okay bc y'all have seemed to vibe with some previous "how to hack human interpersonal communication" posts, i'm gonna throw out an very specific (and potentially controversial) one
namely, when a friend complains to me that they don't like the way a picture of themselves turned out, i don't try to convince them they look fine. if anything, i agree with them
i've only started doing this recently, after i started thinking about why it never works when someone tries to assure me that a photo i dislike is actually okay. and i realized that disliking the photo isn't really about disliking your appearance. it's about thinking the photo doesn't match the image of yourself you have in your head. we could get into all the reasons behind that (like how you always see your face in reverse in mirrors & from a certain angle), but at the end of the day, that mismatch is still jarring. and someone assuring me a photo turned out perfectly fine only makes me go "wait, is that how everyone else sees me? i look like that to other people?" and that feels fairly awful
so lately i've started going "you know, you're right. i don't think that photo really does you justice." and then tack on something else like "but school pictures are the worst! they always turn out so awkward." or "but i absolutely love your outfit in it! you should totally wear that out again!"
i'm sure some folks will disagree with this method, and that's fine, but in my experience, people's relief is palpable. personally, i think it's much more comforting to hear "yep, just not a great photo," than "nope, your face just looks that way."
