Angelia Vernon Menchan

Angelia Vernon Menchan is an author, publisher and public speaker who owns two publishing companies, MAMM Productions and Honorable Menchan Media. Mrs. Menchan is also a Budget Officer and former Job Corps Counselor. To date she has published twenty-three books of her own work, both fiction and non-fiction and more than eighty ebook novellas on amazon.com. You can access her bibliography on www.amazon.com search words: Angelia Vernon Menchan




Contact information:
Website: http://acvermen.blogspot.com
Email: acvermen@yahoo.com
Phone numbers: 904 714 2272 904 303 2679

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Why Qualify It?

The other night a friend of mine walked into the room and I told her,
“Lady, you look great..”
She smiled and said,
“Thanks for not qualifying it.”
I knew exactly what she meant, but another sister asked her to explain;
“Well, at least she didn’t say I looked great for an old bag…”
We laughed and I told her, I would never say that…
She replied, ‘I know, but you know some people can’t compliment another person without ‘qualifying’ it. They have to say, ‘you look good today’ or ‘you look good, you look so skinny…’
I grinned at that because I knew just what she meant,
There are so many people who always have to place qualifications on compliments,
It is as they are unable to say it without taking something away…
When a person is told they look good today…it’s as if saying, ‘you didn’t look so hot yesterday…’
Or, ‘you look great, you must have lost weight’ is almost like saying, ‘you didn’t look so good heavier.’ And though those things may be true, in the opinion of the complimentor, what is the point of saying it…
I remember years ago, a co-worker asked me if I had lost weight because I looked good,
Actually I hadn’t, I was wearing something more form-fitting than usual….
I simply thanked her and left it alone,
Because I totally understood that she was projecting her values on me,
Being skinny was the be all and end all for her,
And she had no way of understanding that a non-skinny person could be totally fine,
The way they were…and I didn’t have enough brain cells to explain it,
What I did know though is that if I had said something to her like,
“You look good today, now that you have colored your hair…”
She would have been shocked and offended…
Go figure…
So if someone looks nice,
Just say, ‘You look nice…’ Period.

LOVE AND BLESSINGS!
angelia
www.angeliavmenchan.com

9 comments:

Storm Rants said...

Thanx for making that make sense for me. I never really thought about the qualifying effects of the statement "You look good today". But it's good to have a better view on what you say to people and how they view and receive any compliment.

'Cilla said...

Another spin is " you look good but... " Geesh... I would rather they leave it alone.

Thanks again Angelia :-)

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Storm Rants,
you are welcome...I am your neighborhood etiquette chick!

'Cilla,
ain't people something, it reminds me of the time someone said I was a pretty black woman...

Smooches!
angelia

Lena said...

What a valuable message - I don't know if I qualify my compliments, but I will be mindful of it from here on out. I loved this!

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Lena,
it is so easy to compliment a person without taking anything away...also, if you can't say a good thing, say no thing...

Great to hear from you...
angelia

Linda Moses said...

I find that I get more qualifying from women than men. Men will simply say, "You look good or nice....” Do you think women find it harder to compliment one another? Is it a competition thing among women?

Thank you for the post
.

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Linda,
I am sure that is it, women do compete more and my question is for what, the way I see it, you look good, I look good, it is all good...

Blessings!
angelia

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Oh and Linda,
a real compliment from a woman is real though...'cause sometimes the boys be tryin' to game...

Smooches!
angelia

Dera Williams said...

I guess people do this unconsciously. Now that it is brought to my attention, I can do better. I had just got used to saying just thank you when someone complimented me instead of saying, oh, this is old. I do hear that alot though., "You look nice, are you losing weight?"