Today's prompt: Write about some compliments people have given you.
I've been told that I have "presence." I do enjoy the spotlight, so I'm glad that people think that I can command attention. What's interesting about that is how I identify as an introvert, but I'm pretty okay at pretending that I'm an extrovert. So when I get compliments about how people think I perform well or that I have a sort of charisma, I'm hugely flattered because that's not something I would naturally attribute to myself.
I have a poem about nerds that I wrote for my Stand Up Poetry class, and I particularly enjoy reading it because I get a lot of compliments on it. Denise Duhamel said that she liked my title, "Nerds Do It by the Book," and Matt Guenette said that he wanted to steal the line "***SPOILER ALERT!***" from me. It was the very first poem in my university's literary magazine one semester, and people came up to me on campus and told me that it was hilarious, that it made them want to read more in the magazine, that they read it aloud to their friends and everyone thought it was funny. The biggest compliment that I got for that poem was a date, which was pretty awesome.
I also have a friend who told me I "fascinate" her and that I'm "pretty damn amazing." I remember these compliments word for word because I wrote them down in a notebook, not believing that I could possibly be that awesome, especially not in the eyes of someone who I regarded so highly. I may have kept those quotes written on the mirror in my room for some time because every time I thought about them, I smiled.
For my last compliment I need to tell you that in high school, I did a lot of theatre. I feel like every time I talk about my theatre days I probably sum it up by saying that I "did a lot," but that's really just the prologue to this semi-story.
My junior year of high school, we did a production of The Laramie Project for our fall play. For anyone who knows what the play/movie is about, you'll know that it's a pretty heavy play for a high school to put on, but every other year we did a drama, and that was ours that year. In summary that does little to no justice to the beauty of the story, it's about the murder of a homosexual student in Wyoming, and how his death brings together the community of Laramie. It was a very small cast, so that meant everyone was playing about 4-6 different characters throughout the two hour show. One of my characters was a friend of one of the murderers. I played her as a drunk/high undereducated foul-mouthed bigot. It was a good time. Well at the end of the production during our pizza party, the senior class gives out unofficial awards to everyone in the cast and crew. I received the award for, "Playing 'drugged out' a little too good." And that was one of the best compliments I got for that performance.
"It's a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming."
- Oscar Wilde
0 comments:
Post a Comment