A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

Praise reaches you, but something is always in the way. A kind word arrives wrapped in the other person’s manners, their motives, their sense of what is polite to say out loud, so the warmth in it is real and muffled at the same time. You feel the contact without quite feeling the face behind it. That is why being complimented can leave you pleased and unsatisfied in the same moment.

When someone says something kind this week, try taking it plainly instead of testing it for sincerity. And when you praise someone, name the specific thing you noticed rather than the general shape of it.