I might wet my pants if a Rueben walked off. That’d probably inhibit my chances of further compliments, though, so I’ll have to learn to hold it. 
Almost any time a strange man gives me a compliment it’s just flattery and it only makes me hostile. I’m the type to say things like “I don’t want to discuss my looks with you.” I guess I am not very warm towards strange men. But really, no man I would respect would dream of walking up to a strange woman and giving his critique of her appearance. Just because the final judgement was positive doesn’t mean I want to be reminded that I’m being judged. I guess another thing is that most of the time the guy who feels comfortable complimenting a strange woman is a guy who is willfully ignoring the little voice that is telling him not to do that. I prefer it when people pay attention to the little voice that tells them not to be obnoxious. That’s generally more my type of person in the first place.
Damn, Pokey, that’s harsh.
You never know—the museum curator might have that sort of fetish.
I’d be flattered but I might be a little flustered. So if the woman says something strange or stutters or whatever, just give her a second to recoup. I always like to think that I’ll be suave and sophisticated, but the times when someone I don’t know talks to me, I still get tongue-tied. Don’t assume that means that I’m insulted or not interested.
I enjoy it when I get a comlement on my clothes at work, but then I’m a clothes horse, and I often dress for the purpose of creating a specific image. For example, on valentines day, I wore a pink denim miniskirt, white tights with little pink hearts on them (do you realize how hard it is to find those in an adult size?), pink sneakers, a white short sleeved t-shirt with pink ribbon edging, hair in pig tails with pink ribbons, and dangly earrings with pink heart pendants, pink lip gloss, and my nails were polished to match.
I’d have been deeply dissapointed if nobody had commented on my outfit.
I figure, if you’re going to dress up for Valentine’s day, might as well go way off the deep end.
Anecdotal evidence:
About a week and a half ago I was being waited on by a waitress that really caught my fancy. She had a very tiny diamond point labret that really set her features off and upped her pretty factor by 3. I commented, “That is a very tasteful and pretty piercing.” She thanked me and smiled. After I had eaten, I decided to try and find out more about her and see if I had a chance at maybe asking her out eventually and also because she seemed like an interesting person just by appearence and I was curious about her story.
I complimented her on her glasses which also really set off her features and where quite unique, it seems she went to quite a lot of trouble to find them. We talked for some time and I asked if she had a boyfriend or husband. Turns out she doesn’t (actually, she’s going through a divorce.) and I alluded to maybe doing something sometime. She didn’t shoot me down and told me the nights she works. I decided to take a slow and non-desperate approach and told her I’d come back in some night and would look forward to seeing her and talking some more.
It was my most successful attempt at meeting a girl and trying to get a date in my recent history and it all started because I complimented her. It was a genuine compliment though, just be sincere.
Most women love compliments. I really do. Women are constantly pressured to look nice and the standards keep rising. So, since I haven’t been able to keep up everything (30 is getting closer, gravity and all), when I get a compliment it makes my day.
The gross oogling can get annoying, but I try to keep in mind how men are and try not to take offence to it. When they cross the line is when I get upset. But men can be very primal animals when it comes to a pretty girl, so I try to keep that in perspective.
That’s all.
As a joke, right?
If not, wow, I bet you do get a lot of commentary on your wardrobe.
I don’t get complimented by strangers myself, but in my pt job as a cashier, complimenting other women’s hair, hats, jewellery, etc., is a surefire way to get them to open up and, you know, actually notice you. Of course, these are only compliments that imply “You have good taste”, not “How you doin’?”.
I’m with pokey. I would find a compliment uncomfortable and threatening. At work I don’t believe it’s acceptable at all to comment on appearance.
I agree with veuve and js_africanus - a compliment on my looks are not as well received as compliments on something I can take credit for. “You have lovely eyes.” “Thanks, I grew them myself.” :rolleyes:
I always thought that it was not polite or a good idea to compliment a women who you don’t already know. After all, what is ‘polite interest’ to you may be ‘leer factor’ to her.
This isn’t really a general rule, just something for me. It relates to facility in social communications–knowing how to interpret body language, being aware of the other person instead of being lost in your own images, etc.
Looking at the difference between, say, pokey’s reaction, on one hand, and those of PinkMarabou andindygrrl, you can see why social perception would be important. This pretty much confirms what bluethree said.
For someone like me, who has had to learn social communications relatively late in life, it was always safer to say nothing.
There was quite a thread a while back about the ‘creepy factor’: what is it, does the perception of ‘creepy’ differ between men and women, can someone be projecting creepiness without their knowledge, can someone be projecting it with their knowledge, etc. I seem to remember it was a bit of a trainwreck at times.
I just can’t figure out why men find it intimidating to approach women. Does anybody have any idea? Because I’m totally stumped.
[mr. microphone]
“Hey, good-looking, we’ll be back to pick you up later!”
[/mr. microphone]
What, you mean the media has lied to me about what women like? 
Once I was shopping in Lowe’s (of all places) with my mother. While wandering around looking for whatever it was we were looking for, a man walked up to me and said I had the most beautiful hair he’d ever seen. I said thank you, and he went on about his business. It really made my day!
If there’s no smirking, no innuendo, and no touching, I love a compliment from a stranger.
Occasionally a bit of innuendo is even OK. Depends on the circumstances.
Something I definitely do not like is overhearing a guy who is addressing his remarks about my physical attributes to another guy, and not directly to me. “Hey, Vinny, get a load of the earlobes on that chick” is not good. “Gee, Miss, you have nice earlobes” is fine, unless the speaker immediately grabs one of my earlobes and starts fondling it.
Haha, I assume by “earlobes” you actually mean “ass.”
devilsknew: that is a great story, and is exactly the kind of compliment I love to get.
I try to compliment other women, and men if they seem fashion-conscious. For the guy in the old jeans and used-to-be-white T-shirt, I never know what to say, even if he’s cute. “Hot” isn’t as much of an accomplishment for men (since there is less they can do about it), so it is almost impossible to compliment a man that you don’t know very well.
OTOH, I do ballroom and swing dances, and I’ve found that the best way to get asked for a second dance is to tell my partner that “he makes me look good” on the dance floor. It’s worked almost every time.
D’oh! I always get those body parts mixed up. Y’know, it gets really ouchy sitting on chandelier earrings all day long.