The ol' backhanded compliment.

Coffee on Sunday morning with the ladies I row with and the conversation turned to the backhanded compliment.

I relayed that at my son George's funeral, we showed a video that included quite a few pictures of him as a baby and of course, I was in a lot of them - 20 years younger. Afterwards, someone (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) came up and said
Gee, MWW! You were actually quite attractive when you were young.

Wow. Where to start with that one, eh? Let's break that down shall we?

• 'were' - so definitely not at all now
• 'actually' - because it was clearly such a shock
• 'quite' - so not really a lot, just a little bit
• 'were young' - because now you're old

Some suggested the occasion was also a bit of a whammy - but actually, that was the one part that didn't bother me.

So, back to Sunday.

After rowing, we headed up to the Yarra Valley to meet my uncle at a winery for lunch. We also took an older friend (I can say that as she's about Mum's age). OF (older friend) is a tall, elegant woman with terrific posture, but in some fumbled attempt to pay me a compliment she said something along the lines of 'slightly overweight middle aged women attract more attention because they...... ooze femininity.' It wasn't quite that succinct and there was a lot of hesitating around the words 'slightly' and 'overweight' which actually made it worse.

Anyhoo - it's now Tuesday and that one is still smarting.

Anyone ever paid you the old backhanded complement? Or as I am now dubbing it, the full frontal insult??