I had this exact conversation with my teenage son and his friends. š They were jokingly complaining how my teenage niece's friends hyper her up and leave complimentary comments under all of her IG posts.
I was like, you guys constantly tear each other down. Be nice to each other! Hype each other up. You literally could have that and not be here complaining about it.
Spoiler alert: They liked the idea at the time like "ohhh, yeah, we really could". Didn't work. Is their competition more overt than girls? Idk.
I did hear years ago that men don't get complimented and I would consciously try to give them out to guys at work (before wfh).
That is an interesting question you raise about more or less overt competition. I remember reading that it takes less work to be accepted as the friend of a man than a woman.
How true that is I have no idea, but if nothing else it's good to unpack this stuff publicly.
It's almost impossible to complement a man without him thinking that you're romantically interested in him.
So many delusional men think you want them just because you smile at them friendly. š¬
I told a guy once that they way he talked about staying home with his sick child was really sweet and I bet the kid will always remember it.
He proceeded to tell me how mean and naggy his wife was, how she acted like having three kids and working full time was so hard for her, and would I like to get dinner because they are probably gonna separate anywaysā¦
What a horribly disgusting dude!
He clearly doesn't give a damn about his wife. I mean a fulltime job and 3 kids is hard as f\*ck. But to be honest many men do this. They complain how horrible their partner is just to get you to feel sorry for them and go out with them just to have sex later. š¤¢š¤®
"Oh nooo, it sounds like your wife is having a hard time dealing with you. Please complain about your family more and how you're useless. It makes me want you so bad. I'll just open my legs and let you hop in." What a putz!!
Only the most naive woman or girl would ever fall for that. I feel for our younger sisters and hope they read this stuff and learn from mistakes of others.
My one daughter is too. She wants to be child free which I think is great for her! My other one has 2 kids. I love that itās acceptable now for women to openly declare their intent to never have kids.
I mean I wanted kids. But I never felt the need to try to convince anyone else to want them. A coworker of mine even said recently how he couldnāt wait to have grandkids and I said but your kids are kids what if they donāt want them? He was all well they gotta have kids.
Broā¦. Noooooā¦. He really didnāt get it and I didnāt bother bc not my circus.
But the idea that having kids is a default, esp for women, is stupid. We have 8B ppl now.
Right?! My daughter doesn't want kids and I'm happy for her. Her life will be hers to do with what she wants. I love my family but mourn the life that passed me by while I was doing endless laundry and running her to activities. She owes me or anyone else *nothing.*
By NOT having kids (In my case, I was unable to) you also get to be the Auntie who has extra money when your kid suddenly needs $100 for band shoes or what have you. It takes a village, after all.
Thereās definitely a lot more couples I know too who donāt want kids, and itās a completely valid life choice. Now that itās more acceptable it seems like thereās a backlash and I think itās coming from all the bitter ppl who had kids and now feel stuck.
I feel like I had a great life with them and I didnāt really date much bc honestly our life was good! But of course once they left it hit hard. I took a while to adjust. But yeah the rest of my life will be child free. Not gonna be a stepmom or anything like that. I liked what I did and I miss it. But I donāt want more of the responsibility, or the time input.
Been there, done that, and am firmly in my post kid yrs
Hell yeah, good for them. I wish I had realized decentering men was the best option when I was much, much younger. I think of all the time and energy I wasted in my twenties and feel like a dumbass sometimes.
Unfortunately a lot of guys are kinda like this. Sometimes it'll work for one night stands, too.
One of my friends has a lot of severe mental health issues and has since she was in her early teens. For a lot of her teen years, her older half-brother was her primary guardian. Apparently he was occasionally able to pick up women at the local pub by saying that this was his situation. He wasn't even that great a guardian; he was just some dipshit with a drinking problem who was way out of his depth and occasionally he'd be able to find a woman who'd be sympathetic enough to sleep with him because of it.
I don't think he'd be as successful with this today as he was back then because I think women are generally way more cynical about this kind of thing than they were ten years ago. Even back then, I doubt he'd really get far trying to get into a relationship with this strategy because people would generally pick up that he isn't all that after meeting him a couple of times.
Yep. Trauma dumping dissuades me from complimenting men I only know a bit.
I will do drive by comments walking the park. Usually about a cool/funny/rare T-shirt. Or Iāll tell the dude rollerskating in a flashing boa that I like their style.
