Avoid Unscrupulous Compliments by Following the Dinner Table Rule
Regardless of who you are, it’s easy to accidentally miss a graceful compliment from your conversation. It may be an over-emphasis on a word like “really” or an accidental “but” after you say something nice, but either way, it annoys the recipient. The art of masculinity has created a “dining table rule” to combat this problem.
The idea here is that if you’re not sure if a compliment is wrong, apply it to what you say about someone else’s cooking. If it sounds inappropriate at the table, then it probably is also inappropriate as a compliment. Here are some examples:
- You have lost a lot of weight! You still have ways to go, but keep going! → The food was very good. You haven’t managed to make it really tasty yet, but keep going!
- I really like your site. Not all articles, but most of them. → I really enjoyed the dinner. I didn’t like the green beans and mashed potatoes, but everything else was fine.
- This is a really good college for a public school. → This is a really good cake for something made out of the box.
- You’re pretty athletic for a short, chubby guy. → Your meal was pretty good for someone so new to cooking.
- Lol, a lot of people don’t like your humor, but I think you are really funny. → People told me bad things about your cooking, but I really liked it.
- Great image! You must have a really good camera! → Great food! You must have a really gorgeous oven!
- Your pictures are really good → Dinner was really good.
This is a fairly simple way to check for a compliment for accidental misconduct. Also, if you say “really” at some point in the compliment, you should probably shut up.
Avoiding an Unscrupulous Compliment “wiki useful The Art of Masculinity