Sweet

Life is sweet.

Arnon

I still hope you will gracefully accept my carrot.

What did you give your foal?

If was offered a new boyfriend today who would cook , clean and wash my clothes for me. I gracefully declined.

it wont be there at your dying bed

Arnon

Does the young horse touch your heart when you see it?

Foal

Future race horse?

I am exactly 100 days smoke free and I even like it.

Mieke

Congratulations!

To Juliane B.

Because you desire less, or because you desire more from your future boyfriend?

Or perhaps because you aren't an advocate of polygamy?

Juliane

Thanks. It might sound silly, but I'm really happy with it. Hopefully I will succeed stopping permanently.
May I inform what happened with your old boyfriend?

Mieke

This is not silly, I know how hard it is!

Pjötr / Mieke

My old boyfriend has been upgraded to fiancé 1.0. Nevertheless a young man from my local wrap-shop seems to have taken an interest in me. He sent his colleague to ask if I already had a boyfriend and then started to portray his amenities.

@ Mieke
I keep my fingers crossed for you.

As we know from Warhol the thin line between aburdism and fooling the spectator is drawn by the spectator.

@Mieke
- Why did you stop smoking? (I stopped because I suffered more and more from bronchitis and I started couching blood)
- What do you miss the most? (I missed the ritual the most)
And I think I lacked the character to endure smoking regardless. I am a quitter.
Nevertheless, with the money spared, you can have a nice hotel room when visiting Amsterdam. Wish you the best!

(sorry I am afraid of – do not like horses)

Bernard

Because I detest smoking myself. Still it took me over twenty years to have a succesfull attempt to stop and this was only done with the help of Champix. What I miss the most ? The ritual as you call it, the hundreds of little moments when I used to lit a cigarette.
You are right, for me it makes a difference of 240 euros a month, but I spended 300 euros on wax for a new sculpture last week. You can see it on facebook.

Juliane

"Portray his amenities"... was he wearing a raincoat?

Carlos

You've lost me there, I'm afraid. Are you alluding to some movie?

Juliane

Its just that "amenities" sounds like a euphemism because it normally isn't used in this way. British comedy is full of such such suggestive euphemisms and double-meanings. I had a vision of the young man opening his raincoat to exhibit all his features.

I am not sure what you meant to say. (German?) I presume you meant that he described his favourable characteristics. Perhaps in the manner of a car salesman. Of course this is a great mistake. He should have proceeded to flatter you endlessly. Flattery can never be overdone. Self-flattery is always overdone.

Carlos

"Flattery can never be overdone."

Really?

Carlos

Ah, I see. Thank you for your explanation. I translated more or less directly from the German ("Er fing an seine Vorzüge zu schildern.")

Endless flattery is not always a wise method in my case. I might regard the flatterer as a crawler. Or it could make me suspicious in the way that I start to feel mocked.

sculpture

@ Mieke
being directed there and curious, I took a look.
Impressive, I must say. You truly are creative. (thanks to loneliness ;))

Katrien

Thanks.

Arnon

The counterpart of flattery is vanity. Is there a limit to vanity?

Carlos

Too much flattering becomes irony.

Arnon

It depends on the tone of voice. Irony requires a certain intent. To a third party, flattery does often sound ridiculous, but not necessarily to the receiving party.

"Flattery will get you everywhere" is a common English expression. The negation "flattery will get you nowhere" is in fact an admission by recipients of flattery that they are indeed susceptible.

Of course we do not actually believe the flattery heaped upon us. (Interesting that we use the verb "heap" in English.) We often think the flatterer is foolish. But we tend to believe our desirability is the cause of the foolishness, or that we have finally met somone who recognizes our (hidden) talents.

We are probably all fools at heart.

Carlos

I hear flattery but often I suspect irony.
Vanity doesn’t equal stupidity.
But I agree, some people will never suspect irony when they hear flattery. Perhaps they are the truly happy people of this world.

Bernard

I still think she deserved 125 roses. With such a number you're well beyond irony.

Right comment, wrong date.

Flattery / irony

It probably depends on what you are used to. If you have been mocked for your outer appearance all the way during your teenage years you won't be very likely to believe someone who tells you that you're a total stunner.

I agree with you Mr Grunberg. The truly happy people are those with a positive self-image. I don't know if I already mentioned it somewhere on this blog but according to a study a psychology prof told me about normal people tend to see themselves in a rosy hue contrary to the image others have of them. When it comes to clinically depressed people, self-perception and other people's perception of them are fairly congruent.

Arnon / Juliane

Do you really believe in "true happiness"?

Which comes first? Happiness or a positive self-image?

Strangely enough, it is quite likely that a lot of flattery is meant genuinely even if exagerated. If I tell my partner she is the most beautiful woman in the world, the emotion behind the exageration is genuine. Of course it could also just be that I'm in a horny mood, but even then there is a certain honesty in lust.

Carlos

There is as certain honesty in the rapist, as is there in the killer.
I certainly believe that some people are happier than other people.

Arnon

Do you consider yourself a happy person?
In the beginning I thought you were very unhappy, now I tend to think the opposite.
In each case you are a very lucky man.

Carlos

"Which comes first" - That's a hen or egg question, don't you think?

Concerning true happiness I, once more, agree with Mr Grunberg. I myself am a person who frets too much and thus spoils quite a lote of happiness.

Juliane

Something tells me you do not have a positive self-image. Are you trying to say if you believed you were more attractive you would be much happier?

Arnon

I did not express myself well. I was actually wondering how manipulatively we use flattery. I do not think flattery is necessarily a deliberate and deceptive lie, at least not more so than other human discourse.

Juliane / Arnon

My point was that "true happiness" is an absolute. If we pursue an absolute we will never achieve it. We'd be better off just being as happy as we can be at a particular moment. I suspect that this is what happy people do.

Carlos

I would call my self-image unstable and yes, I am happier when I see myself as a good-looking, witty and talented person regardless of the truth. The negative days definitely keep me from boasting and make me think about what I do and how others might react to it more, but they mostly make me incapable of action (it comes very close to a person with an Avoidant Personality Disorder). Someone said that "if the socially phobic could rein in their anxiety enough to function, they would help make the world a better place." On one hand they might because, miserable as they are, they worry about people's reactions all the time and are really meek but they might not be so very productive. And what's more I feel horrendously self-centered in those moments. I "use" others to pity myself. And who wants to be around a shy person that frets all the time. You want to shake them and tell them "Get a grip for god's sake!"
It was on a very good day when I handed in a text to a literary competition last winter. I won and it made me happy. On a bad day I would have seen my text as not good enough or myself as not capable of judging its quality.

Carlos

Regarding Manipulation and flattery – it depends on the situation don’t you think?
To me flattery is just an extension of counter-insurgency.