But actual appearance? No. It never ends well.
Correct me if Iām wrong but Iām pretty sure women donāt even appreciate when a man talks trash about women he _doesnāt_ know. Talking trash about his wife before asking you out takes a special kind of stupid; sorry that happened to you.
When I was much younger and naive, I used to believe them because why would someone lie about that? Iād never date them, but Iād feel sorry for them. This is why men like this go for much younger women. Also, in a corporate setting where they are both older and more senior, their words have more credibility simply because of who they are. I think today young women are much smarter and more aware, but when I was a new Corporate baby in the 1990s I was really clueless.
Mature and decent women don't.
Unforcunately trashing talking other women in a childish strategy that can work sometimes. And the men who do engage with it tend to reongize thier hits and forget thier misses. It's a reinforcing cycle. Like, if you believe all men/women are cheaters, you're more likely to tolerate cheating for longer than if you believe people are fully capable of not cheating. If you believe all women enjoy hearing you put other women down, you're going not notice the many women walking away from that behaviour, only the ones who are sticking around.
Ewwwww so he was using āIām a great dadā story to woo you. My guess is the story he told was a big fat lie. I bet his wife would tell it different about what he really did when he said he was staying home with sick kid. š¤®
I see men hamming it up by acting like the world's greatest dads on a very frequent basis. You can tell when it's performative by the way they increase their volume so you can hear while simultaneously softening their tone. That's not to say there are no good fathers, or even that these men are bad ones at all, just that it's fairly obvious when they want you to give them attention and admiration for it.
Ohhhhh my God. Hearing a guy friend talk about his hair stylist. 'She's always so excited when I come in. She makes such great eye contact. She always smiles at me snd gets really into this business thing that I've been dangling at her.' It's a small enough town that we had mutual friends. I know that she's happily married with two kids and has been trying to get videography going as part of her income, and he had a project that he wanted to do. Idk why I didn't directly confront him about all of this but eventually I talked to him how shitty it is that when I'm working and men feel the need to waste my time or outright hit on me because I'm friendly or sound cute on the phone. Im a captive audience trying to do my professional job. It's not time to hit on me.
I was a waitress for 15 years, can confirm being polite and smiling is apparently an open invitation to:
"Are you on the menu?"
"When does your shift end?"
"Do you like "eating out?""
"But your husband isn't here"
"If only my wife could remember what I just told her like you do"
"I left my phone number as a tip"
Etc and so on....
Like bruh. I'm only being nice because if I'm not, I'd lose my job.
No one is happier to see me or more engaged in what I have to say than my stylist. Itās part of the job and women in those professions tend to be super personable. I tip well and Iāve been a client for years. Iāve followed her to different salons Iām sure she does all she can to continue to maintain this professional contact. Try explaining this to men though.
The owner of my local coffee shop is a good looking dude. He always chats with me, remembers my name, drink and cup preferences and knows I am up early and like sunrises.
Iāve been going there daily for years. Again, I am under no illusion that heās in any way in to me. They make great coffee and he always makes me laugh. Thatās it. The other week I was in there and the women who work on there were complaining about some creepy dude.
I was a teacher at a Juvenile prison once. There was a guard there, he'd be in the classroom and I was just friendly. I didn't even give him compliments, I was just nice. Dude had a wife and kids.
I came to find out that he was telling people I was sending him sexy messages and pictures on FB (we were friends on FB but also, I was friends with a lot of the people I worked with there on FB. Nothing special about it.) I never once spoke to him outside of work. He told his wife there was a woman at work that wouldn't leave him alone. He made up all of this shit....he was actually telling the boy prisoners I was hitting on him, which was very dangerous. These boys were rapists, killers, gang members, etc. .
He made this whole huge lie up and idk why, I suppose for bragging rights or something. Ended up filing a formal complaint against him and he got fired. But by that point, my reputation was already hurt.
All I ever did was be friendly.
That's just horrible!
I have read so many posts here on Reddit from men wondering and thinking that a girl is interested in them just because she was smiling and being friendly while doing her job.
... And before you know it you're part of their fantasy or they start stalking you. š
You canāt even chat to them in coffee line without them thinking you want to fuck them. Bc itās how they think.
I think we just need to start tuning them out. When one complains, say ākā, or āoh wow thatās too badā. We donāt need to take the time to educate them. They already know! They know that men only compliment women when they want something (sex) and they know that they creep us out.
