‘You got very nice eyes, DeeDee. Never noticed them before. They real?’
Maybe he axed.
I’m a white male, but have had similar situations.
I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis, and had really never had any contact with black people. We moved to Chicago when I was a freshman in HS, and my new school’s student body was approx. 40% African American. I ran into all kinds of trouble in my first couple weeks. I went out for football and my teamates were hard on me, I had several fights in the hallways and after school. At the onset of one of these scraps, I just asked the guy…and the crowd around us, what I was doing wrong. What I was made to understand was that I had the rap that I was snobby and thought I was superior.
I explained that I was new, and nervous about starting in a new school. Then I said that I had never met a black person before, and had no fucking idea how to act. The guy that was wanting to kick my ass said, “Well why didnt you say so”, and I was introduced and made to feel welcome for the first time since I started school. If I would have just been myself from the get-go, I probably never would have had a problem. The unfamiliarity intimidated me, and me, trying to not look intimidated, caused the problem. So I reckon, if I was you, I’d just deliver the compliment like you would to anyone else.
I’m black and American.
Two of my mom’s brothers have light eyes. One has hazel eyes and the other has green. We make fun of them a lot (kinda spirited jabs), but it’s quite rare. However, even though my eyes are the darkest of brown, I get compliments on them all the time. You completely over-thought this situation.
If I had light colored eyes and a random person complimented me on them, I wouldn’t be offended, but it might weird me out.
The other day, my father made–IMHO–a faux pas. We were at the grocery check-out line and the cashier was a young black woman with blue eyes. He was talking to me, but loud enough so that he purposefully wanted the woman to hear him.
“Are those real blue eyes? Or contacts?”
It’s like asking out loud if a guy’s muscles are “natural” or steroid-induced, or a woman’s breasts are implants or not. The woman just smiled and probably shrugged it off, but I was embarrassed.
“You can’t go wrong with a compliment” simply is not true. This isn’t a black person thing; it’s universal. Everyone is sensitive about something. A lot of people have self-esteem issues tied to something about their appearance. A compliment might indicate that you’ve honed in on that “something”…and depending on what you say, it can be taken in a way you didn’t intend.
For instance, I was in a meeting once and I was having very noticable abnormal finger and hand movements (like flapping and invisible piano-playing). I tried to hide it by sitting on my hands, but inevitably they would come out and start dancing again. Not horrifically embarrassing, but I did feel weird the whole time and just wanted to go home. As we departed, the lady sitting next to me leaned over and said that I had lovely hands. My hands aren’t ugly, but they don’t strike me as particularly beautiful either–just normal (no fingernail polish or fancy manicures for me). So I felt weird by the compliment. Without intending to, the nice lady had admitted she had noticed my movement issues. Sensing that people are noticing you is one thing. Getting confirmation is another.
Like you, I have received compliments about my non-African features before and never felt really weirded out because my so-called non-African features are mine just as much as my African ones. It’s all in how the compliment is framed. One lady (black) commented that I had a nice “grade” of hair. That’s kinda getting close to the uncomfortable line because hair is one of those touchy subjects. But if she had said, “I like your hair style” or something like that, then that discomfort wouldn’t have been there.
First chance at a real keyboard since posting the O.P. Thank you all for the replies so far.
you with the face, you kinda nailed it. I wanted to avoid bristling. It was a fleeting thought to make any kind of remark at all. Two Many Cats is right- I didn’t feel creepy considering the compliment, but I kept silent for the reasons listed in the O.P. and, of course, because of what you said. Because it’s almost always out of line to remark upon a stranger’s physical traits.
Enderw24, you gave me a good laugh. Were I inclined to remark to the woman, " My gosh, your eyes compel me to invite you to copulate with me at your earliest possible opportunity ", then yes… it woulda been beyond out of line.
Dr Drake, this is one of the reasons I kept silent. Hitting on the lady, on any level, was pretty much where I wasn’t at. But how would she know this? She wouldn’t have. Another reason to not have spoken up.
FCM, indeed you are atypical. But at least you’re now retired and atypical 
I’ve met you face to face, and I did have the good sense and level of self-preservation to remark upon the cats, the garden, the basement ( the chandelier :eek: ), but not your ass. All joking aside, I am guessing you’re not atypical at all in regards to your post. Coupling a remark on her eyes with a more general comment regarding her sparkling demeanor or the weather or the hurricane or whatever might have been more acceptable. Then again, she might have thought, " Oh man, he thinks he’s so smooth . "
Two Many cats, I am in agreement with your second post. Seems surreal to blame a woman for not wanting to be commented upon. Any person of either gender who is angry and defensive and considers bullying in the thought process whenever they engage with someone else has much larger issues.
I checked the bar code, silly.
So, I’m the only person on the Dope who sometimes looks at someone in passing and thinks, " he looks like that guy I know who’s Cherokee. Wonder if he’s part Native American" or meets a woman who reminds me of a French woman and thinks, "IS there a typical French woman opposed to Spanish or Italian? With mere kilometers separating the nations, how could there be? Would I consider Salma Hayek to be Italian or French or Spanish if I didn’t already know where she was from? Hmm. " ? Please. I guessed based on the first impression of her as I approached the front desk. I may have been entirely off-base. But I don’t think I was, and if I was- it actually does not alter the validity of my O.P. at all. My perception of the person colored my thought processes and got me to thinking as I did when I posted at the top.
piepiepie, I knew when I posted that I’d severely over-thought the situation. But then again, isn’t that what MPSIMS is about a lot of the time? Overthinking small moments and discussing them? It didn’t dominate my day. In fact, I didn’t think about it again once I posted the O.P. ( partially because I was swamped in Miami for the day, partially because I’m not that obsessed with minutae ).
It was appropriate to keep silent. I’m not going to flagellate myself over whether or not the thought was appropriate.
It wouldn’t occur to me to be put off when someone remarks upon my eyes, which have every color in them all the time.
If you’d said “You have pretty eyes for a black person” or “Your eyes are so beautiful…what are you mixed with?”, then I could see some you causing some racial discomfort.
But just saying “You have nice eyes,” no. That’s not to say you wouldn’t come across as creepy (or unoriginal), but that has more to do with you being a stranger complimenting another stranger about her looks during a business transaction. So in that regard, it would be no different than if you were complimenting her teeth or some other feature.
For no reason other then his hotness, my contribution to this thread is a picture of Gary Dourdan, the black guy with light green eyes from CSI Las Vegas.
ETA: in general, it is better for guys not to offer compliments on any part of their looks to women who are serving them professionally; waitresses, clercks, store personell, etc. They are paid to be kind to you and if they don’t like the situation, there is not much they can do about it but smile. Even with the best intentions, it is mostly just awkward.
What i love about Gary Dourdan.. was his early role on A Different world.. He played a really militant black to africa kinda guy. That cracked me up.. they got that soo right. In undergrad the lighter skin brothers were always going Malcolm X on somebody.. Being a darker skinned AA I thought that was funny as hell and use to tease em about that. BTW if you like Gary he’s in the new movie Jumping the Broom playing a chef.
Thanks, I will check it out!
Funny what you say about light skinned AA’s being more likely to go Malcolm X. I just finished Obama’s biography “Dreams of my father”. I was surprised how much of the book is devoted to his struggle about what it meant for him, to be seen as black, once he left Hawaii where he was just a mix like everyone else. He describes having his Malcolm X phase as well, although in a typical Obama fashion.