Hi lady!

I'm hardly a good persyn to be coaching anyone on how to behave as a womyn, But.... I couldn't take compliments either. You know, I was smart , but very naive. Someone would say something nice to me and I would reply with my opinion and think it was a reason for a debate. I was not assertive, but I was pretty good at debating/arguing; it was something necessary in engineering. How should we do something? What was the best design? Why didn't it work as we thought it would? It's needed for participants to express any ideas they have.

I was constructing my fem persona (if I thought in engineering terms). How I looked, moved, spoke, behaved were things I worked on and tried to improve. If someone had input on how I presented, I wanted to discuss her thoughts and perceptions. Was she seeing me accurately, what I thought about my presentation, her observations, etc. etc.

Anyway, we had 2 leaders in my support/social group; they'd both been out, dressed, looking very attractive, passing real well and doing important things for years. One was on Sally Jessie Raphael, major network TV talk show; she was the head of some TG organization at the time. Both had traveled around the country and set up TV/TS conventions and the like. I was convinced, properly, that they knew much more about fem behavior that I did. Both of them mentored me, others at the same time and others before me.

I would get complimented and disagree or argue. One of them (can't remember which) took me aside and told me that I had to learn to 'take a compliment'. Not politely receiving a compliment was rude and not lady-like. (big hint: act that way and risk getting read!) The point isn't whether the compliment is exactly accurate or not, the point is: this is a specific social interaction, with its own rules.

Guys can get compliments (of course, not usually from guys); guys and wimyn give compliments to wimyn. Guys can act boorish, rude, etc. and it's not a big deal; wimyn are expected to take a compliment as a Gift. Unless it's sarcastic, sexually harassing, etc. it is polite to accept it as a gift. It's rude if someone is being nice to you and you return what was positive with something negative. If doesn't matter if the gift 'doesn't fit' or isn't 'what you wanted'. It's the thought that counts. Compliments don't even always have to be completely sincere. Complimenting, back an forth, is a social lubricant; just get used to doing it smoothly.

It's like: "How are you today?", "Fine, and you?" The accepted behavior is to say "fine", whether you are actually fine or not.

I think that's how it works. Others who are more socially fluent, please correct me if I haven't got it exactly right. Dottie, IMHO, the thing to do is not evaluate the compliment for it's accuracy. Decide if what someone says is positive. If it's positive, take it as a compliment. Say, "Thank You" and don't mention at all why you think the compliment is wrong.