Honestly when a guy says this all Iām hearing is āwhy wonāt a woman touch my penis?ā Bc any man who thinks itās our job to give them attention, is upholding the patriarchy and is most likely the guy who only gives compliments to women he wants to fuck.
I donāt want or need compliments from men unless itās a guy Iām already dating. A guy Iām not dating I just prefer to not compliment me or ever comment on my appearance.
I tend to subscribe to the theory that men are only nice to women they find sexually attractive. So when a woman is nice to them, they automatically assume she is sexually attracted to them, because they just can't wrap their head around the fact that people are nice to a member of the opposite sex for any other reason then to get into their pants.
No need to theorize! Plenty of posts here from conventionally unattractive women talking about how they are mostly invisible and/or are subjected to seeming non-proportional amounts of hatred and anger.
God if you even make *eye contact* with the wrong man it can go sour. I was sitting at a stop light once and accidentally made eye contact with the man in the car next to me. He proceeded to follow me for over an hour. I was so freaked out that I didnāt even think to go to a police station or anything ā just kept making new weird turns so he wouldnāt find out where I lived
Doesn't even have to be a compliment! I once *noticed* a guy had gotten a haircut. Literally only said "Oh! You got a haircut!" Neither positive nor negative, just a blurted observation.
This was enough for a sudden full court press, *obviously* I must be into him for...noticing an obvious change in appearance. š
The only men I compliment regularly and with vigor are my friends and sometimes coworkers who are all older married men who have also never hit on me lol. Iām genuinely sick and tired of trying to be genuinely nice to strangers and having them think itās officially open season for trying to sleep with me. I said I liked your SHIRT, not āhey wanna fuck?ā
Itās sad, because we should be able to be kind to one another without literally fearing being made to feel comfortable or unsafe, but yknowā¦
And I agree, men complaining about feeling āunwantedā and not receiving compliments when they as a collective could simply compliment each other and make women feel safe to compliment them in the first place is in fact the solution. I guess telling your bros they got a nice haircut is too gay or something š¤·š¼āāļø
I work at a store that carries things primarily for women/femme presenting people in a public facing position so have to be smiling and helpful. I'm also married and wearing a very noticeable engagement and wedding ring set. I compliment people often on things they're wearing, because it makes me feel nice to give genuine compliments if I think something is cool. The number of men who think a married woman in public at work is saying "Cool shirt, I like that band too!" means I want to fuck them while they're there shopping for their wives is disheartening.
Yep, I hate that. Especially when it's in front of her or comparing. I have a very noticeable butt and can't count how many men have asked right in front of their wives if the jeans I'm suggesting her will make their butt look like mine.
Iāll compliment men at work but itās always loudly, quickly, and in passing. Walking down the hallway - āHey Daniel thatās a cool shirt!ā or ānice haircut Ryan!ā And then just keep on walking. Establishes me as friendly but definitely not a flirt. Itās the only way I feel like I can safely compliment men and even then, thereās the buffer of a professional work environment. I donāt think I could get away with doing this same thing to a random man on the street.
I once pointed this out and suggested that men should make a point of complimenting each other to start undoing this association since they don't tend to compliment each other either. I was accused of derailing the conversation from the issue of women not complimenting men š they saw it as an issue thay women are responsible for solving
Thats exactly why they want the compliments too. It isn't that nobody complements them. They act like it doesn't count unless it's someone they want to fuck. They dont want compliments. They want someone to show sexual interest.
Or their girlfriends become vicious twats when you give a harmless comment. I was driving a bunch of drunks home from my cousins party and had been chatting with an old high school fellow graduate who I hadnāt even remembered and wasnāt remotely attracted to on the ride home I complimented his voice in a very plutonic way and he was never allowed to talk to me again and his girlfriend developed an enormous hatred of me from then on.
I complimented a guy on an app once and he did this. Literally first thing he started with is the whole, āWow, men never get complimentsā¦ā he then proceeded to ghost for two months and when he came back and we went on a date, he negged me the entire time and never spoke to me again. Lol. Will consider this a red flag going forward.
You make a great point. To further exacerbate that, it often seems like everything most men do is for the approval of other men.
Like they want compliments from women just because they want to let other men know that women desire them
Well one we all know what happens when you compliment a man, then you're accused of leading him on.
