– why can’t we just accept them?

n the past I’ve sometimes got it wrong, the compliment. Too earnest, too fast, out of nowhere like a soft little sniper. Or chucked from a distance, or too familiar, or too specific. Even the worst compliments, though, I have always maintained, are good, as long as they are genuine and well-meant .

, underneath an Instagram post that showed Melissa McCarthy walking glamorously with a mutual friend. She wrote, “Give him my regards did you take Ozempic?” I laughed, of course I did. It reminded me of one of my favourite social media accounts, OldPeopleWeb, which collates the comments, photos and general misfires of older people attempting to use the internet. For example, “Congrats on your sobriety Denise but you look dreadful in both pictures all my love Maureen x.

My daughter is almost 10, a liminal age characterised by restlessness, one eye and two ears already tuned to teenage life. And I see already that shift from merrily accepting our comments on her lovely drawing of, I think, a walrus, or her cycling abilities, or French plait, to batting them away self-consciously.

As we creep towards adulthood, though, the exchange becomes muddier, especially for girls. On the street, harassment comes disguised as a compliment, meaning a high-pitched level of vigilance must be maintained; at home we see how women are socialised to remain humble and modest. Girls learn to see a compliment in the same way as a calorie, to be wary of and to count carefully.

It should be just as unacceptable to say awful things about ourselves as it is to say them about other people. We would never think, never dream of saying something so cruel or cutting out loud about somebody else – we are the ones after all marvelling at others’ skills and earrings and nimble touch – yet all compliments received must be dampened with a flannel of self-hatred.

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