Seriously, what is with people insulting other people when giving out compliments to the subject of their compliment? I was standing at my college's local bookstore and a classmate of mine was with me to print our movie posters. She was talking to a guy who commented on her poster, describing how mysterious it was and how much he liked hers when compared to mine while making an off-handed comment about my work, saying how 'unoriginally alice in wonderland it is'. All this while I was standing right in front of him.
Go ahead, compliment her by all means but please, without demeaning me and my work. Don't like it, don't say it. I barely even know the guy and this is the first impression he's giving me? Hmm...
Of course, this is not a one-off incident. I've witness countless of examples where someone compliments another while saying how much the other person suck by comparison.
I guess, what they don't realize is that this sort of compliment is a double edge sword: it makes the person who was criticized angry and possibly hate the criticizer and the receiver of the compliment .... a n d.... if the receiver of the praise is smart enough, he/she would begin to wonder what sort of person gives compliments at the expense of others.
I know I would. And yes, I'm still pretty pissed about it.
Moral of the story: Beware the foot in the mouth.
As in my foot, your mouth.
.