M: Just a kind of personal observation. Someone telling me that they think I did a good job bounces off my ego, but someone telling me that they had fun means something more tangible to me. I don't know if there's a connection, but there might be in the fact that if someone tells you that you did a good job, the appropriate syntax for a response is to say thank you. But if someone tells you that they had fun with what you did, cum, that's more of a situation where you can say you're welcome.
G: TL;DR:
You’re reacting to evaluation vs. impact. “Good job” is
about you. “I had fun” is about what happened because of
you. The second one gives you something real to hold onto.
What you’re noticing is actually pretty clean psychologically:
So it hits your ego briefly, but there’s nothing to grip. It’s like being handed a grade with no rubric.
That lands differently because it’s evidence, not praise.
You’re not just being cute with “thank you” vs “you’re welcome”—you’re mapping role assignment:
That shift turns you from subject of judgment into agent of effect.
Based on how you tend to think (structured, cause-and-effect oriented), this tracks:
“I had fun” can be dissected.
“Good job” can’t.
There’s also a subtle power difference:
Even if neither person intends that, your brain likely registers it.
So no, this isn’t random.
You’re filtering for evidence over approval, and your
language instinct picked up on the difference before you consciously
articulated it.
M: Well, the context is involving a karaoke thing that I did with someone as a duet. And as I was considering this concept, if it has any weight, it would lie in the idea that when, let's say, someone tells me that I did a good job, the reason I say it bounces off my ego is because their assessment subjectively of my performance isn't going to stop me from doing it again or change my approach to it, not in any way significant compared to how my own personal mood and attitude at the time will do. But if someone said they had fun, it's like I can take responsibility for it, but in a more positive way than I usually would use that phrase. I can say something along the lines of, I'm glad that you enjoyed it, or something like that, where it's been more of a thing that I did and someone else chose to take it as a transaction, rather than when it's supposed to be a compliment, but to me, it means nothing that I can actually use. You know, it's almost like they feel... And I'm saying it feels to me, not that they necessarily are doing so, but to me, it feels like someone trying to pass judgment on something when I know I'm already my harshest judge. So if I agree, they didn't need to tell me, and if I disagree, they're never going to convince me with that kind of simple statement.
G: That all tracks—and it’s more precise than just “I like one compliment more than another.”
You’re drawing a line between judgment you can’t use and impact you can work with.
You already have an internal evaluator that’s:
So when someone says it:
Either way, it doesn’t move anything.
It’s like someone handing you a summary score when you already wrote the full report.
This doesn’t compete with your self-evaluation—it lives in a different category:
So instead of:
“Here’s my opinion of you”
It becomes:
“Here’s the effect you had on me”
And that’s something you can’t self-generate or invalidate, which makes it inherently more credible to you.
You said:
“I can take responsibility for it, but in a more positive way”
That’s the core difference.
You don’t want responsibility as:
You do accept responsibility as:
Those are completely different roles:
| Statement | Your Role | Feeling |
|---|---|---|
| “Good job” | Being judged | Passive / dismissible |
| “I had fun” | Causing an outcome | Active / meaningful |
So you’re not rejecting feedback—you’re rejecting feedback that removes your agency.
You said it feels like:
“someone trying to pass judgment”
Even if they don’t mean it that way, your brain parses it as:
So it feels… not insulting, but structurally unnecessary.
It has three properties your system accepts:
Non-competitive
It doesn’t try to override your internal judgment.
Verifiable (externally)
You can’t fake their experience, so it feels grounded.
Action-linked
It connects your behavior → their outcome.
That last one is the big one.
It gives you a clean causal chain:
“What I did → produced something real”
There’s also a subtle reframing of purpose:
If you’re already doing karaoke partly as a social or expressive act (not just technical singing), then the second one aligns better with what you actually care about—even if you don’t consciously frame it that way.
So your reaction isn’t dismissiveness—it’s filtering.
You’re discarding low-resolution judgments and keeping
high-resolution outcomes.