kudos.

please. allow me to spend the next few minutes of your life being negative and critical.
thank you.

everyone is familiar with the classic "billboard insecurity" individual. the kind who put on a dejected face just so people will ask what's wrong, the kind who will pop out when you least expect it with an opening statement along the lines of "i look so ugly " or "i'm really not smart compared to you" or "no one likes me anymore." you all know what i'm talking about. heck, you've probably all done it. i know i have.
i have a hard time with these people. the fact is, when one is placed in such a confrontational situation as that, one of a few things happens.
(for the sake of clarity, i'll use two characters in the situations i describe. "one," and "the individual." thank you for your time. please continue reading.)
1. the individual is perfectly aware that the opposite of what they are asserting is true and is begging for a denial. subsequently, they may take an even more adamant stance on the issue, and a full-blown (and quite useless) argument may break out, fulfilling their object. and just when this fully dishonest battle reaches its climax, the individual who began the conflict in the first place will concede the point, and admit that it really doesn't matter anyway. one may feel relieved at this point, until twenty minutes later a similar, if not the exact same statement is made yet again and the whole confrontation begins anew.
2. the individual may be making their claim in perfect honesty, and when one refutes their argument, the whole situation becomes extremely awkward because the individual realizes one assumed they were searching for admiration, when really they just meant to make an observation and weren't prepared for a compliment and, therefore, don't know how to take it. one then realizes that the individual realizes this, and the conversation becomes exponentially more awkward until a less personal topic is breached.
3. the individual may be still fishing for a compliment, but one may observe quite unfortunately that the statement made, whether sincerely on the part of the individual or not, is quite true and enters an inescapable conundrum where they must either lie and assert the opposite or quite unexpectedly agree with the individual. the first hurts the conscience, the second wounds a healthy ego that would probably withstand the blow anyway.
if you are reading this and (quite miraculously, i must congratulate you) realize that you may be suffering from a compliment addiction, i beg of you to realize yet one more thing. the nice comments you recieve because of your incessant begging are more the results of pity or obligation than anything you did to actually deserve them.
let me tell you from experience: sincere compliments, though they may be recieved less often, taste much sweeter than the splenda-esque praise that seasons your every conversation.