These are my thoughts on Fishing

... for compliments.

I've been obsessing about skinny jeans lately. I know they've been around for a while, but I've been busy convincing myself they wouldn't look that great on me. Up until a few weeks ago, I'd avoided even trying a pair on. But it seemed like everyone I knew was brave enough to try out this fad and they all looked soooooo cute! And finally I caved. I bought of pair of red skinnies.

I pulled them on this morning and realized immediately that I had a huge problem. I don't own a full length mirror. Bottom line, I really didn't know how my outfit looked. I couldn't see anything from the knee down, and let's be honest here, that was really the only area that was going to look any different than my usual style. I refused to be a skinny-jean-chicken anymore, however, so I left my house without the usual assurance my reflection provides.

Now I normally don't condone fishing for compliments, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm only a little ashamed to admit that every single time someone complimented my outfit today I expressed my anxiety about the skinny jeans. And I did this solely because I knew they would respond by telling me how great they looked on me. And not one person let me down.

I realize that when you ask for compliments, you can't really depend on their validity. When someone tells you they were nervous about wearing something, it is socially unacceptable to tell them they had good reason to be. So maybe I look amazing in skinny jeans. Maybe I don't. That's not the point of my thoughts today. My point is that even though the (very small) logical side of me knew that these were not necessarily genuine compliments, I still felt better about my mini-adventure out of my comfort zone. I don't plan on becoming a habitual compliment angler, but maybe sometimes it's okay to take down the no (compliment) fishing sign.