For Females: Unanticipated Flattery

[Shimpei]

Cafe is quite far from what she thinks she looks like.

 

[proteanmix]

I'm wondering if flattery from other women gets run through a different set of filters.

It does for me. If a woman stranger compliments me I figure she has no interest in getting something from me (phone number, date) I tend to think it's sincere. And I can tell by what women compliment like shoes, purses, hair, etc. Men seem to stay to the more general "You look nice/you smell good."

An unsolicited genuine compliment always makes me feel good, I'm not going to worry about the source as long as the person isn't being bothersome. I used to get rattled, but I taught myself to say thank you and move on. I'm not obligated to do anything more.

Once somebody told me I had a nice smile and that made me feel very happy. I can never get too much of that.

 

[nightning]

It does for me. If a woman stranger compliments me I figure she has no interest in getting something from me (phone number, date) I tend to think it's sincere. And I can tell by what women compliment like shoes, purses, hair, etc. Men seem to stay to the more general "You look nice/you smell good."

Is compliments just a "feel good thing" or also a "get you thinking thing"? My first reaction towards a woman complimenting me is "that's nice..." then I think about why they said it, not exactly looking for hidden intentions but what they pay attention to and thus what are they interested in.

 

[HilbertSpace]

I am conjecturing that some types of women enjoy the comments because those are the type of men they are looking for -- straight, to the point, not a lot of style, pretty simplistic. Other women think it's classy for a guy not to go the overt route and deal with her as a person/mind/whatever first. So they would be extremely unhappy with the other sort of guy... and those guys would probably be disappointed as well in a relationship with such a woman.

I guess it's like self-selection at work, but I guess HS can comment more on that.

I think there's several dynamics at play here that we can start to tease apart:

A compliment can convey or confer social status. Eric Raymond defined a "hacker" as someone who is called such by a hacker (hacker here being a high compliment). Likewise, if you're called intelligent (or, at least, possibly not wrong) by a Nobel laureate, you can be pretty proud of where you stand. I think we have (at a minimum) an intuitive grasp of what appearance means in society - there's a number of studies that indicate that relatively more attractive people are also considered more intelligent, happier, and more successful. Evolutionarily, I'd be pretty comfortable saying that physical attractiveness is a fitness indicator, even though there's a little danger there in slipping into a circular definition.

An important secondary aspect, though, comes from the models that say communication is actually manipulation. Manipulation of the target of an information exchange might not be inherently negative (for example, I might tell you not to stand in the middle of the freeway - I'm trying to manipulate you into moving, but it is probably good advice nevertheless). At the same time, we can intuitively understand that the person's goals might not be our own. In this subject, this might be things like idle flattery in order to get the other person to do something, or at a minimum to be better disposed toward the flatterer. So here, we'd expect the development of BS filters - something that lets you figure out whether the person means what they say, or why they're saying it.

So, I think that a lot of the skeptical, or outright negative, response to an unanticipated compliment would have fallen to this second aspect. Either that, or it is a devaluation of the compliment based on the first principle - the person making the compliment doesn't have an opinion that matters, or the attribute being complimented doesn't fall within the receiver's set of values.

 

[proteanmix]

Is compliments just a "feel good thing" or also a "get you thinking thing"? My first reaction towards a woman complimenting me is "that's nice..." then I think about why they said it, not exactly looking for hidden intentions but what they pay attention to and thus what are they interested in.

I'm not going to say that there aren't times when I do both. If, for example, I just got my hair done and I'm ambivalent about style and another woman compliments me, it's enough to push me into the positive range. That's a feel good thing. I was feeling unsure about some aspect of myself and someone compliments me about it.

I pay close attention to people. I notice minor details about their appearance and mood. So when I notice changes in others, I figure out if those changes are positive changes. I can go two ways: if I like those positive changes and I feel that the person would like some acknowledgment of the change then I give a compliment. The second way is if the person made a positive change, I noticed but didn't like it so I don't say anything. If I made a compliment at that point, I would be being insincere. I don't make a habit of doing that, but I'm not going to lie and say I haven't.

 

[Jezebel]

Question for females:

How do you feel when you're just going about your day [i.e., are not trying to look attractive or get any attention] and a man unexpectedly says, "Wow, you're really good-looking / cute / gorgeous!" or makes some other comment about your appearance?

Is this generally a welcome thing, or does it become bothersome after awhile, or.... Well, what's your perception?

