Do you tell pretty girls that they're pretty?

[der_kluge]

I was thinking about this very thing a couple of weeks ago. I think it was because I'd seen some really attractive girl somewhere, and I thought to myself that complimenting her might really make her day.

But then, it might not. It really depends on the person. Some, as TB said, might see it as flirting and as a married guy myself, I certainly wouldn't want to put myself in that position.


Attractiveness is also relative. I don't consider myself good looking, so it's only natural that if a really beautiful woman entered the room, it would only be natural that I wouldnt' compliment her - she'd be too far out of my league. This produces the syndrom wherein sometimes, the prettiest girls in high school often end up dateless to the prom because all the guys figure they already have dates. This girl Rel saw as attractive, was in his league - a physical equal in his eyes.

Anyway, I don't compliment people on their physical beauty. I think it would just tend to get construed in the wrong way.

 

[Eridanis]

Eridanis, are you hitting on other women? It's a good thing that I am not insecure

Oh, yeah - and make sure your wife doesn't read the same boards that you do.

 

[Thotas]

Compliments are good. No matter how little regard we have or try to have for the opinions of others, as social animals we partially rely on the cooperation and good will of others, and compliments tell us that, for whatever reason, we have something that gives us some security there. A genuine compliment makes us all feel good, deep down, for that reason.

Giving genuine compliments is also a good thing. You have to find something good, whether deep or shallow, in another person to be able to give one. There are a lot of benefits to trying to find the good in other people, both for your psychological disposition and your interactions with the outside world.

The world, though, is complicated and simple ideas get complicated when they interact with a complicated system. (You're all RPGers, you know all about that ...) So you should give some thought to how it might be taken when you give a compliment; the most common example, some innocent compliments of a physical nature can be taken the wrong way because they so often are used to hide an ulterior motive. Each situation and person is different of course, and nobody is going to call it right every time.

 

[ForceUser]

Are you saying he has manboobs?

If he did, would you suck on them?

 

[Rel]

If he did, would you suck on them?

This is so disturbing that I might have to unsubscribe from my own thread!

I like TB and all. Hell, I even gave him my tie. But no.

 

[Ferret]

Most of the compliments I give are performance based.

I tihnk this was good enough to forego any kind of useful info I might give.....

 

[ForceUser]

This is so disturbing that I might have to unsubscribe from my own thread!

I like TB and all. Hell, I even gave him my tie. But no.

Sorry. Had to.

That's the sense of humor 8 years in the military leaves you with.

 

[Buttercup]

if it made me feel nice to give the compliment and the girl nice to hear it, what's the harm? <-(Important question.)

No harm that I can see. I have never been angry about having my looks complimented. It's not like you said anything over-familiar or wolfish. You told her she had pretty eyes.

I'm more inclined to pay such compliments to women for whom this might be a less common thing. Is that the height of arrogance? <-(Not very important question, but probably.)

I don't think it's arrogance, but rather human nature. Or if it is, then I'm arrogant too. I am generally not willing to give the time of day to a man who's smoking hot, because he's also probably fonder of himself than anyone else could ever be. If I'm going to flirt, it's going to be with an average or somewhat hot guy instead of the Rob Morrow type.

On a side note, the older a woman gets, the less likely it is that she'll get a compliment on her looks, and the more charming she's likely to find it. I'm not talking about the "nice ass" type of compliment, but the kind that you gave the woman with pretty eyes.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Thanks for the compliment but I'm not sure I understand what you're saying with regard to how that would impact whether we'd have the same opinion on the issue or not...

Well, what I mean is that you probably toss out compliments to people as a functionof your personality, while when I do it it's ususally as more of a "means to an end".

Nice to see the posts from Keryn here too. I hope she'll stick around. ENWorld needs women!

well, hot ones anyways...er...I mean ones with nice hairstyles

 

[Buttercup]

Reveal is a lucky man. How common do you think your perspectives are amongst women?

I wouldn't be troubled if my husband complimented a strange woman's eyes or hair or clothing and so forth. I'm honestly having a difficult time imagining how I'd feel if he told someone they had lovely, perky boobs, because I can't imagine him ever saying that. I wouldn't be happy about him telling a woman he wanted to bed her, but again it isn't the kind of thing he'd ever say. Do most woman feel like this? I don't know. I think many do.