Doesn't anyone think I'm gorgeous?

Last week I had my hair cut. Not a major chop, as I’m actually growing it, but a sleek re-style which even my hairdresser was completely proud of. Did anybody notice? Did they hell! In the end I had to draw my radical encounter with my hairdresser to about five people’s attention, and even then all they could muster was ‘I thought something was a bit different’. Some days I feel as though I could dye my eyebrows purple and boost my top half to even more grotesque proportions and nobody would bat an eyelid…

It wasn’t always this way. While at school I had a job in Harrods as a ‘mobile’ salesgirl. One Christmas, on the road down the side of Harrods, I distinctly remember there were a couple of roofers working on a house, and on the way to work every morning I would run the gauntlet of their choice comments. Their appreciation was met with a frosty stare as I stuck my head in the air and slinked past in my boots and leather jacket. These days I teeter along in my kitten heels and hardly get a second glance. If anyone was to say anything I’d be far more likely to giggle coquettishly than act the offended feminist.

In fact the last builder who commented on my appearance was the one who decorated my house five years ago, he drank the espresso I had made him, sitting in my kitchen, he asked, ‘Is it the way you are standing or are you pregnant again?’ Truly, things obviously ain’t what they used to be.

Don’t get me wrong. This has nothing to do with seeking male approval. I’m chuffed if the bag lady who walks up and down our road admires my coat. Okay, so she’s only thinking of the cold night ahead, but these are desperate times.

You can’t even rely on people who should know better. ‘Do these go together?’ I ask ‘him indoors’ (he being the only other adult in the house). ‘Yeah, they look fine’. ‘Fine’, in his case, usually means ‘I don’t think those colours go together but I’m not going to risk another debate on just how colour-blind I am’. Granted, my situation isn’t as bad as that of my friend. She recently said of her partner, ‘The day he pays me a compliment is the day I’ll know he is cheating.’

If it’s hard getting a compliment out of your other half, don’t look to other men for comfort. My good male friends seem to think they’ll gain Brownie points by pretending to be in touch with their feminine side and being honest with me, when really I’m just fishing for compliments. Once when I commented on my toned arms, naturally inviting comparisons with the muscular Madonna, one such ‘friend’ said ‘Yes I had noticed they were rather chunky.’ Another friend of mine was told, ‘You really are very attractive, but you should do a bit more work on your body. Your thighs are very big.’ There’s being ‘one of the girls’ and then there’s just living goddamn dangerously.

There are also those compliments that leave you suspecting a backhander that Federer would be proud of. The over-enthusiastic reception for my new sunglasses suggested that my last pair looked like Deirdre Barlow’s cast-offs, and the exclamations of how flattering my jeans were merely indicated how well they disguised my enormous arse.

Or, as my best mate was told, ‘You’re so good at parties as you really know how to let your hair down,’ which translated means, ‘Your pissed-up party piece is a blast for everyone else, but, God, are you embarrassing.’
A quick survey of my friends reveals one sad truth. It seems while we often think complimentary thoughts, they don’t always make it out of our mouths. One of the reasons for this could be the sometimes quite aggressive denial that a compliment can elicit. If someone tells us we’re looking great we shoot back ‘No I am not, I look absolutely awful.’ Sadly, learning how to appreciate compliments is something most of us achieve too late in life.

Perhaps there is a lesson in all this. Maybe it’s wrong to look to others to bolster a flagging ego, and as long as the important people in your life appreciate you, that’s really all that matters. Why, only yesterday my thirteen-year-old told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world. Okay, so I asked him first, and yes he knew that there was a packet of Maltesers riding on the answer, but still. He may not be a fully formed adult yet, but the boy sure shows some promise…