#youdon'tknowme

“Stop.”

“I’m serious. You don’t know me.”

Let’s start this one off by saying that when I insist people not compliment me, I am not being coy and trying to fish for more praise. I am asking you to keep your opinion on a trait, usually one that I already resent, to yourself.

I don’t want to know how you feel about my looks or my intelligence, wit, wardrobe, or whatever else. Chances are, that the things you’ve noticed about me all come from a shallow and passive place. You don’t actually know anything about me or my life. You are clueless about the events and circumstances that have shaped the way I see the world around me every day and will continue to be so. That’s okay, I’m not holding it against you. That is unless of course, you’ve just told me how offensive it is that I didn’t accept your flattery. You’ve turned a polite but somewhat uncomfortable social interaction into something that causes both of us to feel affronted in some way.

Why?

What is it about you, and you’re praise that is so special that I am missing out on by being “dismissive?” Did some one send you to validate my entire existence by calling me ‘beautiful,’ no, they did not. You’re not about to get me published because you think I’m smart and you find the things I say funny or poignant. You’re not going to get me signed with a modelling agency or get me a movie role because you think I’m beautiful, graceful or classy. What you think, is what you think. You’ve been heard and I politely told you that flattery makes me uncomfortable and I’m not very good at accepting praise,especially when you put me on the spot in a group of people. You’ve already made me uncomfortable, now you’re going even further for calling me ungrateful, or a bitch because I came across as dismissive and I’m supposed to just get over my hangups to prepare myself for future unwanted flattery because you’ve set out to make me feel worse about turning it away now? Are you trying to talk me into liking you, being comfortable with you, trusting you? What do you think you’re going to accomplish?

I’ll tell you what you’ve actually managed to do, you’ve reminded me that I have no control over how others use my body. You made my discomfort with the flesh prison I never wanted about you, and claimed that my rejection was more offensive to you than your disregard was to me. Here is what you need to consider before you make the scene you’re about to make.

I deeply resent what I look like to begin with, it’s always gotten me attention I didn’t want from people I didn’t want it from. I had something people wanted and someone took it without giving me an option in the matter, when I tried to assert my control over the situation and report it, I didn’t get any validation or control. I just wound up with a larger group of people poking and prodding at me, making me feel even more violated and exposed, implying that I in some way “asked for” or “invited” what happened to me. I was thirteen, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t even know what I was “asking for” until someone came along and gave it to me. Every aspect of my character and personality was dissected and analyzed for someone else’s benefit, as if I were an inanimate object that can be rationalized and quantified, like I had no dimension or depth.

At the end of all that, I had no self worth, I found joy in nothing. I’ve had problems with food, self harm, alcohol. I had to work so hard to build up to having friends, a relationship with my family, boyfriends, lovers. Any remotely healthy relationship, none of which actually wound up being healthy, all of which succeeded in making me more jaded and disillusioned. I had to overcome so much before I could accept a hug from someone I was supposedly comfortable with, without cringing. I still flinch when someone touches me by surprise and I’m 28 now. I had to spend years building confidence and building this protective layer around me to keep the bad away. The last thing I need is for someone to get pushy with me about something so trivial as a compliment.

I don’t need you making a scene because I asked you to stop trying to flatter me, I don’t need you drawing more attention to my discomfort, and I don’t need you to make me understand anything. I know what I look like, I don’t need to be told. I need you to respect my space and acknowledge that I’ve lived an entire life which you know nothing about, and though that life is none of your concern it has shaped the way I’m interacting with you in the present. Telling me what I look like to you is not a way to start a conversation with me, telling me that I seem intelligent as you sit down next to me for the first time doesn’t mean anything because I haven’t even “offended” you yet, and making a scene because I had the nerve to dismiss all of your awesomeness; it’s not going to make me continue talking to you.