What is implied when someone says the following to you?

He or she has coined a sloppy sentence.

However, had he said, “You are almost too good to be true,” I could live with it and say “thanks.” It’s still hyperbole and vagueness, though.

That you are the big cheese, the great kahuna, the Queen Mary, the top dog and so on.

This has been said to me twice in two days by two different people.

The first time it was a female friend who said it after I tried to help with something, the second one was my boss when I turned a crap night in to a very profitable night for the company.

Silly, you know what is implied. Just say “thank you” and preen for a bit. Then move on.

@gailcalled With my boss yea, I know exactly what he is getting at, the first one not so much, there was a fair level of amazement that I offered to help.

They’re impressed by you.

Is it possible that it could imply misstrust at all?

It’s a compliment(maybe).

I don’t know the details, the cast of characters and the tone of voice. Objectively, I would say “no.” But I am over 3000 miles away.

The second scenario with your boss sounds fairly clear-cut. if you feel that you are being your best self, then all’s well.

How are the weight-loss, exercise and dating going? You’re to be commended for the many major changes you are making.

@gailcalled All good thanks. weight-loss is good, I am down about 35 kilos of fat, and up about 2 kilos of muscle, dating is totally on hold, and I recently had a small tobacco relapse, smoked an entire packet in one night, but the weed use is over for good, and its been quite a few days now without tobacco.

Thanks for asking.

35 kilos? What’s that in pounds? It seems a huge weight loss. How can you differentiate between muscle weight and fat weight? Does your trainer have x-ray vision?

Five gold stars for you (minus the pack of cigarettes).

@gailcalled 77.1 pounds according to google conversions, a fair bit indeed, but not so much for a 6ft 6in guy.

My trainer has no way of keeping track of that, it is just an educated guess. All I can say for certain is I lost about 31–32 kilos of fat. After this point I started working on muscle, so now the weight measurements are meaningless.

@poisonedantidote It’s really just a saying. Don’t read too much into it. In these two cases, it just means that you are a good guy.

It’s the sign of a sociopath flattering you so they can move in for the kill. lol

It means they want that last piece of chocolate cake you haven’t touched.

I would take it as a complement. They are acknowleding all the great things you have done. There is the possibility they are waiting for the oher soe to drop. Meaning you are great, but when are you going to screw me over? Some people just have a hard time being happy when things are going good, they figure something has to go wrong.

It means they can’t believe how lucky they are that you exist. You impress them so much that it’s as if they are in a dream and they think they’ll wake up and find you are ordinary, after all. It also implies that you are much better than they expected, or believed possible, which can be a compliment or a back-handed compliment depending on the circumstances.

It depends on the context and the way it is said. The person saying it could mean it and be sincere but they might also be implying, though not in a nasty way, that they don’t feel you are entirely sincere.

It could have been highly complimentary. But it could also have meant “I just don’t believe that you are as wonderful and virtuous as you appear. You must be a phony.”

If it were said in a romantic context, I would definitely look for the double or hidden meaning. I would expect the speaker to have in mind the thought we’ve probably all been taught: “If something seems too good to be true, it is.”

The suspicion might reflect on you, but more likely it reflects on the speaker.

On the other hand, they might just have been mouthing a cliché without expecting you to seek a deeper meaning in it than “That was great, thanks.”

Most of the time it’s a compliment. Some people though will look at you as though there must be something not right, not upfront or whatever and they’ll either avoid you further or pick you apart, turn you inside out, scrub you with salt to see how quickly you dissolve under pressure & disappointment, all to determine if you’re as good as you appear.

It can mean mistrust, but not to you personally. I’ve said that to someone, and what I meant was, “You are amazing, but I am not very trusting and find it hard to believe that anyone could be this good to me. I am currently frantically running through my mind trying to figure out why you are being so nice to me. However, I like believing in the good in people, so I will love on you for a bit.”