Awkward. How awkward depends on the situation. For example, last month I was walking home from work and a guy stopped me on the sidewalk. He said he had seen me from his car and had to stop to talk to me, that I was very attractive and proceeded to ask me out. My first thought was, "is this a joke", and my reaction was a blank stare for several seconds followed by a quiet and confused "um, thanks but I'm already in a relationship...". He then said I was very pretty and I thanked him and walked away. I spent the rest of the walk home analyzing why someone would stop their car and get out to compliment a strange girl and ask her out. I didn't understand his intentions and I'd rate that high up on the awkward meter.

It's not so bad with people I know, but I'd still describe it as mostly awkward. It's not that it's unappreciated. I think I have a poor perception of how I look to other people and if nobody ever complimented me I'd probably just assume that I was really unattractive. It's more about not knowing how to respond to people.

All right -- to expand a little, how about in welcome threads or "What We Look Like" threads?

I posted my picture on INTPc a long time ago. The attention and knowing people were looking at me made me feel kinda weird. I ended up taking my picture down and haven't put anything else up since. It's not that I think poorly of anyone complimenting me, it's just the attention and being looked at that I don't know how to deal with. I also begin analyzing the picture quality (is that really how I look... maybe it was just a good angle, maybe I should post a lower quality picture next time.... ).

Conclusion: I think I'm overly weird about the whole thing.

 

[thirtyfour]

Slight revulsion. I'm not sure why but I think it's creepy when strangers are checking me out. I do my best to appear very bland. There are few people who I really want to notice me.

 

[FemMecha]

An important secondary aspect, though, comes from the models that say communication is actually manipulation. Manipulation of the target of an information exchange might not be inherently negative (for example, I might tell you not to stand in the middle of the freeway - I'm trying to manipulate you into moving, but it is probably good advice nevertheless). At the same time, we can intuitively understand that the person's goals might not be our own. In this subject, this might be things like idle flattery in order to get the other person to do something, or at a minimum to be better disposed toward the flatterer. So here, we'd expect the development of BS filters - something that lets you figure out whether the person means what they say, or why they're saying it.

Interesting post. Regarding the concept of communication as manipulation, there is one important distinction. I have always understood manipulation to be the process of getting a person to respond without their full consent. This is achieved through deceit, withholding information, intimidation, etc. Communication can simply inform if it respects the boundaries of individual consent. To me informing someone of the danger of standing in the middle of the road and allowing them to make their choice is different than assuming you have to find some way to force them into safety and so continue to distort information or threaten to achieve that end. Compliments can be used to inform someone. That is different than using the compliment to achieve a result unrelated to the compliment. If the compliment is the end, then it is not manipulation, if it is a means, then it is. What do you think about that?

 

[Shimpei]

If the compliment is the end, then it is not manipulation, if it is a means, then it is. What do you think about that?

There're more than two ways of compliments: You can compliment someone on their looks just to intentionally make them feel better and happy. I wouldn't say it's a manipulation.

 

[FemMecha]

There're more than two ways of compliments: You can compliment someone on their looks just to intentionally make them feel better and happy. I wouldn't say it's a manipulation.

Yeah, I was thinking about that after typing it. A compliment is not generally given to 'inform' someone only. No one is that robotic I'm guessing. There is also the end of making someone stronger, or making them weaker. Making someone stronger makes them more capable of drawing their boundaries of personal consent. In that case a compliment can be offered to give the other person more independence, autonomy, etc.

I guess that's why I am so turned off by backhanded compliments. The goal of those appears to make the person weaker, in more need of approval. If it's backhanded enough it also makes the giver of it appear to be the one who can provide that sorely needed approval. That is what strikes me as manipulation.

 

[HilbertSpace]

Interesting post. Regarding the concept of communication as manipulation, there is one important distinction. I have always understood manipulation to be the process of getting a person to respond without their full consent. This is achieved through deceit, withholding information, intimidation, etc. Communication can simply inform if it respects the boundaries of individual consent. To me informing someone of the danger of standing in the middle of the road and allowing them to make their choice is different than assuming you have to find some way to force them into safety and so continue to distort information or threaten to achieve that end. Compliments can be used to inform someone. That is different than using the compliment to achieve a result unrelated to the compliment. If the compliment is the end, then it is not manipulation, if it is a means, then it is. What do you think about that?

I can see what you're saying here. I didn't mean to imply that 'manipulation' was necessarily deceitful - my reason for talking about the freeway was mean to show that the manipulation can be honest. I probably should have said something about communication being meant to elicit a desired behavior - manipulation is a shorthand way of saying that (in behavioral evolution), and isn't intended to carry the negative connotations.

