Highly specific question, I know.
When people compliment me, I genuinely don’t know what to do. It feels like they’ve given me a physical object, and I’m just standing there holding it awkwardly, but I don’t know what to do with it.
Complements and praise does nothing for me emotionally, so I just say “thank you”; in the same way you thank a kid that handed you a rock they found on the ground.
Like, I appreciate the sentiment — as in, I know they’re trying to be nice or something, so it doesn’t bother me. It’s just one of many small things that makes social stuff a bit harder. For example, I probably don’t give out any complements to other people, because it doesn’t occur to me as an important thing to do. I’m sure this has many effects in my life I’m not aware of.
it confuses me because I have my own internal model of what i was trying to do. I know what I’m capable of. Executing on my capabilities doesn’t seem praiseworthy.
If I’m capable of 95%, and I only execute at 90%, then I feel like I’ve done poorly. But if everyone else is only executing at 75% then just because my model says “I could have done better” it can still feel weird getting praise, even if it is “justified”