Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Reflections on a Compliment

I had an interesting experience yesterday at the bank where I take the daily deposit for work. There is a manager (around my age, pretty run-of-the-mill fellow) that works there that sometimes engages in what I cautiously call teasing flirtations. Personally, I think it’s because he helped me with a deposit one day and asked if I was new person in charge of delivering the deposit. Not only was I not, but I had been doing it nearly three years. Any attentions I have received from him since I attribute to his embarrassment/guilt over not noticing me before.

Anyway, yesterday he was teasing me that he “didn’t want to help me anyway” when a lady cut in front of me. I’m never sure what to do when people I’m not familiar with do this, which results in less-than-eloquent responses. He made me even more uncomfortable by commenting on my “pretty smile”. Not wanting to lead him on (after all, my man possesses unsurpassed hunkiness) or admit that I found his compliment quite genuine indeed, I shrugged and smiled. He asked if I disagreed. No, I said, I guess I just don’t get the pleasure of seeing my own smile very often (which is untrue because I’m always trying out new faces in the mirror). He was impressed with my response and continued to comment on the exchange until I very gladly went on my way.