what's the worst personal comment you have received from a person ?

I've had rather a lot of emergency surgery all concentrated on much the same area of my body with the result that my rather puckered tum looks like a crumpled map of the London underground. (I'm still quite sensitive about it.) In the days of communal changing rooms, but before the advent of punk, another customer looked carefully at the aforementioned tum and asked, "Are your scars real?"

Looking good for your age

wanted to add a supportive smiley to this page....susie I've yet to work out how to do it!

Not a personal comment per se, but when I go to the cinema, theatre etc the [oh so young] person selling the tickets asks if we are on any 'benefits', meaning are we pensioners. I know they're being helpful but I wince every time it happens because I know it wouldn't have been mentioned a few years ago. It's worse when I've made a [rare] attempt to look good .

7 weeks after my first daughter was born I was at a party and was asked when the baby was due.
Lynne - use the lower case bracket [ at each end ] and write the word smile/grin/wink or whatever in between them and the smiley should magically appear once you post themessage. It took me a long time to find out how to do it until Jess kindly put me out of my misery!

thanks Gally....

When my DD was born my now XMIL asked me how two such ugly ---s could have produced such a beautiful child.Hence she did not remain my MIL for very long as her son was of the same miserable disposition.

When my little sister was about 2 and I was 9, someone commented that my sister was very pretty. Then she went on the say "They're not a bit alike, are they".

On a YHA holiday in Carinthia, a lad said "You've got beautiful big brown eyes - just like a Jersey cow". I was most upset, but he promised to prove it was a compliment, and after the holiday he drove up to Yorkshire and drove me down to the Cotswolds where he lived, and showed e a Jersey cow to prove it was a compliment!

So romantic, Joan! One boyfriend introduced me as: 'she comes from Ayrshire where the cows come from'.

You look just like your mother did at you age - but not as pretty! Said by a great aunt!

A very outgoing annoying work colleague scornfully told me I was 'a nothing', just because I am shy. This happened at least 40 years ago, but it still hurts, probably because it may be true !!

You're not nothing on here, shysal, so you can't ever have been nothing anywhere else. Comments like that are born out of meanness and a lack of self-respect in the person who says them — more about their inadequacy than that of the people they hurt. Chuck that hurt away! It belongs to some meany from long ago. Hugs.

shysal I'm sure you're not, and even if you are there's nothing wrong in being shy so long as it doesn't render you speechless! I used to be very shy but when I got to my early twenties I suddenly had a 're-birth' and became very stroppy and loud - perhaps I should have remained shy (by the way I am a Sal too!)

The bitchiest things that have ever been said to me (at me, I should perhaps say) were said, I'm ashamed to say, by my mother. I don't recall any nasty comments from other people at all. If there ever were any, they either went over my head at the time or I've forgotten them since.

I was at a wedding, wearing a rather nice top, which someone admired. When I told her it was from M&S, she replied "yes, they are so useful for everyday clothes"

This was at a period in my life when M&S was quite expensive compared to my normal clothes buying.

When we lived in Wensleydale a rather snobby lady asked where we lived. When I told her she said oh those little houses how funny! I took great pleasure in cutting her dead after that - didnt do me much good all the rest of the village sucked up to her - glad I dont live there any more. Sychophants

shysal here on GN you don't in any way come over as a shy 'nothing' but as a very pleasant personality whose comments I've enjoyed. Why don't you leave the SHY concept behind you and re-invent yourself on GN with a new and more confident identity? How about changing your user name as a staement both to us and to yourself?

Thanks for the supportive comments.
em I shall think about your suggestion.
baggy My mother always put me down, as yours did, which probably accounts for my low self esteem

I've always been shy too, shysal. Though I am publicly quite outspoken and outgoing, on a person-to-person level, I find it hard to get close to people probably because of a lifelong (and usually unexpressed) fear of rejection, for reasons I won't go into at the moment.

Many thanks too, Gally. I have been meaning to figure out how those pesky smilies worked.

Don't worry about your post-natal figure comment. It is not at all rare. My husband was about to ask a neighbour when it was due but luckily noticed a baby in the back of the car! Then the other day I mentioned a new member at the gym and was sure that she was there to do the ever more popular pre-natal exercises. When I mentioned her to the receptionist (who is pregnant), I discovered just how wrong one can be. Never make assumptions.

Absentgrana - pity that you did not know about or use Bio-Oil. It is a bit expensive but absolutely the tops at preventing post-surgery scars or at least at making them less visible.

My 5'9" Size 8 daughter gave birth to twins and to say that she was huge does not even go near describing her and her bum spread and dropped. I never thought that her bum would ever be the same but it is perfect now and she does not have even one stretch mark after using Bio-Oil which just sinks into the skin.

I am sure that Johnson's Baby Oil would be just as good and save a lot of money.

PS Communal changing rooms? What the hell are they? There are always single changing rooms in shops as well (aimed at disabled people I think) and I always insist on one of these. Displaying my body is not a problem. It is looking at all those other not so toned or sheer fat ones!

My granddaughter told her Mum "When I grow up I want to be a nobody like you". My daughter is a stay at home Mum!

When we were about to board a plane in Japan many years ago in the North where there weren't many Europeans [my excuse] the flight attendant asked if I was pregnant - well, more of a mime really. I don't know who was the most embarrassed her or me. I was certainly not fat at the time but I admit I was certainly weightier than the tiny Japanese ladies.