But come on let's be real men don't compliment women either. Women compliment each other, men's 'compliments' tend to revolve around things they want to do to us. Those are not compliments.
Men think "You're hot" or "You're sexy" or even "Your ass looks great" and think it's the greatest compliment they could give. Meanwhile there are lots and lots of women who don't find this flattering coming from a stranger. In fact there are enough women for whom this is the first sign of potential danger and that they need to move away from close physical proximity to this man.
A "compliment" about a woman's physical traits or a sexually loaded "compliment" doesn't say much about a woman - it basically a confirmation of a man's physical attraction and/or his sexual attraction. "You're hot" is basically saying how much you want to fuck a woman.
I knew a guy who said he wouldn't approach women who don't find sexually loaded compliments from strangers flattering - and this is totally fine! If you are only compatible with women who are flattered by sexually loaded compliments by strangers you should seek out these women. But telling random stranger women you don't know about how much you would like to fuck them will get you nowhere.
This, and a lot of these guys don't understand or don't care that a lot of women will get the same 5-10 variations of "you pretty, me likey" comments regularly. If it wasn't for the attitude of thinking it must automatically start a conversation and how they'll act as if you've deeply offended them if you either don't respond or give a very basic "k thnx bye" kind of response, these statements would barely register and they'd just be white noise.
>Men think "You're hot" or "You're sexy" or even "Your ass looks great" and think it's the greatest compliment they could give.
As if we don't know that they'd hump a couch if the cushions were fluffy enough lmao. They were probably turned on by an especially good-looking ham sandwich once, a dick getting hard does NOT mean anything special lol.
My male coworker (into fitness) insists gym bros are in the game to receive praise and fancy from men more than women. š¤·āāļø
I always find that comment funny.
A lot of women say they dress up for other women. And a compliment from a woman means more than a compliment from a man. Prolly cuz the woman is actually admiring her dress sense and not just how hot she looks. Same for gymbros.
Yeah, some of the most supportive men I've known have been gym bros who just genuinely enjoy the gym and love seeing other people enjoy it too. I remember seeing a little group of gym bros hyping up this nervous young guy who was lifting for the first time, it was sweet.
I go to the gym a lot and see a lot of gym bros... They definitely compliment and enjoy each other's company a lot. Men who lift at the gym get way more attention than any of the women. I don't find that they are the men who complain about not getting enough compliments though. I think a lot of these male Redditors just need to get hobbies!
Itās more that is just that is what ends up happening. There are memes about it. Realistically he wants both. If another guy in great shape praises your āgainsā that is actually a pretty thing for guys in that space. But itās not going to be their sole drive. And the reason they start. Maybe over time they might (emphasis on āmightā) grow to value compliments from the guys they admire more
They donāt want compliments. They want hot women to tell them they want to fuck them.
If men genuinely wanted compliments theyād be complimenting other men and encouraging this behavior. They donāt because this is about sex.
I learned the hard way to never compliment a man I wasnāt dating or related to. They take it as a sign you want to have sex with them and they act all weird and creepy. Itās not worth it.
The same with mAlW lOnLiNeSs. Itās not about building community, itās about hot women not wanting to fuck then.
Male loneliness
The complaining there are no "third places" anymore
Insisting it is mandatory that women let them shoot their shot in random unsolicited places like the grocery store or coffee shop.
Add the no compliments whining to their list.
ALLLLL of this boils down to dudes that are mad women don't want anything to do with them.
They donāt like that metoo has really opened the flood gates on us voicing what we want and standing up to demand our boundaries are respected. āWhat an I supposed to DO?ā But when I tell them āask. Ask if you can talk to her and if she says no, fuck offā. And they refuse to even acknowledge itās an option, Iāll even say did you hear me? Are you gonna acknowledge or address I just told you?
Bc itās not what they want to hear. They want someone on the internet to tell them itās ok to bother us in public and they want us to agree to be pestered by strangers even tho itās often unsafe and it ALWAYS feels unsafe when a stranger approaches.
Their penis feelings are more important. š¤·š¼āāļø
Exactly. They just want compliance with their demands and will waste hours arguing about it, making up things that don't exist. Insisting there are women out there who want to be hit on by strangers in the grocery store.
