Ask Lemmy

I get mistaken for Hispanic and told I look Colombian. My American name is pretty common white guy name but people call me by the Spanish variant.

But that's not even the right continent and I have zero Hispanic heritage. All it tells me is that you look at skin color and not features, and you lump me into an "other" category. We don't all look like KPop idols.

This is complicated by the fact that my South American wife is light skinned with green eyes, and when she speaks fluent Spanish people assume she is an American girl who learned the language due to me, her "Hispanic" husband.

Not a bad thing, just annoying, and please stop yelling that I "have to go back" when I'm in the park with my kids.

My girlfriend in college told me that her friends all agree:

You're the best asshole we know.

A "red wine guy". Ugh.

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When my overgrown 15 year old blowhard loudmouth father called me a "Readin' Queer" because I didn't want to watch every boxing match or any sporting event with him.

Basically any and all compliments make me feel like shit, it's not a good quality of mine but its the truth

Before I transitioned being called handsome hurt, I didn't want that. Since I transitioned I have been called beautiful and sexy. I still feel bad, I don't believe them. It's odd because.. I can kinda see what they mean? Like I personally like how I look sooo much better now it's insane, but from other people it feels like a lie. Or else it makes me feel like I'm just an object to them, like an exotic sex thing, not a person.

I work as a gpu/graphics programmer, and people say I'm smart and talented. I never believe it, ever. When I was young I did not do well in school, like special ed classes. That early life experience is still internalized. It's why I push myself really hard at the detriment of my own health. I truly believe I am not a smart person despite recognizing why people think I am.

Last year I was diagnosed autistic with Persistent Demand Avoidance sub type. I have read online that PDA people often struggle with compliments. Its super fucked tbh, I can never feel good about any accomplishment, nothing is enough, and I feel unlovable.

When I was much younger, someone older said I'd grow up to be a heartbreaker. I was like... What? No. I'm nice, I'm not going to break hearts, what?.... Long after I realised it was a compliment on how I might look when I grew up. I still don't think it's a good compliment though.

Someone said that I "got skinny" (I'd lost a bunch of weight, on purpose). She meant it as a compliment, but in my mind skinny = underweight/malnourished, so I went out for lunch that day and ate a bunch of McDonald's.

Since I don't act very "manly" despite looking like a man, I get called a girl quite a lot. Sometimes my voice makes people think that.

Sometimes my irl name alone makes people jump to that conclusion. Just because removing one letter makes a male name "Imrane" turn into a female name "Imane". This is why I don't use my real name online anymore.

I'm gonna remind you, I am not a girl, and have never been one. I'm not even a transgender girl, and have never identified with femininity.

I don't mind people calling me nerdy. Once overhead someone telling someone else at work that I was "so funny" when generally I keep it in check at work, and that felt complimentary as well.

But one time a yoga teacher told us in a class "you are bigger than you think" and I don't even know what she meant, my stomach dropped, I felt absolutely awful. And while I am womanly as fuck, absolutely delight in being a woman, I dislike being seen as feminine. I don't like being complimented on looking curvy, softness and squish freaks me out much more than it should. I know people mean those as compliments but they make me want to cry.

My second year calculus teacher called me baroque which rended asunder my math career.

Someone said I would be a good wife...I felt powerless and degraded. How did I manage to come off as so brainless and lacking in self respect that I'd have nothing better to do than be someone's wife?

I honestly can't think of anything. Is there things people have said that I don't like? Sure. But ones that made me feel awful? No, and if there was something like that it probably felt bad because deep down I knew they were right.

Offence is taken, not given. If you call me something I know not to be true I simply don't care.

A lot of people seem to hold us asexuals as worthless because we don't want families or don't want traditional families, and many of these people speak their minds to me all the time, especially when they perceive an inconsistency in me applying the label to myself that isn't really an inconsistency as much as a technicality.

I feel patronized whenever someone calls me smart or funny. As if they call me that because they think i'm insecure and i need a compliment. As if they call me smart like one would call a dog smart. I generally have a self-esteem problem that makes it difficult to take any compliments at all, but these in particular are bad because as a kid people used these as a euphemisms to talk about my awful social skills

Not so much a verbal thing, but just the general first glance demeanor on a blind date or an internet date...tough to forget.

Also, growing up I was always told I'd never amount to anything spending so much time on computers and that I needed to do something with my life. Well, I made over $500k last year in software engineering consulting...so...yeah.

About a million people have called me smart. The times that it followed me displaying above average intelligence were a small fraction of those times. Mostly it was a reflection of the person I was around being an idiot.