response 62 of 69:

Nov 9 01:23 UTC 1999

Re 50: I'm the same way about compliments.  I try to dismiss them as much
as possible.  I don't know quite why, and on some logical level I know
it's silly.  Last year in a writing workshop class I was taking, the class
was commenting on things they liked about one of my essays, and I kept
instinctively responding with comments like, "Well, thank you, but this is
really very rough and I was just sort of making it up as I was going along
and..."  Finally one of my friends who was in the class took me aside and
said, "You know, Sara, you don't need to argue when people say nice things
about your writing.  It's really okay to let them compliment you."  But
this doesn't naturally occur to me - I think somehow, instinctively, I do
assume that the evil eye is going to get me or some such.

With myself it's mostly *skills* that I feel defensive about being
complimented about -- whether writing or photography or underwater
basketweaving or whatever.  Maybe I just have trouble thinking of myself
as a creative person, or maybe it's just an awareness that even at things 
I can do sort of well there is still so much to learn. When I *give*
compliments to others, though, it's
the compliments on how they look that I notice being refuted the most.
Somehow allowing oneself to think, "hmm, I look nice today," makes them
feel guilty, as if that statement were the same as "I am the most
beautiful person in the universe and everyone should worship me as a
goddess."  I've noticed this more with physical than with other
attributes.  Not sure why this is.