The conversation may jump from hair to shoes to thighs to professional achievement, fitness, social skills, dating success, children, talents and accomplishments - but the formula remains the same. No compliment is ever accepted; no self-denigrating remark ever goes unchallenged. When a compliment is too obviously accurate to be received with the customary flat or humorous denial, it is deflected with a hasty, embarrassed 'Well, thank you, er...' often followed by a self-effacing qualification of some sort, and the inevitable counter-compliment, or at least an attempt to change the subject.
When I asked English women why they could not just accept a compliment, they usually responded by reiterating their denial of the specific compliment in question, and often attempting to throw in a counter-compliment to me while they were at it. This was not helpful, except in confirming that the rule was deeply ingrained, so I tried to phrase the question in more general terms, talking about the patterns I had observed in their conversation, and asking how they would feel about someone who just accepted a compliment, without qualification, and didn't offer one in return. The typical response was that this would be regarded as impolite, unfriendly and arrogant - 'almost as bad as boasting.' Such a person would also be seen as 'taking herself a bit too seriously.' One woman replied, and I swear this is true and was not prompted in any way, 'Well, you'd know she wasn't English!'
Male Bonding: the Mine's Better Than Yours Rules
The counter-compliment ritual is distinctively English, but it is also distinctively female. One cannot even imagine men engaging in such an exchange. Think about it. 'I wish I could play pool as well as you do, I'm so hopeless at it.' 'Oh no, I'm useless, really, that was just a lucky shot - and you're brilliant at darts!' If you find that remotely plausible, try: 'You're such a good driver - I'm always stalling and mixing up the gears!' 'Me? No, I'm a terrible driver, honestly - and anyway your car is so much better than mine, more fast and powerful.' Not very likely, is it?
English men have different means of achieving social bonding, which at first glance would appear to involve principles diametrically opposed to those of the counter-compliment ritual. While English women are busy paying each other compliments, English men are usually putting each other down, in a competitive ritual that I call the Mine's Better Than Yours game.
'Mine', in this context, can be anything: a make of car, a football team, a political party, a holiday destination, a type of beer, a philosophical theory - the subject is of little importance. English men can turn almost any conversation, on any topic, into a Mine's Better Than Yours game. I once listened to a forty-eight-minute Mine's Better Than Yours conversation (yes, I timed it) on the merits of wet-shaving versus electric razors. And discussions of more 'highbrow' issues are no different: a recent lengthy debate on Foucault, conducted in the letters pages of the Times Literary Supplement, followed exactly the same pattern, and employed much the same kind of ad hominem arguments, as the shaving debate.
The rules of the game are as follows. You start either by making a statement in praise of your chosen 'Mine' (electric razors, Manchester United, Foucault, German cars, whatever) or by challenging someone else's assertion, or implication, or hint, that his 'Mine' is the best. Your statement will always be countered or challenged, even if the other male (or males) secretly agrees with you, or could not rationally disagree. One could hardly even imagine a male-bonding conversation in which a statement such as 'Don't know why anyone would buy that Japanese crap, when you could have a BMW,' elicited the response 'Yes, I'm sure you're right.' It would be unthinkable, an unprecedented violation of macho etiquette.
Although these exchanges may become quite noisy, and much swearing and name-calling may be involved, the Mine's Better Than Yours game will none the less seem fairly good-natured and amicable, always with an undercurrent of humour - a mutual understanding that the differences of opinion are not to be taken too seriously. Swearing, sneering and insults are allowed, even expected, but storming off in a huff, or any other exhibition of real emotion, is not permitted. The game is all about mock anger, pretend outrage, jokey one-upmanship. However strongly you may feel about the product, team, theory or shaving method you are defending, you must not allow these feelings to show. Earnestness is not allowed; zeal is unmanly; both are un-English and will invite ridicule. And although the name I have given the game might suggest boastfulness, boasting is not allowed either. The merits of your car, razor, politics or school of literary theory can be glowingly extolled and explained in minute detail, but your own good taste or judgement or intelligence in preferring these must be subtly implied, rather than directly stated. Any hint of self-aggrandizement or ostentation is severely frowned upon, unless it is done 'ironically', in such an exaggerated manner as to be clearly intended as a joke.
It is also universally understood that there is no way of actually winning the game. No-one ever capitulates, or recognises the other's point of view. The participants simply get bored, or tired, and change the subject, perhaps shaking their heads in pity at their opponents' stupidity.
The Mine's Better Than Yours game is an exclusively male pastime. Accompanying females may occasionally spoil the fun by misunderstanding the rules and trying to inject an element of reason. They also tend to become bored with the predictability of the ritual, and may even do something unthinkable, such as asking the participants if they could not simply agree to disagree. These interjections are usually ignored. What some exasperated females fail to grasp is that there can be no rational resolution of such debates, nor is there even any desire to resolve the issue. These are no more genuine debates than the chanting of rival football supporters, and football fans do not expect their ritual chants to persuade their opponents to agree with them. (This is not to say that English female-bonding is all 'sweetness and light'. It may be generally less competitive than the male variety, but I have recorded female-bonding sessions - mainly among younger women, but of all social classes - which consisted almost entirely of exchanges of heavily ironic mock-insults, and in which the participants all referred to each other, with great and obvious affection, as 'bitch' or 'slut'.)
The two examples of bonding-talk - counter-compliment and Mine's Better Than Yours - at first appear very different, and may indeed reflect some deep-seated universal differences between males and females. Recent research in sociolinguistics has focused on this competitive/cooperative divide, and without subscribing to the more extreme of the 'genderlect' theories, it is clear that male bonding-talk often tends to be competitive, while female bonding typically involves more 'matching' and co-operation.
But these bonding-talk rituals also have certain important features in common, in their underlying rules and values, which may tell us a bit more about Englishness. Both, for example, involve proscription of boasting and prescription of humour. Both also require a degree of polite hypocrisy - or at least concealment of one's real opinions or feelings (feigned admiration in the counter-compliment ritual, and fake light-heartedness in Mine's Better Than Yours) - and in both cases, etiquette triumphs over truth and reason.
AND FINALLY... THE LONG GOODBYE RULE
We started this grooming-talk chapter with greeting-talk, so it is appropriate to conclude with parting-talk. I wish I could end on a positive note and say that the English are rather better at partings than we are at greetings, but the truth is that our leave-takings tend to be every bit as awkward, embarrassed and incompetent as our introductions. Again, no-one has a clear idea of what to do or say, resulting in the same aborted handshakes, clumsy cheek-bumping and half-finished sentences as the greeting process. The only difference is that while introductions tend to be hurried - scrambled through in an effort to get the awkwardness over with as quickly as possible - partings, as if to compensate, are often tediously prolonged.