Alice, dear, I want to tell you something my father told me when I was but a wee tot, and I have carried it through my life. I have it embroidered on a sampler, and I frequently have cause to gaze upon it and go, “how true, how true.”
“People Are Assholes.”
As always, Eve, you’re wisdom is dizzying. I say the same thing myself quite often.
On the other hand, I would like to say 2 things. 1) Maybe, Alice, you should work somewhere else, because theose folks obviously don’t know a damn thing about appropriateness in the office (or wherever).
And 2) Man would I loive to get a positive comment on my looks. Only two people have ever told me, really truthfully, that I lookk good, and they are my mother and my wife. And I think my mother said it because I was wearing a nice suit at the time.
Otherwise, I get a lot of “How you doing? You look like shit.” etc. etc.
True, my health hasn’t been the best, and I am unable to really excercise, but damn, I’m not a walking tumor either.
[Sulking]
I would love to see that sampler, Eve.
My car has a bumper sticker that says “God was my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.”
Anyway…I was a chubby kid that hit a growth spurt or something in high school and it all evened out, so I’ve been on both sides of the fat/skinny fence. I personally don’t like people commenting about my weight, because it’s still a sensitive issue. I can’t say I’m lucky enough to have had someone walk up and say “you have nice tits/ass/whatever” but I imagine if I did, I’d find some way to utilize the situation to publicly embarass them. Of course, the way I normally dress tends to repel random people talking to me.
About the only thing I ever get comments on is my eyes, which are an odd colour, and I wear very dramatic makeup… I don’t think I’d have the right to be offended by a compliment on something that I deliberately (and obviously) draw attention to.
I have a hard time with this. On one hand, people like to look good. On the other, so many are touchy about getting input on their appearance. The whole phenomenon thoroughly confuses me.
I, too, get commented on about my weight here or there, or what great eyes I have, or blah blah blah. But, I always ask myself, why does this irritate me? I obviously put some effort into my appearance so that others will think something of me, or think better of me, etc etc. I want to be noticed, appreciated, pleasant looking. And yet any comment about my appearance seems to rub me the wrong way, and make me self-conscious even if it was a genuine comment.
So strange. But, to tell the truth, I eyeball all girls all the time. Maybe if I did compliment them once and a while I’d get a date. Because let me tell you, saying nothing to people doesn’t get me anywhere.
If I see somebody I haven’t seen for a while, and it seems that they are well, I sometimes say: “You look great!” Sometimes I’ll add “I guess life’s been good to you!”
Is that bad?
If it’s not, consider this:
There’s lots of shallow people out there, living there life right at the surface. They perceive life and other people by how they appear at the moment.
Not posessing much in the way of deep thoughts, their conversational gambits are going to be about appearances. By making their comments, haven’t they done you a favor by identifying themselves to you as persons of little consequence?
Now you can save the effort of actually considering what they might say. You know it’ll all just be fluff.
There’s a silver lining, so perhaps you should be greatful.
OTOH, commenting on personal appearances seems to be trending upwards. Maybe they think making the comments is “safe” like talking about the weather.
Who knows the inner workings of small minds?
Yeah, I think most of the time, “you’ve lost weight” comments are inappropriate. But it comes down to context.
As erislover said, you’re in the gym, where presumably you’ve been working out to get those “killer abs”. I really think that was a simple compliment.
Usually when my mum tells me she thinks I’ve lost weight, it comes with an implied “thank God, because you were starting to look like a beachball” attached. However, if I ever decided to go to some kind of Weightwatchers thing and was aiming to lose weight, the same phrase from a fellow 'watcher would be a compliment and wouldn’t wind me up at all.
Embra “who watches the weightwatchers?”
And, you know, in light of Scylla’s comment, it strikes me that superficiality-as-passing-remark is rather necessary. After all, you don’t just walk up to someone and say, “Hey, at what point exactly does a fetus become a human being?” And when a person notices your positive appearance, they (quite naturally IMO) assume you like it that way, and so figure it is, indeed, safe ground like weather comments, the odd political jab, or a passing remark about a local sports team.
Of course, as Scylla also notes, those casual and superficial remarks are sometimes all you will ever get from some people. But try not to hold that against those of us who just want to say something to you and aren’t quite sure where to begin. 
Well, I don’t think that this woman meant it as an insult, but it was still totally creepy.