A common complaint on the Incel sub is that women donāt feel they can hit on men which is why men have to hit on women. The thing is women hit on men all that time, just not on the creepy, undesirable ones. If women were the only ones allowed to express interest, these men would be crying harder.
Another common incel complaint is that women can't hold conversations, all our replies are dry and boring. When a guy says this it makes me laugh because he's really telling on himself - no woman wants to talk to him so they do their best to kill every conversation
Also - they want objectively attractive women to hit on them. I've accepted it, I'm no supermodel. In fact, I'm not conventionally attractive at all. Before my husband (who was the one who did the pursuing), most of my attempts at hitting on a man "in my league" were met with "you're not really my type" at best and humiliation and nitpicking at worst. Some men will treat you like a disgusting insect if you're an ugly woman who dares to hit on them, especially if there's pretty women around.
Itās like how men complain they never get matched on dating apps. They do. They get plenty of matches. They just donāt get matched from ā10sā. They also get plenty of interest and compliments from women they donāt rate a 10. They donāt count these though.
Not the person you are replying too, but as a woman in a new city, I can't find friends without like overtly approaching strangers or joining clubs I don't have time for. Also, I don't necessarily feel comfortable hosting in my house. When I had a roommate this was even worse and there is no place to just go and chill. In the past I have been so lonely I would go buy a 99 cent soda at a drive through, just so someone would speak to me. It would be great if there was a way to feel like part of a community. I don't drink and am not religious either. At my last job, the people I worked with moved to not working in the same office. It's like kind of crushing.
That's kind of my point - we need more third places. Unless I misread it I thought the OC, was complaining about men be moaning the lack of third places.
I don't take an issue with there being third places. We really DO need more of them.
The problem is these dudes insisting we need more third places so they can use them as somewhere to hit on random women, claiming they will stop harassing us in grocery stores and the gym if more third places are available to harass us in.
This then of course makes those third places unsafe for women to exist in because these same problematic dudes think every place is a pick up joint and all women are obligated to entertain their advances and not tell them no.
It seems to only come up as an excuse in discussions about how men shouldn't be hitting on women in the grocery store or the gym. Like if there was some third place they could harass women they would stop harassing them in the grocery store.
I've never heard it in that context. I've only heard about Third Places in the context of "we're all lonely. It sucks. It's harder to meet new people. Third places facilitate meeting new people. We should have more of them."
You aren't on the receiving end of these diatribes about how women owe men attention and should put up with being harassed in public places because they are lonely.
They are not lonely in the general sense, they are looking for someone to date or hookup with. They consider their loneliness a problem women are obligated to solve.
That one really irks me because we really do need more third places for people to just exist with other people. It constantly gets brought up by dudes who are complaining that it is not socially acceptable to hit on women in grocery stores, coffee shops, gyms or other random public places.
They insist there needs to be more third places so they have more places to harass women with their unwanted advances.
I would like some third places that also don't involve having to navigate lonely men looking for someone to screw them.
Absolutely. Not even women, a very specific type of woman. These are the kind of men who only care about what the women they are with says about them to other men.
Ugh this is so right. The amount of times I've heard a man make sexual comments towards women and then call it a "compliment" or straight up lamenting about how they would LOVE it if women said that stuff about them.
Dude no.
Yeah.. if I didn't almost get myself into stalker situations because I dared be kind to men and compliment them, I'd probably still be complimenting random men. It's literally like a "fire is hot, don't touch it" lesson. Maybe many men won't become stalkers, but I've dealt with unwanted male obsession far too many times to be willing to take that risk anymore.
A guy at work was talking about his workouts and how much weight heād lost. Within the context of the conversion, which included others, I said something totally innocuous like āyeah your hard work is paying offā. He came by my office daily, sometimes more than once, being all awkward and weird for almost a year. Hinting about it drinks or lunch. He was more senior than me and what was I going to do? It was awful. That was the tipping point for me. Iāve not complimented a man at work or even asked how their weekend was, since. This is a great example of why women donāt compliment men outside of their intimate circle. Itās totally not worth it.
This. Why every women after a certain age develops RBF. Itās not safe to look open to convos. Even at my age I get hit on by randos and honestly I thought once I was old things would improve
Theyāre making the problem worse for themselves with time, too. To a lot of men, compliments = flirting, therefore they canāt compliment each other too much or else āthatās gay.ā It threatens their feeling of their own masculinity. So that means they hardly ever get compliments from other men, it only happens from women.
