Summary: watch out for compliments, they are not (always) what they appear to be. It's an easy way to manipulate you into mediocrity.

In my journey of self improvement, I have noticed a peculiar thing.

People have always complimented me, even before I took the pill and was simply a fat, partying handicapped(I have a prostethic limb) lazy beta blaming his problems on society and white knighting the shit out of life. They would find a way: "you look good Inferno1234" "you will find a nice girl" and so on.

It is a way to keep in your good graces, it is an easy way to conversate while avoiding confrontation and, most of all, it's a way to keep you where you are (which is often where they are): fat, lazy and blue pill.

As I self improved my way up the food chain, I noticed that more and more compliments arrived, and even began taking the form of: "well you really shouldn't get any bigger/lose any more weight". A different motivation was at play here, although I did not know it at the time. These people were not aiming to praise me or my achievements, but to halt my progress. And it almost worked too. Many a time I started looking at myself as having achieved my goals. But as I did not want to regress to my old patterns, I kept on hitting the gym, and kept on getting better and better results.

Now here's the kicker: as I kept on going, many of the compliments stopped and the people giving them either left me alone (good riddance) or started talking behind my back about what am asshole I had become.

Lessons learned: People hate being lower status then you, and will try to keep you down in their pool of mediocirty while remaining in their comfortable cocoon of friendship and non-confrontation. Don't listen to them. Keep on self improving and leave these people behind. Misery loves company

On a final note: not everyone complimenting has this motivation of course, but it is much more common than at least I would have expected. Especially from lower or equal status individuals.