I can’t think of how to explain this to a man who is determined not to understand. You should know that right now, you are coming across as one of those people whose response to “Black lives matter,” is “All lives matter,” or who bitches when every single handicapped parking space isn’t taken on the day he had to walk a few feet.
It is fucking exhausting to have to wonder what every man’s ulterior motives are. It is really annoying to know that men don’t have to think about that all the time.
Do you know what happens when a woman returns a man’s smile, @Dinsdale? Many men interpret a smile (or even eye contact) as permission to move forward with a pursuit. If you’re listening, you’ll remember that I said this can be annoying, and lead many women to project a stone face when they’re out in public.
I used to travel every week for work, and the number of business men who believe airports and airplanes are meat markets is staggering. It was absolutely necessary to shut everyone down immediately, and that mean no eye contact, no smiling and no chatting about the weather. I’d regularly hear lovely comments like, “Bitch” or “What, you don’t smile?” in return for my efforts to protect myself.
How many of these stories do you need to hear, and from how many women, before it counts?
As others have said, there are lots of gray areas. And gray areas can be risky and threatening.
I have a pretty high tolerance for social interactions with strangers. In fact, I often find myself passing the time at an airport, or someplace else where there’s an unexpected wait, chatting up some man I’ve never met before and talking about engineering, or breeds of dogs, or some other innocuous topic the guy knows a lot about. So take my examples as the reactions of a woman who is pretty comfortable talking to strangers:
The location matters: Is it well lit? Is it easy for me to escape? Are there lots of other people around? Is it easy to attract official “security” or friends? These all make the interaction less threatening. There’s a reason I talk to strangers in airports more than when waiting for the subway to arrive.
Is your opening comment one with obvious non-sexual value if it’s uttered here and now? “Do you know where the entrance is to the subway?” “I was told there was a CVS around here, but I can’t find it. Do you know where it is?” “Excuse me, you just dropped this.” are all a lot less threatening than “that’s a nice blouse” or “Hi, I’m Matt.” In between might be something like “Oooh, Is your t-shirt an original Grateful Dead t-shirt from their Rockport concert in the 70s? I used to have one of those, but it was eaten by my washing machine, and I’ve been wondering if anyone sells them on-line.”
That’s for strangers. Of course, the stranger’s demeanor also matters, but it can be hard to judge how others will perceive you.
For acquaintances there are similar considerations. Have you trapped me somewhere private, or am I within easy sight of other people? Is it easy for me to escape if I want to? But there’s a lot more going one. What have our previous interactions been? How have I seen you interact with other people, both men and women? Are we actually friends? Friends can obviously be a lot more personal than casual acquaintances. My friend can pull me aside and say, “did you know your bra strap is showing? You might want to fix that” (or find a female friend to say that to me.) The guy I’ve been to two meetings with and haven’t really met can’t say that without it feeling a little skeevy.
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Can I tell if an utterance is innocuous? Often, but not always. Once, “excuse me, but I think you dropped this wallet” was said by a scammer, and wasn’t innocent at all. Another time it really was my wallet, and I was extremely grateful the person went out of her way to pick it up and attract my attention. (The first wasn’t a sexual threat, but yeah, it was a threat.)
Anyway, most women don’t like having strangers address them. And in particular, young attractive women are especially unlikely to like having strangers address them – they routinely get WAY too much dicey attention, and tend to find even completely innocent interactions to be an unwanted drain on their emotional energy. Remember, strangers DON’T owe you the time of day.
A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t say it to a strange man, you shouldn’t say it to a strange woman. A second good rule of thumb is avoid “trapping” anyone, man or woman. That is, don’t address strangers in isolated situation where it’s not easy for them to run or attract the attention of others.
Holy cow! That was eye-opening. I had no idea. Weird, wild stuff!
Pretty sure that is a rule of thumb I adhere to. And I’m not hitting on the guys either. 
There’s a difference between wanting your attire/presentation to elicit certain emotions out of others and wanting your attire/presentation to elicit certain behaviors. Whenever I put a lot of care into my presentation, I want people to think and feel a certain (positive) way about me. But I don’t want them to necessarily share all those thoughts and feelings with me, because that’s TMI.
At any rate, it has been my experience that women who dress in a very sensual, revealing way frequently aren’t prone to react negatively to compliments from men. I would be shocked if the average woman who dresses like a Frederick’s of Hollywood model would be offended by a man saying “You are working that dress, girl.” But that wouldn’t be representative of most women.
You’re saying (IIUC) that people send messages by the way they choose to dress. But don’t be so sure that you and they speak the same “language”: that the message you’re reading is the one they’re sending.
I agree completely. Hell - much of this thread suggests even plain words can be interpreted differently (and possibly incorrectly). But what effort ought an individual exercise to anticipate the most likely ways their message would be received?
And if anyone suggests that I am saying any woman deserves to be raped because of how they dress, they would be intentionally misconstruing what I’ve posted.
BTW - I was a tad surprised when I raised this w/ 2 women the other day. Both of them suggested it was inappropriate or unwise (I forget their exact words) for my dtr to run in a jog bra, w/o something covering it. I was surprised, and did not press the conversation further. That’s 2 out of 2 women, both in their 50s-60s, both of whom I know quite well, and both of whom would consider themselves quite liberal and quite supportive of women’s rights.