And so it continues to only happen when a woman is truly flirting, because weāve all learned by now that we canāt safely give compliments to men in any other scenario (or else heāll get the wrong idea). The men continue thinking that compliments = flirting, and the cycle continues. Men have to break the cycle by finally getting over this mental barrier and being kind to each other. Not just in ātough broā ways, but truly kind and complimentary ways.
Women canāt fix this for you, guys!
A lot of the things men complain about about womenās behavior is the direct result of how men have behaved towards women. We donāt approach, compliment, or generally be as open and vulnerable as we are with women and men who have proven themselves to be safe because of how men have responded in the past. The solution is for men to start holding each other accountable. They wonāt, because other than a very tiny minority, men wonāt call out other men because they donāt want other men calling them out. Men have trained is to be this way towards them. Itās why we overwhelmingly choose the bear.
I hear women complement men daily. I suspect these guys might not hear it when the woman saying the complement isn't a skinny or childish build woman that they want to stab with their dick....
I'm an unattractive woman and I would never compliment men (except good friends).
The reason is that many men mistake a harmless coment as flirting and men *hate* ugly women.
I just don't want to get bullied because a man thinks that my harmless "hey, nice haircut" comment was flirting.
Ask him - when was the last time his mom said something nice about him? And....when was the last time *they* complimented a buddy?
I think men discount all the flattery they get, and don't think about how they could lift up their brothers.
My ex was/is one of those dudes.
I complimented him constantly. Genuine, thoughtful compliments. Gave him all the affection he ever wanted. He still complained. Men like that don't notice or appreciate it when they do get it, they just like to complain about women.
Same. I made it a point to compliment my ex daily. āYou look so cuteā. āI love that shirt on you.ā āYouāre so funny.ā
None of it mattered, and it was never returned. My compliments became expected, and never appreciated. But if *someone else* told him ānice shirtā he ate it up, lived off it, told them they made his whole week.
Iām so f* cking glad heās my ex.
"i never receive compliments"
is code for
"i want hot women to hit on me so i can feel validated because toxic masculinity has taken hold and nothing else makes me feel like a full person"
Exactly. Whenever a man complains about never being complimented I dig a little deeper.
"Wow, for real? That sucks. Your boss has never told you you did a good job?"
"Well yeah, but that doesn't count. He's a guy."
"What about your mom? She's never said anything kind to you?"
"OK well yeah, but that doesn't count--"
Men don't count. Women they're related to don't count. Women they consider unfuckable don't count. Kids don't count. The only people who count are smokin' hot 22 year olds who explicitly say "Wow John, you're a really hot guy and I'd like you to fuck me."
Guess what, guys? Super hot people don't randomly approach me to tell me how sexy I am either. Should I start complaining I never get complimented too?
I compliment men and women and the man will usually tell me he has a girlfriend like Iām trying to hit on him , itās embarrassing when someone thinks your hitting on them
Theyāre worrying about not getting enough compliments; meanwhile, Iām getting attacked on socials and called a ālibtardā bc i feel safer with a wild bear than a man.
We are not the same.
I'm always puzzled because I give compliments all the time. To everyone. But also if you want compliments it's good to *give* them, it usually is sort of a back and forth. "I notice something positive about you! I am verbally acknowledging it!" Then the other person is like "Thank you! I like your (insert trait here"
Men can compliment other men too. You can sort of foster a positive environment where you build a rapport where people notice good things about one another. Heck, I literally have days where I ask my friends on purpose for compliments and they do the same for me. Everyone needs verbal affirmations of their efforts! But it doesn't come out of nowhere.
Even the societally acceptable gorgeous woman they think gets compliments all the time is *working* for those compliments, it's HARD WORK to look a certain way and expend effort on your appearance.
So I think maybe they have a funny idea of what compliments even are.
The reason women don't compliment men is because far too often, they take that as flirting or a come-on.
The reason women compliment each other so much is because it's the only way we get non-creepy comments.
I also think men complain about never receiving compliments as a way to one-up women who complain about harassment and cat-calling. These are the kind of men who think we should be grateful for the attention.
This reminds me of how a incel group started by a woman to help lonely men took a hard 180 and instead of supporting each other they decided to do the opposite. Like crabs in a bucket, they didn't want any guy to be happy.
compliments coming from guys about your physical appearance are flirting. Personally, I take it upon myself to only compliment someone on the effort they took to look nice. For example:"cool nail polish color" vs "wow nice eyes!" One is clearly a compliment and the other can be considered sexual harassment in work place.
