What the headline
is really saying.
For many adults, deflecting praise looks like modesty but is closer to muscle memory. The reflex often traces back to childhoods where being noticed brought scrutiny, correction, or subtle punishment more ofte…
Adults who cannot accept a compliment are widely read as modest, humble, or well-mannered. What often looks like humility is actually a childhood-trained reflex to brace against attention.
The cultural read on deflection is generous, and the person doing it often mistakes their own reflex for a personality trait. That misreading obscures a specific developmental history in which being noticed was reliably followed by something harder than warmth.
The flinch after a compliment is old information about an old room. The person offering the praise is not the parent, and the compliment is usually just the compliment.
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The unanimous August 28 council vote also blocks conversions of warehouses over 200,000 square feet while staff draft the city's first data center cl…
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