Your votes are beautiful.

The day after my last posting, I got on to admire how many people were responding to the poll. Feeling pleased with myself, I remarked to Steven, “I think I make a pretty good blog.”

“Yes, it’s very you’re beautiful,” he replied.

“I mean, I’ve been posting pretty regularly, and I think they’re interesting and not too wordy or picture-y or boring,” I continued.

“Yes, you’re very pretty,” he agreed.

Some of you have asked how I voted on my poll. I didn’t, because I actually surprised myself by second guessing my initial inclination. But I’ve been wanting to post a followup anyway, since this was pretty interesting for me to think about.

First of all, this wasn’t a test. While the fact that I was challenging the woman’s statement obviously indicates that I don’t necessarily agree with it, I think a preference for either type of compliment is legitimate. In a way, it actually makes more sense to me for someone to want to hear their husband say they are beautiful: you never hear about the husband running off with someone who’s a more organized housekeeper or better with kids. My biggest beef was probably that the woman in the story said, “Don’t say any of those [other] things.” Uh, why not? Heck, Husband, any compliment you want to give me, I’ll take. (However, let us all recognize the lameness of this guy’s having to plan to say something nice to his wife. Novel idea, buddy. Next week are you going to actually pick up your own dirty socks?)

The fact is that, in my opinion, the compliment itself doesn’t matter as much as what’s behind it. Regardless of what words are used, I think what we all want to hear is, “I love who you are and what you do and I wouldn’t want to be with anybody else.” And the person who’s making the statement should know his or her spouse well enough to know what words will best deliver that message. (Apparently, “You’re beautiful” isn’t always it – sorry, James Blunt.)