For all my life, I have never commented on someone’s appearance unless it was a genuine compliment. Even then, I use those sparingly. I don’t want people to think I’m constantly evaluating their looks. I’m friends with you because of who you are as a person, not your physical attributes.
I’ve had people over the years feel the need to poke at my insecurities and/or offer unsolicited opinions. My biggest insecurities are my hair, my skin texture, and my body in that order.
Hair is everything, especially as a woman. For all my life, I’ve always had extremely dry, frizzy, and dull hair. Almost every single person who has ever touched my hair has made some sort of negative comment about it. It’s gotten so bad that I refuse to go to a hairdresser and now I cut my own hair instead. It’s literally genetic and there’s nothing I can do about it except manage it the best I can. The only saving grace i had about it was people telling me it’s thick. I don’t necessarily think so, but I’ll take a compliment wherever I can get it without fishing.
A friend of mine has made two comments about the density of my hair unprompted. One time she was curling it and said, “it’s a little thicker than I thought” which felt a little backhanded, but I let it go. Then, today, she asked me how I’d do my hair for her wedding and I complimented her and was saying how much I liked how she did my hair last time and that I’ve had people do my hair for an hour or so and I think she did better in ten minutes than they did in an hour. That made her say, “why? Your hair isn’t thick.” Then she backtracked a little, but the damage was done. No part of me was bragging. No part of me wanted her to say something about my hair, whether that be negative or positive. I was literally just complimenting her hair styling skills.
Why must people make such unnecessary comments? Why take time out of your day to make a friend feel bad? I understand that some people are blunt and just make observations without thinking about it, but what the heck am I supposed to do with that comment? Now I get to look at my hair every day and think about how dry, frizzy, dull AND thin it is! I know she didn’t specifically say “thin” but any comment that isn’t 100% a compliment is catastrophic to people like us.
I just want to wear a wig and hide.