Compliments

Sometimes it is hard to determine whether a compliment is really a compliment or an insult.

A female officemate once told me. "You kow what? You look like Sandy Cheeks. Have you seen her? She's sooo cute!Ü"

Flattered with the word "cute", I replied. "Really? Wow, thanks ha. But who's Sandy Cheeks?"

She answered with a silly grin. "You don't know Sandy Cheeks? She's a friend of Sponge Bob."Oh well... I am not very familiar with Sponge Bob's friends but I know for sure that Sponge Bob is a cartoon character and therefore so are his friends.

I told my officemate, "Hey, how come I look like Sandy Cheeks? Do I look like a cartoon character? Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

My officemate laughed her heart out. She said, "Of course, it's a compliment. Have you seen Sandy Cheeks? Really, she's cute. She has a smiling face, like yours."

Ok, fine. That's where the compliment is. My officemate also said that she always sees me smiling. Wow, that's sweet. So whenever she says that I look like Sandy Cheeks, I laugh but I also delight at such compliment.

Speaking of ambiguous compliments...I remember when I was still in high school. A classmate of mine relayed to us that a sari-sari store lady told her that she looks young at 21. Should my classmate be flattered? She's only 14 years old then. :)