Would you tell your buddy, “Congratulations, you just purchased a share of General Electric“? Shit, no, I believe you’d get your ass kicked. So why does everyone who hears about investment property say “Congratulations on your purchase”?

I can understand “Congratulations, you bought a house to live in with your growing family” or “Congratulations, you toiled for months under a hot sun to build a house with your bare hands” because those are accomplishments accompanied by major lifestyle changes. But what about “Congratulations, you converted one form of financial capital into another”? That’s not an accomplishment, that’s a transaction. Nobody congratulates you for clicking a button in your E-Trade account, so buying real property shouldn’t be different.

Sure, buying a house is a tedious process. You talk to a dozen people and sign a hundred documents. Maybe everybody wants to congratulate you on successfully navigating the winding ordeal. That ordeal is made more tedious, though, by those same dozen people congratulating you non-stop. They’re surely used to people buying houses to, you know, actually live in, so they can’t be blamed for it, but a regular investor is bound to be fed up with hearing it all day. Does the cashier at the supermarket congratulate you for buying milk and eggs every Tuesday?

An unwanted congratulations isn’t just a hassle, it can be an insult. If I were to congratulate you on getting out of bed this morning, you wouldn’t just be annoyed, no, you’d be miffed that I think you might have trouble getting out of bed. Do I think you’re incapable of getting up and dressing yourself? You don’t congratulate somebody for something easy to do. That real estate investor is now asking herself, “Does this person think investing is a struggle for me? Does he think I’m incapable of saving money for a down payment or of analyzing cash flow?” The friendly compliment can become a piercing dismissal of self-worth.

Complaining about nice people trying to be friendly is the misanthropic type of thing Larry David might do in Curb Your Enthusiasm, so why would we even mention it here? Think about it. Every day we take actions that feel right, even positive, without thinking about what or why, or about how those actions might affect the recipient. Take some time to re-evaluate even the tiniest, most unimportant things you do. I guarantee you’ll surprise yourself.