Just Can’t Stand The Compliments

Dear Miss Manners: For the past 15 years, my husband and I have known a couple that we see socially three or four times a year. Upon greeting, they always compliment me effusively on some aspect of my appearance.

I am embarrassed by these comments. For one thing, they are often off the mark. They complimented me on my weight when I was gaining. They admired my hairstyle when I have worn it unchanged for several years. They recently complimented me on how dark my hair looked, when I have been lightening it.

I have tried simply saying “Thank you,” and I have also tried to turn this into a social ritual of greeting by saying “Thank you, you’re looking very nice yourself.” But these strategies do not stop them from going on and on in detail.

I feel they want me to share the story of how I have achieved this new look. However, I do not wish to discuss my weight or my attempts to cover gray hair, and when my hairstyle is the same as always there is no story to tell.

Most recently, after saying thank you and attempting to compliment them, I am reduced to speechlessness. How can I stop this regular embarrassment in an otherwise pleasant friendship?

These regular episodes make me feel that it is my current appearance that makes me more or less acceptable as a friend. They do not make any comments on my husband’s appearance. These friends obviously value feminine beauty and comment on the appearance of any woman who comes up in conversation.

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners begs you to stop right there. The only thing sillier than blathering about other people’s looks, the way these people do, is examining obvious blather for insults and social commentary.

A “thank you” for the first compliment followed by speechlessness is exactly the right reaction. When they are finished blathering, you can then begin another topic.

Dear Miss Manners: My sons call me “Mother,” and my daughters-in-law - delightful girls with whom I have a good relationship I wish to keep - call me by my first name. When I write a long letter (my son’s jobs have taken them so far away that most of our communication has to be by mail), I want it to be for both of them.

There is no problem with the envelope, addressed “Mr. and Mrs.,” and no problem with beginning the letter with “Dear” and both names and ending it with “Love to both of you.”

But if I sign it “Mother,” it looks as if the letter was really addressed only to my son. If I sign my name, my son seems to be excluded. “Mary Mother” seems stilted, and “Mother Mary” sounds as if I’m in a convent.

Gentle Reader: Warmed not only by your evident amiability but by your habit of writing letters and your desire to do so correctly, Miss Manners would also like you to keep your good relationship with these delightful girls.

But frankly, she doesn’t think it hinges on whether your sign Mother or Mary. She chooses Mother. A daughter-in-law who would feel excluded by a signature following “Love to both of you” would never be characterized as delightful.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate