I recently realized that I have what I think is a weird hangup, but I can’t decide if I think that it’s a me thing or an everybody thing, so I figured I might as well blog about it.

I always feel super self conscious whenever I want to tell my friends that I’m proud of them; in my mind, it feels like it comes across as condescending. Who am I to be proud of people who I see as my peers? In my mind, I always sound like a kindergarten teacher patting a little kid on the head when I tell my friends I’m proud of them.

Thinking it through further, though, I never feel that way when a friend pays me that kind of compliment, so maybe I’m totally off base with this. Why should I feel weird about trying to pay someone a genuine compliment? I’d hope that if I knew someone well enough to want to express something like this that they would know to take it as intended.

Maybe it’s because I just don’t expect my friends to be proud of me. That sounds terrible and like the beginning of a pity party, and I seriously don’t intend it to be, so please don’t allow the response to this to be an outpouring of reassurances. I have exceptionally lovely friends, who are incredibly supportive, and I have no insecurities about how they feel about me. I think it’s just that I don’t rely on those relationships for that type of emotional connection, and I don’t consciously think “gosh, I hope that [insert friendly friend’s name here] is proud of me when they hear about this” the way I would with, say, my mom. 

Making this even more complicated now: my husband and I are equal partners, but I don’t have any qualms about telling him that I’m proud of him. I look for and, I am very grateful to report, get that from him, though, so I guess that makes sense with the thing that I realized in that last paragraph. Seems to be some sort of semi- “do unto others” type deal for me. 

At this point, I guess I’m just wondering if I’m alone on this front. Is it weird to tell your friends that you’re proud of them, or can I get to work on getting over that silliness and start handing out the high-fives?