I have been told on one occasion or another (and another) that I am impolite, rude or arrogant. I take some of these as compliments. On an overall scale I’d value arrogance over overly fetishized virtues such as humility. And so perhaps these labels are warranted and rightly so.
Yet I have to point out that these are based on what people have observed me saying or doing. As obvious as it may seem. But do they take into account all the times that I’ve not been an asshole? I don’t go to other people’s blogs and leave comments saying, “hey, your blog is full of trite shit,” even as much as I’d like to do it, I don’t. I don’t go up to preachers and say, “hey, your ministry is a crockashit,” though someday I certainly should.
One might say that my level of self control would even make me nice! This doesn’t even account for all the times I’ve lied just to avoid confrontation. “Those gloves look great!”
Though I must say this, it is rather awesome when someone does leave constructively critical or even non-constructive critical comments. So as nice as it is to receive praise, it’s pretty damn neat to be called out. Not just because I may be wrong, though that may well be so, but because someone’s gone out of their way to avoid the norm of being silent when they don’t have anything nice to say. If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it. Criticism seems more honest and visceral than praise.
Or maybe I just don’t know how to take a compliment.
