No Laughing Matter

There are two things that I will never joke at someone's expense about. (There are generally more than two, but these two are nolle prosequi material.)

1. A person's name. Even Drumpf. (Perhaps especially Drumpf; after all, it's not like you need to go excavating the ancestral past to find criticisms of that guy.)

No matter how unique you think your humour is, I guarantee you: the person has heard that joke before. Dozens of times. Maybe they even still give you a pity-laugh to stifle the sound of their eyes rolling.

2. What Bertie Wooster would call a person's "outer crust." Unless it's something foreign, like crumbs or something (which, you'll note, people never mention, and just leave you to discover it hours later in the mirror. Thanks.), you can rest assured that a person is much more intimately aware of what is on display than you are. There's simply no tact or sense in pointing out someone's unibrow, mole, acne, tendency to turn deep vermilion when embarrassed or just after the dreaded 20-minute-run PE class, birthmarks... the list goes on. I include tattoos in this, if the comment comes from a total stranger who would otherwise comment on the weather. For everything on this list, they know about it. They know you can see it. No need to verbalize.

There's something private about a person's body—even the visible parts—that merits respect.

What's an Age Worth?

My first long-term job was on the front desk of an administrative office. It was a stepping-stone kind of job, which in a perfect world I would have moved up from almost immediately. It was a good place and I didn't want more than part-time work, as I was in the middle of working on my master's degree and simultaneously trying to knock off exams for my composition ARCT.

One day the watercooler conversation turned its attention on me, and the accounting assistant learned for the first time that I was in graduate school.

"I wouldn't have guessed you were in university," she said with a superior laugh. "I was thinking high school, maybe." I knew exactly what the comment implied: I've always been on the gangly side of willowy, small-chested, deferential, quick to smile, eager to complete directives, and sporting a kind of aged-emo style. In our largely big-boned office, I was like the runt of the litter.

But I'm in the camp that wants my years in this world respected.

People seem to think they are paying you a compliment by grossly underestimating your age. The implication is that you lack life experience, that you don't have adult responsibilities or worries, that you're not independent or successful by their measure. Look a little closer. Take a look at my eyes and you'll see a world of aged pain and wisdom. Really look at my smile, and you'll see how it has etched my skin. Look at my work, and you'll see years of higher education and adult common sense.

If you really want to compliment someone, think about what you actually mean. What is it about the person that looks youthful? Pick a feature—maybe it's their smile, or the sparkle in their eyes, or (and you're walking on eggshells) their physical build—and if you still feel the need to verbalize your thoughts, try to spin it in a non-offensive way.