There’s art involved in claiming compliments.

DELICIOUS though they may appear, compliments, like oysters, can be a little hard to swallow and often have a habit of coming back on you. Try serving one at a dinner party.

“Why, Mrs Wong, what stunning legs/sex appeal/table decorations you have!”

Mrs Wong will blush, shuffle, scan the room for an escape route and then throw the compliment right back at you.

“No, no!” she might say, “You have much more stunning legs/sex appeal/table decorations!”

When my daughter was six and had not yet reached the age of embarrassment, she could have taught Mrs Wong a lesson or two. She knew instinctively how to receive a compliment. Once, when I told her she looked pretty, she turned her face to me, but not her eyes, which remained fixed on whatever she was untidying at the time, and said, “I know,” like the Queen receiving homage from a dominion.

Everybody is born with this ability, but it is quickly conditioned out. As a result, people struggle to deny compliments even if they think they deserve them. If I were to tell my daughter now, at 21, that she looked pretty, she would probably scoff, thereby writing it off.

The lives of celebrities must be particularly uncomfortable, as they probably receive compliments all the time, resulting in them spending their lives thanking the team that made it all possible. On opening night the compliments must fly back and forth at an alarming rate.

“ANGELINA! You were wonderful!”

“No, YOU, darling! YOU were wonderful!”

They were probably BOTH wonderful, darling. But what happens when one isn’t so wonderful? What happens when a star meets a member of the public who says something like, “You were fabulous in Skyfall”?

They must be itching to say “and you were, too,” but they can’t. They have to find some other way of complimenting the complimenter, in order to make things nice and equal.

“Lovely scarf!” they might say.

Sometimes, it will be impossible, in the time available, for them to spot something worthy of praise and this gives rise to the random observation delivered as though it were a compliment: “Oh, look at your tie! It’s red!”

Much better simply to claim the compliment. It’s enough to incline the head and smile.

Compliments can be honey traps, even when accurate.

“You look like a discerning woman”, is a line that has drawn many a housewife into the sticky web of a skilled salesman. They will become so flustered by his flattery they will buy anything.

“You a model? A former model? Seen you somewhere, haven’t I? On TV? That your car outside? The Mercedes? No? Funny that; it’s the sort of car I’d expect you to drive ...”

Then there’s the strategy of those with lust on their mind. What happens to the woman who is approached in the street by a man who says, “I hope you don’t mind me coming up to you like this but I simply had to say you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

If he disappeared after he said this, it would be a compliment worth taking seriously, but chances are he won’t. His intention is to stick as closely as he can, until long after nightfall.

If the woman is mortal, is not the Queen and has not inclined her face towards him without taking her eyes off her magazine and said “I know”, then it will not be in her power to make him feel rejected, and he will stay to become a problem, and, if the worst comes to the worst, she might even end up marrying the flatterer.

Compliments can achieve all this. They are rare enough to turn our heads. They linger in our memory, taking up valuable space that should be devoted to where we put the car keys, and they affect our thinking and behaviour.

I watched a woman claim a compliment recently, to great effect. It was obviously her birthday and her friends were celebrating in a restaurant. A man who was at her table suddenly declared in a loud voice that silenced the room: “Doesn’t she look beddable?”

Everyone waited for her to blush or look flustered, but she didn’t.

She also didn’t say “Thank you,” or “No, I’m not,” or “Your shirt ... great fit!” She didn’t even say, “You were great in Skyfall!” She was the Queen. She merely inclined her head, and without taking her eyes off her drink, she smiled a beddable smile.

Check out Mary on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mary.schneider.writer. Reader response can be directed to star2@thestar.com.my.

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