"You sound like you do radio commercials..."
"You have a voice made for radio..."
"You should be on the radio..."
And I have to admit, every time I hear it, I can't help but fill in (at least in my head) the second half of that statement, "And the face to go with it."
...and a face to match.
I mean, isn't that how is usually goes?
And okay, I get it, people (I hope) mean that as a compliment.
I have a relatively unique voice. A bit deeper. I can talk fast enough to make most Midwestern-ers look twice and assume I am "not from around here." So yeah, I have a different kind of a voice, I guess.
But when people tell me I sound like I should be on the radio. What I hear them say is, "...but thank goodness you aren't on TV."
It goes right up there with the time a guy I was working with met me in person for the first time.
I was with a bigger organization, so it was not uncommon to correspond with someone via phone or email for quite some time before ever meeting him.
He was a pompous, arrogant jerk. But he was enormously talented (a legend in his own mind) and took license to say and do what he wanted.
For the first few weeks we worked together, we only spoke on the phone.
Then we had some things that we did over email.
And finally, after about a month of working together we had reason to finally connect in person.
As we met, he piped up right away with:
"You know, when I first talked to you on the phone, I assumed you'd be hot. But then I thought, no maybe not, cause usually good voices don't go with good looks. And then we started emailing, and I learned your whole name and your first and last name didn't go together and sounded kind of ugly. So I though, naaah, this girl must be ugly. But now that I have met you, you're really pretty good looking."Twas the worst backhanded compliment I have ever received.
I remember attending a seminar once and hearing the following bit of advice.
When you first meet someone and something about them is striking to you, avoid commenting on it or making a joke about it. Because if it's the first thing you are thinking, it's probably something they have heard before. And if you think it's unique or clever, you can guarantee they have heard it. And it's not.
Tall guys don't always play basketball.
People who look like someone else don't always love to be compared to them.
And generally people don't want to be told they should be on the radio.
