Flattery will get you everywhere.  Do you really believe that?  I can tell you when someone compliments me, even a dear friend, red flags go up.  I immediately try to figure out if this person is sincere or fucking with me.  When it’s sincerely expressed, I feel like I’ve just scored the winning run.  I want to run outside and yell, “I am fantastic.”  My feet barely touch the ground.  I want to give more of myself than I’m capable of giving.  I feel invincible.

When someone’s fucking with me, I shrug it off as best I can.  However, a remnant of self doubt trickles into my brain thinking maybe I really am not that creative.  This person may be kidding, but maybe there’s a hint of truth to what they’re saying and I become immediately consumed with self doubt, convincing myself I have to change.

Insincere flattery will get you no where.  I can’t think of a bigger turnoff, can you?  You know the type.  The flowery, over-the-top terms of endearment that make you want to strangle the other person or vomit or curl up in a ball and wallow in your own piss.  Usually, I immediately change the subject.  My personal force field rejects insincerity like Captain Kirk raises the shields on the Star Ship Enterprise when the Klingons attack.  Khan!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?  Oh, I don’t buy that either.  I get pissed when someone tries to imitate me.  I feel like they’re stealing my originality.  In fact, I admire most in a person their original thoughts, comments, perspectives.  It takes a special kind of person to dream up something from scratch and to make it interesting.  Greatness is derived out of diversity and innovation not from sameness and being a copy cat.  My favorite movies almost always have an original screenplay.  In fact, this is my favorite Academy Award category because someone thought this shit up from scratch, people.  Brilliant!

It’s why I like short fiction.  There’s very little similarity with the annually awarded Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories.  Each year, I’m ever more impressed with the collection of anthologies which make the published version.  No two stories are even closely alike.  And yet, to be selected must be an incredible honor.  This is, I guess, the kind of recognition that I seek.  To have non-vested professionals say my shit was so damn good, you deserve a prize for thinking it up.

Everyone loves to be recognized.  Everyone.  Myself included.  Hell, myself maybe more than anyone.  I know when people “like” my Facebook profile updates or read my blog I get a lift that encourages me to drive forward, to write, to try and create something original that people want to read, to like, to forward, to remember, to think I’m the most creative mother fucker they’ve ever met.

So, flattery will get you somewhere maybe to a place you don’t think you’re capable of.  Flattery is great motivation for without it no one would really do anything of note.  Fake flattery might get you a punch in the nose or it might turn the other person off so bad they may realize they better start changing things up because, believe me, everyone can tell insincere from sincere.  Sorry, ladies guys actually can tell when you’re faking it.

So, in the end, flattery gets you somewhere.  Just maybe not where you want to go, but it does move you somewhere.  What really drives you nuts is when you don’t hear anything.