compliment lament

I talk about myself and shamelessly self-promote my blog enough, you would think I would the receiving of genuine compliments on the rare occasions I get them. But, in reality, they terrify me!

For me, they set a precedent. A standard that I will never live up to. It's like, "Hi, thank you for thinking I'm awesome..." Then, in my head, I go through a number of scenarios of how I can on-the-spot validate their praise. Then I panic and usually just end up talking about how lame Desperate Housewives is this season and how I thought Vanessa Williams would have been a good addition, but turned out to be Ethnic Edie.

Anyway, the other day, I got an unsolicited email from a perfect stranger talking about how much they loved my blog! I was elated by the fact that my blog was somehow being read by people outside of my immediate family, extremely bored friends, and even boreder coworkers. Then I thought I was being punk'd. Then I thought how much of a douche-bag Ashton Kutcher is and why would I possibly want to buy a digital camera from him. Then I thought about the show Perfect Strangers and wondered what those actors were up to now. Then I got lost in about a 2 hour Wikipedia black hole of links and links and links and somehow ended up here.

Then finally, my brain reset itself and I remembered the 'fan mail' and/or prank. My elation quickly turned to terror. I had somehow set a precedent that I was 'hilarious' and felt compelled to continue to deliver and constantly one-up myself. Now, I'm fairly certain posts since the email haven't inspired "Ginny from Seattle" to send more love my way... and I'm relieved that she probably downloaded Angry Birds to pass the time now.

What some people fail to understand (and what most people who have spent more than 30 minutes in the same room as me have come to realize) is that I try really hard to be funny. Every once and a while I get a quick comment or off-the-cuff joke in that knocks it out of the ballpark! This is about as rare as an attractive Canadian Ginger. But more often than not, it is a carefully woven web of humor. That's why I write my blog. Editing people.


I'm much more confident in dealing with blatant insults than genuine compliments. Cause then I can be all, 'Screw you, I'm awesome. You're ugly!' OR use my reality show catch phrase, 'I'm not here to make friends... I'm here to win!" The latter usually confuses and validates their criticism of my status as a non-awesome.

Unsettling compliment and my failure to acknowledge it properly:

Troll comments that I actually enjoy more than any other comments on my blog:

I'm fairly certain he just checks into periodically leave something mean. Loyal readers: check!

Same Anonymous troll. I fixed his grammatical error for him. :)

Gray area: 
The other weekend a friend said I danced like a stripper.