Dear_one wrote:
Praise is general - YOU are good. Compliments are specific - you did that well. I wish I'd not had the Buddhist concern for endangering an ego with inflation and complimented my ex for the the talents she had. She might have kept doing more of what she was good at, and less destruction.
Yes I think when somebody says something good about me, if it's too general then I don't trust it. When somebody backs up their compliment with specifics, that's easier to trust. I don't understand why anybody ever falls for glib ego-feeding. I don't think reinforcing a person's prejudices is healthy, but it seems a lot of people out there can't see that.
I once had a wife who kept getting annoyed with me for not always siding with her. She'd get into a conflict with somebody and give me a story that looked shot through with distortions about how they'd got it in for her, how she was right and they were wrong. I wanted to establish what had really happened as a starting point for figuring out a solution, but all she wanted was for me to take her side whether she was right or not. I just couldn't hold my nose long enough to do that, but I don't regret it.