Have you ever wondered why it is that you feel comfortable, likeable and perhaps even witty and wise in some company and a complete fool in others? It’s all a matter of confidence, I suppose, and for most of us it is surprising how effective a little praise can be in bolstering our assurance. Or, for that matter, how deeply criticism can affect us. Sometimes it isn’t actual praise or criticism we react to, but just a general assumption that we are bright or dim.
‘You’re the expert!’ people say, and straight away you find yourself brilliantly explaining to them exactly how to turn their husbands’ shirt collars or re-pot their aspidistras.
Or perhaps they introduce you by saying: ‘She’s a real scream!’ Quick as a flash you’re cracking hilarious jokes, and whenever you meet these particular people in future they’re going to curl up with mirth no matter what you say.
But let somebody suggest that: ‘You wouldn’t understand this, dear – it’s a bit above your head’, and you are liable to start behaving like the empty-headed idiot they take you for.
This sort of thing happens to me a lot. ‘Ah, here’s Betty; someone says. ‘She’ll know the best way to make rhubarb crumble’ and immediately I’m Zena Skinner, Delia Smith and Fanny Craddock all rolled into one.
The feeling of encouragement their little remark gives me can easily last all day, often with buoyant after-effects. One minute I may be shuffling along thinking: ‘Oh lor, what on earth can I rustle up for dinner?’ and suddenly, I am into my best apron and giving Cordon-Bleu-type demonstrations to anyone in the vicinity, even to Henry the cat if he’s the only one around. In my mind’s eye the television cameras are whirring …
Neatly I lay out my equipment. Efficiently I weigh and measure ounces of this and millilitres of that. ‘Now we gently fold in the flour,’ I tell Henry in a clear high-pitched voice, the sort that demonstrators use. He doesn’t seem to mind. In fact he purrs and winds himself around my legs, presumably on the assumption that it’s all for his benefit and that I’m about to experiment with Kit-e-kat popovers.
Actually, I’m what you might call a moody cook. I go along with a neighbour I once had who said: ‘Give me two green peppers, a blob of mango chutney and a papaw and I’ll do my best to knock you up a banquet. It’s just the daily plod that gets me down.’ But, with my confidence bolstered, I’m a new woman.
On the other hand, just let me overhear someone say: ‘She doesn’t look as if she could boil an egg, let alone make an omelette’, and immediately I become a sort of culinary Tommy Cooper, bumbling about in a cloud of acrid blue smoke while all around me soufflés explode and congealed porridge forms a thick blanket over both stove and saucepan.
It is all a question of confidence, and a typical illustration of this lies in the fact that I could fry a very neat egg right up until the day I got married. No leaky yolks, no brown lace edges, no reluctance to leave the pan. Plump little gold and white darlings they were, until my new spouse uttered one sentence. ‘Go careful with those eggs!’ he said, and from that moment my egg frying became a shambles. I took our wedding present frying pan back and changed it three times before I realised that I was to blame for the sticky mess sheepishly scraped on to his plate each morning.
And, of course, it isn’t just in the kitchen that a little praise or implied criticism can alter the course of events. As anyone with children soon learns, to stand knee-deep in building bricks, dolls, cars, teddy bears and torn comics screaming: ‘Put all these toys away at once, you ‘orrible kids!’ doesn’t have nearly the same success as: ‘I’m so proud of the way you two pack your toys away. Now here are two nice big cardboard boxes …’
I can well remember when I was a stringy-haired, yellowish, grumpy-looking schoolgirl, aching to feel confident about something (anything), being bowled over by a super new aunt who took one long, thoughtful look at me, paused, and said I looked ‘interesting and rather artistic’.
A similar character-building moment came later in my teens when I overheard someone say of me at a party: ‘That girl over there looks the vivacious type’. Upon hearing this, I seem to remember becoming so vivacious I had to be taken home early.
But at least moments and phrases like these give one a cornerstone to build on. And it isn’t just through childhood and adolescence that we need an occasional booster to our self-confidence. We all need a word of praise once in a while, even if it is only for our rhubarb crumble.