Many women are risk averse when it comes to stuff like that. Risk averse people tend to project their fears onto others, sometimes in a victim-blaming way. It transcends politics, in my experience. I’ve learned not to complain about the sexual harassment I experience on my daily walks with just anyone.
“What did you expect, walking around in that neighborhood all by yourself? You’re lucky that’s all you got!”
I just don’t know why anyone feels the need to comment on anyone else’s anything. Clothing, hair, makeup, bag, shoes, smile, earrings…the safe thing is to not comment on any of those things. Do not have a “message.”
Say “good morning!” “hello!” “Nice to see you!” “Good job on that thing you did” “How’s the weather?” “Hey can you answer this work-related question for me?” “Happy New Year!”
I have a friend who is extremely inappropriate and while he’s not inappropriate with me (he knows I’d chew him out), I am highly embarrassed for the women he speaks to. He told me once “I just feel that I need to compliment people to make them feel good.” I told him that complimenting women by mentioning any part of their body or clothing is not a compliment and it doesn’t make them feel good. He says they always smile I said what the fuck else are they supposed to do when a huge man that is prominent in their lives (usually through being a neighbor or kids being in school together) makes them feel awkward? Throw a stink so this loud mouth man can then start loudly complaining to everyone that she’s a bitch who can’t take a compliment, and have a pall cast over their kids’ school relationship for the next 12 years? Cuz he wasn’t going to say “sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, I’ll stop.” That’s for sure. Fuck that. There is nowhere for the woman to go here but to smile and take it.
Just this week there was a heated conversation on this guy’s FB wall about teachers not wanting to go back to school yet. One of his teacher friends chimed in, and he was like “You’re easy on the eyes.” Out of nowhere!! What the fuck?
You have no obligation to comment on anyone’s body. No one needs your input in that manner to feel good. Looking a person in the eye and saying “Good Morning” is all the affirmation anyone needs.
Complimenting a women on a body part is a bad idea (and more likely than not will trigger defensiveness and be poorly received).
Complimenting on clothing is not always inappropriate. There are probably better topics, and I can’t say I do it that often, but it is overly restrictive to reduce comments to weather, basic pleasantries or blather (I thought it was a choir of angels singing, but it was just ZipperJJ.). I agree first and foremost the comfort of the woman remains a main consideration.
That’s inappropriate. “Cool shirt!” is not.
Indeed.
I can’t remember ever catcalling. The one area where I’m a perfectionist is how I treat other people, and that never seemed like the way any girl/woman would want to be treated. Even if I had been inclined to, shyness would have probably prevented it. I see it happen in the school where I work, but the girls for the most part assertively tell the guys to cut it out.
Great post!
I remember a conversation I had with some coworkers at my first job. It was a very socially bonded workplace - we were basically all recent college graduates that had just moved to a big city, we had common interests and backgrounds and this was in the days before the internet. So we all became friends and hung out evenings and weekends.
Anyway, one of the guys was talking about the difficulties of meeting women and how every attempt he made at polite conversation was struck down and why wouldn’t anyone give him a chance. We were trying to explain how the polite “hello” was often a ploy to get you to let your guard down.
My friend Christy told him about something that had happened to her on the bus. Some guy sat down next to her and said “You have beautiful eyes”, she made the mistake of saying “Thank You” and his next words were “I’d like to cut them out of your face and keep them in a jar by my bed”.
The guy understood after hearing that story.
Now there is a great technique for giving a someone a genuine, no-strings, compliment. I’ve never seen it mentioned and I don’t know if there’s a name for it but I call it the hit and run. I was walking into a conference center for a business event and a man leaving the center at the conclusion of a previous event caught my eye, said “that is a really great outfit” and kept moving. I don’t know who he was and I never saw him again. And couple of times when I was on a train someone would compliment me right before they got off at their stop. People I didn’t know and had who had no expectation of ever seeing me again.
I’ve got to admit, I liked those compliments, mostly because of the total lack of any ulterior motive or expectation of reciprocity. And it WAS a great outfit.
If you are really compelled to give a compliment to a woman you don’t know, try it. But you don’t get to look back and check her reaction.
If that doesn’t sound appealing, then you probably have an ulterior motive in wanting to give that compliment and you should maybe refrain.
And of all the catcalls I’ve ever gotten, one stands out. I was walking through Manhattan in a skirt and a female voice yelled “Nice legs, baby” I looked across the street at the woman, who was about my age, and she said “ Yeah, that was me, I said that. Come on over and try something new”. But I stayed on my side of the street.
Memorable
I have to admit that I’m a sucker for compliments from men who ping as gay. A guy who is on the effeminate side can compliment me in a myriad of personable ways and I’ll feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but the same words out of a guy who pings as straight would likely make me uncomfortable.
“Girl, you are working that outfit!” If you’re a woman or you’re a gay male, I will probably giggle like a school girl and say “Thanks!” Otherwise, I will probably assume you’re making a pass at me, so I’ll try to move along as quickly as possible without acknowledging you.
So my advice to the guy who is dying to pay a woman a compliment without weirding her out is to be either super feminine in your delivery or do your best impression of Tim Gunn. Practice first, though. An impression of Tim Gunn isn’t easy to pull off.
This is the creepiest advice I think I’ve ever seen here.
I’m sorry I have a different sense of humor than you do.
There was no indication that you were joking.
Criticism withdrawn due to misinterpreting unclear post.
That’s why you need the coffee.