At the same time, I think that offering a compliment as an end in itself sort of falls under what I was talking about in the first bit - it is like rendering a salute. It's an acknowledgment that the receiver holds some value. - if you see an author you really like, you might walk up to them and say something like, "I just wanted to tell you that I loved your last book." A while ago, I saw a Volkswagen Beetle with the license plate "Feature." I thought it was one of the best license plate puns I had ever seen, and if I had managed to find the owner I would have complimented him on it.

Sticking it back into the evolutionary context, though, we always have to ask why these sort of exchanges develop, and why people respond the ways that they do. In complementing Feature-guy, I'd be offering him a salute on his wit, which is something I value. He might appreciate it (because not everyone gets the plate), or he might discount it (because the joke's so obvious), but I believe that it would all fall under that sort of dynamic.

 

[Kyrielle]

I feel like preening myself a little and telling myself silently, "Either he's crazy. Or I rock today."

It's flattering, but it won't win me over.

However, in threads or anything where someone says "OMG ur Os hAwT"...I tend to want to beat them about the face and neck until they learn to spell correctly. So far, this hasn't happened in threads, but it has happened in online games...those people also make me want to run very far very fast.

 

[Totenkindly]

However, in threads or anything where someone says "OMG ur Os hAwT"...I tend to want to beat them about the face and neck until they learn to spell correctly. So far, this hasn't happened in threads, but it has happened in online games...

In MMOs, I'd love to do it for you myself. I don't know why I still even keep General chat up in WoW.

 

[Kyrielle]

Which is why I don't play WoW.

If I wasn't so bad at PvP, I'd smack those r-tards! But Pete seems to do a good enough job in assisting me in fending off the ranks of nooblets. He bores them to death/makes them incredibly confused with his long-winded philsophising.

 

[Zergling]

However, in threads or anything where someone says "OMG ur Os hAwT"...I tend to want to beat them about the face and neck until they learn to spell correctly. So far, this hasn't happened in threads, but it has happened in online games...those people also make me want to run very far very fast.

U R HaWt. U R l33t 1n hAwTn3sS. j00 pwn all n00bs in hAwTn3sS.


(I don't actually talk or type like that in computer games, or anywhere else for that matter, but it is nice for jokes.)

(I haven't seen any pictures except Cafe and outmywindow, so can't compliment on appearances of anyone.)

 

[proteanmix]

To the people that get freaked out when someone compliments you: how much confidence do you have in yourselves? If you know you're talented in some way and someone confirms what you know is true then just say thank you and revel in your fabulousness.

I think the ability to receive a compliment graciously or not says a lot about a person's confidence and self-esteem levels. When I know I've written something that's very clear and explains my ideas well, I kinda know it. When I'm wearing something that's flattering to me, same thing. For those that have poor self-images a compliments may be jarring because you don't visualize yourself in that way. Sometimes I think it takes stepping out of your body and picturing how others see you.

I feel like preening myself a little and telling myself silently, "Either he's crazy. Or I rock today.

Preen and know that you rock.

 

[niffer]

My guess is that if women are getting creeped out by your flattery you aren't doing it right. Backhanded flattery is almost always a winner. It's when you deliver it directly and sincerely and look for a response that women will rightly be unsettled and suspicious.

if there's such a thing as backhanded and sincere..i think that would be best. or at least in my opinion.

 

[booyalab]

if there's such a thing as backhanded and sincere..i think that would be best. or at least in my opinion.

backhanded compliments are always sincere, just sincere about the wrong thing. "what a unique hat!"

 

[JivinJeffJones]

.

 

[booyalab]

Heh, no that's the Suspicious Female Compliment. By backhanded compliment I mean a compliment which compliments you on the way to saying something else entirely. Examples:

"Jane, see if you can get him to give us an extension - he has a soft spot for pretty girls."

"I never trust pretty people (no offence) because TV has tried to teach me that inner beauty translates into outer beauty minus style. I don't accept that."

When asked for a favour: "Dammit woman! Don't use your allure on me, I am immune to such things! Oh alright."

Okay, these examples are pretty lame, but you hopefully get the general idea. The more understated the backhanded compliment, the more likely the complimentee is to think you didn't even really realize you gave it. If they think that, then they automatically think that you were sincere in the compliment and that you weren't using the compliment from any ulterior motive. They are under no obligation to respond to the compliment and, indeed (when done correctly), must awkwardly manhandle the flow of conversation somewhat in order to address the compliment.

I think that would be a roundabout compliment, if the term existed.
A backhanded compliment is an insult disguised as flattery.