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| HELLOOOO, NURSE! |
ok guys. who misses animaniacs? it was a great cartoon. funny, well-written, and even educational. animation at its best.
i remember how yakko and wakko would totally go crazy whenever they saw dr. sctrachnsniff's nurse. they'd do everything they could to smooth-talk her. its was pretty funny. they thought that nurse was so good-looking they even called ANY attractive lady a nurse. w00t.
for some reason i've always wanted to say that to a girl. i just think it would be really funny. though i'm kind of scared cause i don't think it will actually work. first off, girls might not get the reference (which really, that would be sad) and second, saying "helloooo nurse" is basically the same as calling a girl hot, which, from what i gather is not generally appreciated. and i don't blame them, cause calling a girl hot is basically telling them that they're only attractive physically and there isn't anything else about them that's worth mentioning.
however the biggest reason why i've never tried is cause i have an extremely hard time giving girls compliments. now there's plenty of reasons-- i'm simply bad at talking to them, its nerve-wracking, but the reason that i find the most disturbing is that they tend to make me feel stupid for complimenting them.
i don't know why, but often when i've tried telling a lady-type that she is pretty or cute or that i like something about her (or just like her) i get strange responses, ranging from "ummm," to "eww, why would you think that," or "i just don't know what you see in me." its weird cause i shouldn't have to feel like apologizing for seeing something good in someone else.
now it may be discomforting to get a compliment like that when she doesn't really like me, and that's fine. that happens. its part of life.
but sometimes i think we get it all mixed up. we want to be humble, cause people like that. people think humble guys and humble girls are the real deal. so when we get a compliment we're like-- "nah, man. nonono, that can't be true." so we try to make people think we're being humble, but in reality, we're just shooting them down for complimenting us, and that makes them feel silly.
its kinda like this. let's say we play smash bros and i beat you. (oops, now i'm being full of myself). but let's say it happens and you want to be nice so you're like, "man, Scott, you're really good at this game." and then i say something like, "noo, i'm really not. i kind of suck at it."
we'll you're gonna feel silly for trying to compliment my skills, and you'll feel lame for being beaten by a guy who sucks.
i know that's a silly example, so i'll give another that on of my mission presidents once told me.
he said that Elder Holland came to one of the stakes and gave some good talks/lessons. he went and told Elder Holland how much he enjoyed the talk. Elder Holland said something like "Thank you, I really worked hard on it," or something to that effect. that made my mission president feel good for complimenting him.
now if Elder Holland was like, "nooo, that talk? i made that in like 5 minutes. it wasn't very good. i had to make most of it up," my mission president would have probably felt dumb for complimenting him. sure, he might think Elder Holland is amazing for giving such a great talk on no preparation, but that really wouldn't be a very humble thing for him to say. instead, he said thanks. he made someone feel good for complimenting him.
there was one time where i went to one of those cheesy church dances. there was a girl there and i liked her quite a bit, and she probably knew it. at this point she didn't feel the same, which is totally fine. anyways, i got up the bravery from within my guts to man up and ask her to dance, said said yes. well, this was a girl who i thought was quite pretty and i thought she was looking particularly lovely on this occasion. i really wanted to tell her that, but at this point my nerves and stomach were refusing to cooperate. it was pretty great. the good thing is i managed to get the words out regardless of the betrayal of my internal organs.
now she could have said a lot of different things at this point. she could have been like "uhhh," or "why do you think that?" i don't know if she was aware that it took a lot for me to compliment her, and i don't know if it made her uncomfortable or not. but she didn't shoot down what i said, make me feel dumb, or pretend to be humble. she said "thank you." i think she even hugged me. but that was it. she didn't make a big deal out of it or anything, but she said thanks- accepted that i had something nice to say about her. and that's really the humble thing to do, she made me feel good for saying nice things. it did a lot for a nervous, insecure guy like me.
i think for the most part we want to be humble and nice to each other. we want to find something nice to say to someone who may be feeling insecure or not very confident. but maybe they're the ones complimenting us. it goes far if we say thanks. if we appreciate what they do. i think that's closer to being humble. its making other people feel good about themselves. and then we feel good too cause we're nice.. at least that's how i figure it works.
