20nothing.com

My exboyfriend recently turned twenty nine. A milestone that scares me more than anyone else. There is officially a decade between the people I have loved and the people I have fucked.
“You look good for your age,” I told him over lunch.
“I don’t give out compliments any more,” he told me. “I can’t be bothered lying.”
I still have four years to go before I reach such a milestone, so I insisted that he did look good. The validity of my compliment was up for his interpretation, just like my mental age.
Once upon a time, I meant it every time I told him, “You look good.” He was my boyfriend. I had a predestined obligation to tell him he looked good, according to the hypothetical Girlfriend Rule Book. In reality, I would not have been with him if I didn’t think such a proposition to be true. But, now, because he is no longer my boyfriend, I can say what I want. The interpretation, of which, seems to be completely subjective to whether I am sleeping with him or not.

Compliments are incredibly seductive. I was once picked up in a bar by a DJ who said, “Your skirt would look amazing on my floor.” Evidently, my skirt looked pretty good on the floor of the bar bathroom. Alcohol, equally as seductive, lowers the standard of what a compliment actually is and, I think, without it, people would need real reasons to have sex. In the event that someone is trying to seduce you, whether for either of those opposing ideals of sex or love, you are put into the false sense of security that you are perfect. The hangover of the reality that They don’t actually perceive you in the way they claimed could be bottled and sold as tequila.

I recently met a boy who told me that I was brilliant. Of course, because I know the actual reality to such a proposition, I did not dispute him. I would never get laid if I did. I accepted the perception and interpreted it in a way that suited my immediate need. He decided that He didn’t want me anymore, mere hours after he told me that he did, and suddenly my supposed brilliance became the insult he used to justify why. I wish I drank such clarity inducing alcohol.
After a presumption was used against me, I started to wonder if it is actually safe to listen to anyones interpretation of you. Sure, I would be under house arrest of self-imposed celibacy if I didn’t pander to the waterfall of compliments available between the battle of the sexes, but if I only listened to myself, true clarity could possibly achieved because my interpretation of my character would be uninfluenced by superficial propositions that serve no purpose that is my own. The only other option is to listen to people over tthirty years of age. Yeah. That isn’t going to happen.

Oscar Wilde, who probably had the same taste in male age group as I do, once said, “I don’t like compliments, and I don’t see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things he doesn’t mean.” One can only assume that he was twenty-nine when he uttered such wise words about a type relationship he never aimed to involve himself in in the first place. His articulation that a compliment, without any meaning behind it, seems to be satisfying for all involved, is interesting when reflected against the reality that substance could mean so much more. Because I prefer people to say what they mean and mean what they say, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the person who insults me truthfully rather than complimenting me dishonestly. The fact that their perception of me can be so subjective towards their own goals is not satisfying and nor should it be for anyone. Compliments are, generally, believed to be positive things. The reality that they can be lies with a smile is like realizing that a hangover is just like being sick but you did it to yourself.

If maturity comes through experience, and the winter of ones twenties brings unromantic epiphanies, I can’t help but wonder if we are all wasting our time saying things and then changing our mind to suit our own agenda. Wouldn’t it be better to say nothing at all and then see if we could get laid for real reasons? Sure, nothing nice would be said, but nothing bad would be meant. We could look within for compliments and build a milestone rather than wait for one.
“You’re brilliant,” would never bring concern that the opposite is actually the truth. Because you would know the truth. It is a seductive thought. But, then again, so is saying something nice.