, and you said ‘thank you’? You were so WRONG! I was just TESTING you, and I actually thought you looked LIKE SHIT, and here’s a mirror; everyone agrees with me that you are incapable of looking nice; the whole world wants to laugh at your naive belief that you look nice.” The fact that this has never actually happened does not stop me from being on guard against it.
But, just as I can’t give you a *real* compliment in a mass email, nor can I make a broad platitude about how you receive one. I can say with certainty that if you struggle to receive compliments, it’s very likely that your parents also don’t receive compliments with a simple “thank you.” That response to compliments wasn’t an acceptable cultural norm (at least in the Western world) until very recently. So instead, here’s a list of questions to ask yourself about your relationship with compliments: with giving them, with receiving them, and with holding them. Understanding the answers to these questions can help you get at the root of how to move forward with compliments in the future.
When do you give a compliment? Do you always tell the truth? Do you compliment someone because you are hoping to get something in return? What is at stake if you give out compliments less frequently? Or if you give them out more liberally?
Are you more likely to believe a compliment from a stranger or from a person close to you?
What were you taught was the appropriate way to respond to praise? Did you grow up with a religious or cultural belief around recognition? Did your parents model receiving praise in a certain way? Were there rules about recognition in your household?
How often were you praised as a child? Were you praised consistently at school and at home? Did you seek out praise from specific people? What did you gain from it? How did that affect the way you receive praise as an adult?
Did you have experiences with praise being inauthentic? Did you give compliments with an alternate agenda, or did one of your caretakers? What is the danger of believing or receiving an inauthentic compliment?
How does receiving praise make you feel vulnerable? What would happen if you opened yourself to that vulnerability and welcomed it as an opportunity to connect?
In addition to answering these questions, I recommend keeping track of the ways in which you reflexively respond to compliments, trying to notice patterns. You might even tell people this is something you’re doing. The people who love you might have helpful feedback for you.
This matters because you have support out there in the world; it’s a resource that too often goes untapped. There are people in your life who know you are doing a good enough job, and they probably tell you sometimes. If you have barriers to receiving this kind of support, that makes sense! But it’s worth investigating whether they might be overdue for a little dismantling.
Love,
Sophie
PS - If you actually have no problem accepting compliments, or hearing words from strangers who don’t know you at all and letting them connect to you and your unique life, let me recommend listening to “Unsolicited Advice” by Charles Spearin or “You Have Something Special” by Joanna Sternberg, both of which were (pointedly!) recommended to me by Spotify (which is paying too much attention to my emails, it seems like), and which are pretty similarly encouraging and in second person.
Add this to your to-do list.
Give a really honest compliment to someone you admire.
Watch a video of some ducklings. (I’m going to let you find it on your own.)
Give away or recycle or put in a donation box one article of clothing.
A drawing.
I published two illustrated pieces elsewhere this week. I am sharing a drawing from each, and a link to the pages where you can read more.
For The New Yorker, “Things I Guess I Just Expected People To Say To Me When They Found Out I Had A Baby”
2. For Guernica: “Byrd Baylor, I Love You,” celebrating my favorite author, who died this year.
What’s on my mind this week.
(This will be about new parenthood. Skip it if you don’t want to read about new parenthood.)
Before I had a baby, I remember hearing a lot of people (mostly stand-up comics, let’s be real — but also other people) complaining about how much parents fawn over their babies. How parents want to show you pictures of their babies. Parents all think THEIR baby is exceptional, or advanced. Parents think you want to know about the minutiae of their baby’s lives, and NO ONE WANTS THAT. I really internalized that. (Note how there is an italicized sentence at the beginning of this paragraph that assumes that swaths of people have no interest in reading about my baby, even as I hope to write about her.) Now that I’ve had my baby, I am not quite sure how to talk about her. It’s not like I all of a sudden have forgotten all the things people said about how annoying new parents are about their tedious babies. I don’t want to bore anyone, but also, I don’t want it to seem like I don’t LOVE my baby or think about her sufficiently. Yesterday at pizza with other new parents (whose baby had way more hair and was therefore more of a classically cute baby than my bald, round, alt-cute baby), I was asked to show pictures, and I wasn’t sure what to say before showing them. (I probably could have said nothing, but also, I am me, and so I couldn’t have.) I said something like, “What I will say about her is that she is very fat.” That’s true, and I thought that was universally accepted as an asset as far as babies are concerned, but it seemed like it had been the wrong thing to say. Like I was putting DOWN my baby? That hadn’t been my intention! I don’t really think T is advanced or extraordinary or better or different than any other babies. I DO think that she is super-perfect in literally every way. And yes! I fawn over her! I sit and stare at her; when she sleeps on my chest I silently sob because I want to hold on to those moments for the rest of my life, but I know that I can’t. She gets me in the chemicals. She has ruined basically all TV for me. It’s this weird, ambiguous, middle area — where she is more than I could have ever expected, but I also don’t need that to mean she is in any way better than or superior to any other baby. And I have no way to articulate this to people, because there are only a few acceptable things to say to new parents. Here they are:
“Your baby is cuter than every other baby I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”
“How is she sleeping? Oh, who am I kidding. How are YOU sleeping?”