There you are, naked, trying to get changed into street clothes, when some person starts commenting on your body? Yuck.
I’m just not crazy about the idea that someone checking me out in the locker room, and if she is, it would be nice if she kinda kept that fact to herself - knowhatamean?
And incidentally, I don’t know what she was talking about anyway - I mean, my stomach looks fine, but I’m certainly not going to win a Janet Jackson or Halle Berry ab look-alike contest any time soon. I don’t know if she was trying to strike up a conversation or what.
It was just creepy - hence its inclusion in my little mild rant here.
If I were standing at a urinal and the guy next to me leaned over and said, “Hey, big piece of man-meat you’ve got there!” I would not be pleased.
But abs aren’t nearly as intimate a body part, and in a context where yours are visible it’s hard to imagine a fair person taking offense at such a comment.
Well, except that abs are conveniently located directly between two rather more intimate body parts (or three, I suppose).
If you were changing and some guy said “Hey - nice thighs”, wouldn’t you be a tad nonplussed?
I’d say IN A GYM the abs is meant as a compliment. I wouldn’t mind it - but my abs aren’t exactly a “six-pack”, more like a “six-pack-a-night”.
You should be VERY careful, anywhere, who you say “Nice glutes” to, however…
There’s a creepy guy accross the lot from my work who is a courier or something and I see him daily. He tries to be friendly, but is inept and sometimes downright stalker scary. He complemented my abs the other day as I was walking to my car.
I was completely dressed, as I usually am for work.
I don’t think he was looking at my abs.
Hi Opal!
These people are just idiots. They have no idea how to converse on a normal social level. ‘You look nice today’ is acceptable. Specific body-related comments are not.
I would love for someone to say something nice about my body, apart from my eyes and face. I wouldn’t care if it were a guy or a girl. I like feeling attractive. :shrug:
Sorry, i know that sort of contradicts my previous post, but I think it all depends on my mood. If I am feeling low and someone compliments me I don’t want to hear it, but if I am feeling good and someome compliments me I love it.
Anyway, I think I have nothing to add to this thread anymore. 
Just take your cue from Eeyore: “Thanks for noticing me.”
That’d be my reaction, as no one pays much attention to me…
Only in your personal universe. Sorry, but I simply do not remark on anything about people I work with. Not their eyes, not their blouse, not their new haircut. And you better goddamned believe it, not their " tits or ass".
After thinking for years that paying a POLITE compliment was acceptable, I’ve had it. For the last time have I said, " your new haircut is great". There is a new zero tolerance around town, and while I’m glad that you feel good about yourself, and that you find remarks that I quoted from you up above to be acceptable, the plain truth is that I have absolutely no way of knowing if complimenting a blouse, a haircut, a piece of jewelry or whatever- is going to elicit EXACTLY the kind of rant you wrote in your O.P.
Fuck it. People can get their egos stroked elsewhere. I HATE being talked to like a piece of foul-talking scum for making what I was raised to believe was a polite and appropriate remark. I was literally told once ( after remarking on someone’s haircut ), " Did I fucking ask you what you thought? Do I care?? ".
Carry on. I meet people all the time, as a Sub Teacher, I did daily as a freelance Cameraman. I simply quit it. There are other things to talk about besides what the other person looks like. I’ve learned that keeping it all to myself is the most polite and most politically correct thing to do.
YMMV.
Cartooniverse
To be very honest, not once in 39 years have I ever said to a man OR a woman, directly or as a remark to a third party, " gosh, she’s got great *** " or, " Man, look at her ***".
I was raised not to, and that kind of locker room crap never found a place in my heart.
Hey FairyChatMom - nice tits.
Squeeze me? I’m pretty sure the title of my OP was “Please don’t comment on my appearance.”
Not “Comment on my appearance, but only in a pre-approved way” or “Comment on my appearance, but only if you’re going to say something I like”, I said “Please don’t comment on my appearance.”
I didn’t swear. I didn’t call people names. Heck, I even said please.
For the record - I don’t NEED my ego stroked, thank you very much. As a few posters have pointed out, I’m a conceited snot-box, even though the only actual comment I made about my appearance is that I don’t have abs like Janet Jackson, these posters have deduced that I’m totally full of myself. Fine.
I will not apologize to anyone for being confident.