Flirting is difficult. It requires a lot of confidence under a great deal of pressure, and there
so many
things that could go wrong. However, one of the surefire ways to flirt well is to give the other person a compliment.
Depending on how familiar you are with them, this could be something as simple as, "Hey, cool shirt/haircut/tattoo" or as intimate as, "I love your eyes/laugh/voice" - but finding the right level of
can be difficult sometimes. What's even worse is when you think you're giving a compliment, but it actually comes across as a huge insult.
Here's 8 women who have been on the receiving end of such an interaction...
Reddit user ConnieC60 was once asked, "How come you’re so pretty and clever?" She explains: "Dude honestly sounded completely confounded too. This was part of his attempt to chat me up on a work outing, and an older female colleague just roared with laughter at him, and told him to give it up because his chat was terrible."
Being told you look like a model? Compliment. Being told you aren't pretty enough to be a model? Not a compliment. Redditor symphony64 was once told: “You could be a model if only you got a nose job" - and it obviously didn't go down too well.
For some reason, a lot of guys think they're being complimentary when they compare us girls to other women. However, that usually translates badly, as it tells us that they basically consider all of us to conform to the same standards (even if they don't mean it that way). So, when user, zepoopsmith, heard this - "You’re not commercially beautiful, but there’s something about you" - she wasn't best pleased.
This one was definitely intended as an insult, but was wrapped in the packaging of a compliment: "When I was in college I was in a debate team," wrote redditor, tinymyths. "After I won a debate from this horrible guy, we shook hands and he told me:'you're pretty smart for a farmer's daughter'. I nearly sucker punched him. Which is another thing my farmer dad taught me."
For some weird reason, there's a belief amongst some people that good looks will get you anything in life. More than that, though, there's an assumption that women don't care about anything other than their looks. So, when redditor bougieparfumee heard someone say "You're pretty so you'll be fine" to reassure her that she was going to get along just fine in her career as a medical worker, it didn't feel very reassuring.
If there's one thing creepier than getting a not-compliment in real life, it's getting one via the internet. As bluejay_way details: "I once got a message on social media that said, 'Your lips give me erotic dreams. I want to lock you in a cage and keep you forever.' Okay buddy, how about you take your creepy serial killer self away from my page?"
Sometimes something will sound nice in your head, but when it comes out of your mouth it seems much more like an insult. "When I straighten my curly hair, [people say] 'I love your hair! It looks so much better when it’s straight!' Like, thanks for telling me you think my hair looks bad 97% of the time??" writes emilemily5.
The worst kinds of not-compliments are always the ones that draw attention to one of your features while simultaneously pretending it's not there. As reddit user FrillyPillows recalls, one person once told her, "You're not that fat, you look great!" But why can't a person be fat and beautiful?
So, next time you go to give someone a compliment, just think to yourself first: could this be taken the wrong way?