(Talks to baby.)
(Ignores baby.)
So, anyway, this has not really been about T’s development (which, this week, includes a lot of fart-mouth noises, high-pitched screams, and an interest in plants), but rather about my inability to know how much and to what degree I should talk about parenting to any and all other people.
Extras.
My friend Erin graciously took me to see a sold-out Joe Pera show, and it was a pure delight. I assume that if you are reading this newsletter, you’re already watching his show, but if you’re not yet (for whatever reason): you’re welcome.
Since getting obsessed with Lindsay Pugh’s blog via her “Gilmore Girls” recaps, I have started noticing how much music there is in every episode of “Gilmore Girls” that isn’t “la la la” or “Where You Lead.” It’s tons! And a lot of it is actually SO GOOD. So yesterday I looked for a Spotify playlist of all the songs that are in “Gilmore Girls,” and I found it, and it is EXCELLENT. I only got to listen to it for an hour yesterday, but I’m so excited to keep going. I had it on shuffle, and I can recommend the following ABSOLUTE BOPS:
I think I forgot to tell you that Luke and I went to see “Six” (because we have season tickets to Broadway, because that is the thing we waste our money on — but before you judge us, know that WE DON’T DRINK ALCOHOL, so this is about the same price as going to bars regularly for a year), and it was the most fun time I have had going to see a Broadway. (And I have seen a lot.) It’s not, like, good; but it’s FUN and empowering and FUN and it makes you cry and it kind of has all the things you want. It’s fun. Don’t sleep on “Six.”
God, this has been such a fucking certain-type-of-woman themed excerpt of extras, but I just have to tell you that Trader Joe’s has a new vegan buffalo dip that is revelatory.
My girlfriend Kat sent me this lovely, perfect newsletter about hummingbirds that I can HIGHLY recommend.
I have been reading (by which I mean listening to audiobooks of) exclusively histories of American comedy. I have consumed:
The Saturday Night oral history. (Great. Problematic. Addicting. I wish it lasted forever.)
The Daily Show oral history. (Pretty good. Less problematic, but also less interesting.)
“The Comedians” by Kliff Nesteroff. (Good enough. Exhaustive. Interesting sometimes, and then sometimes not that interesting. Overwhelmingly masc.)
“I’m Dying Up Here” by William Knoedelseder. (Just, like, VERY FUN to read. Not super informative, but written sort of like a novel, and so it is FUN.)
“The History of Stand-Up Podcast,” which is occasionally brilliant, but not often.
And NOW I am reading Shawn Levy’s new book, “In On The Joke,” which is about female comedians in the “golden era,” and IT IS INCREDIBLE. I can already tell it’s my favorite, and I know Shawn, so I am excited to write him a gushing email about how much I love and can recommend this gorgeous book, which is appropriately adoring.
A little announcement
You made it to the bottom of the newsletter! Thank you!
Your friend Sophie (me) is struggling a tiny bit financially at the moment, and a lot of that has to do with doing a lot of free labor. Honestly, I’m OK with doing a lot of free labor! I like the things I do a lot, and I suck at asking for money for things that are SO MUCH FUN. This newsletter is and will always be free. But I have added two payment options for folks who are in a more financially comfortable position, and would like to receive some extra Sophie things. Click here to upgrade. You can also do this in your own Substack account.
Here are the payment plans and benefits. Note that I have a high-tier payment plan that includes a quarterly print that I send to you in the actual mail. It says that costs $250 a year, but really, anything above $50 is acceptable. You’ll have an option to change the price when you click that option.
Thanks for reading, and for considering. :) I love you.
loved the poem
I always read these in my email on my smartphone, but now I’m realizing that maybe I’m missing out on the full experience of reading them with a larger screen, on the landing platform. Like, commenting. For a while now, these have been bringing me lots of joy and emotions in general, which are good to feel.