People Share 'Compliments' That Can Actually Be Insults

Ally Perry • Writer and Editor

Jun 4, 2023 3:00 PM EDT

Communication! It's one of those things that we're meant to be primed to do, and yet it's so incredibly complicated. There are probably billions of us in the world that are not good communicators, and even more that struggle to understand what other people mean half of the time. Sometimes it feels like nobody ever says what they mean, but they often do if we listen closely enough.

Unfortunately, this doesn't always reveal things that are good. Many of us are far too skilled in disguising meanness as niceness, which is something that has been discussed in a recent Twitter thread. Asking about things that come across as compliments but are actually insults, people came up with a range of chilling answers. Passive aggression, disrespect, and crappy attitudes abound. While sometimes it pays for us to not say what we mean, there are certain instances where it doesn't go unnoticed.