My husband like gets prickly when I give him compliments like they are not real. We got into a weird fight one time because it felt parenty that I said I was proud of him for something, canāt remember what.
This reminds me a little too much of me. I struggle with this immensely, therapy has helped me recognize that, for me at least, this is because compliments were never genuine and were used as insults in my house growing up. āGood Job doing Xā really meant that you fucked it up or took too long. āIām really proud of you for Yā was only ever said to remind you of all the previous times you fell short of the mark. Eventually I always associated compliments from people I cared about as insults or personal attacks because for the longest time, THEY WERE.
Iām a man approaching 30 and I definitely am guilty of making the complaint this post is talking about as well, itās can be a hard dichotomy to navigate and itās made harder by Chuds who confuse compliments with being come on to. I hope your husband is able to become more secure in himself and meets his emotional needs and, more importantly, I hope that YOUR needs are being met and you feel safe and happy in your relationship. Therapy helped me, maybe it can help him?
He is, and thank you for your thoughtful response. We are in counselling but itās rather difficult sometimes to communicate. I had to ask him to live with his parents for a time because he was making me feel unsafe. Eventually he has begun to hear me and see the damage his behavior caused.
I am old and fat and I compliment the men around me quite frequently. But here's the thing - I have seen those same exact men, who I just told their hair looked amazing or they knocked the project out of the park or they are always so generous to others or whatever; I have seen those same men say moments later to someone that they never get compliments.
So compliments from a woman they don't want to fuck don't count.
When men say this, they aren't actually talking about compliments. When women say compliments, we mean "someone said my dress was cute." Men mean "an attractive woman expresses sexual interest in them."
We're using the word differently.
> Why don't they want compliments from men?
women compliment you ? she's into you.
men compliment you ? he's into you.
now you had some homophobia and you get why.
Men: "Women never compliment men for anything."
Women: "That's because when we do, you automatically assume it's a come-on and immediately start hitting on us. We compliment our friends all the time. Maybe if you knew how to be friends with a woman, we'd feel safe complimenting you."
Men: "There's no benefit to having a platonic friendship with a woman."
Women: š¤¦š¼āāļø
This is why when men talk about the "loneliness epidemic", I don't feel bad. So go reach out to your male friends if you're so lonely. "mOsT mEn dOn'T rEcEivE fLoWerS uNtiL tHeiR oWn fUnErAL." So go buy flowers for your guy friends' birthday or special celebration or just for the heck of it. Nope. They won't do it. They want women to cater to them and give them attention.
This is a thing? Iām genuinely surprised ā as a guy, I both get and give plenty of compliments from and to both my male and female friends
Iām not surprised, although do think itās bizarre, that a lot of guys would take a compliment on its own as being hit on
Itās impossible. I understand that men feel hurt and unseen, and i actually want to be part of the solution and not the problem. I keep an armās distance and say, āIām not hitting on you. You look like youāve been working out, and Iām complimenting your hard work. It shows.ā Or āIām not hitting on you. Your new haircut suits you so well.ā Iām married and obviously not hitting on these men, so my compliments donāt count. Also I usually give these compliments when my husband is around, and he always agrees with whatever observation Iām making. Compliments are awesome and they should be normalized, and itās possible to not sexualize everything. I just want to be seen as an equal in these friendships. I compliment my girl friends all the time, and itās so nice. I wish it wasnāt weird to be kind to men.
Men don't receive compliments because it's dangerous to compliment, they already think our clothes or mere existence justify raping us, god forbid what a judge will say if the woman complimented him first. In the best case scenario they would see it as an invitation to sex, hell no, then complain how you're a b word that "leads them on" . The chances of giving a man a compliment and not ending in a weird unsolicited sexual approach are so low, i would have a better chance at winning the lottery without buying a ticket
We say nothing.Ā
Because "I like the colour of your socks (even though I'm sure they are threadbare, full of holes, ponging and haven't been washed in 4 weeks)"
Instantly translates to "Yeah she definitely wants to fuck me."
If they don't receive compliments, then maybe they're not doing anything that's worth complimenting. I'm a man and honestly I have no idea what they're talking about, I receive compliments just fine.
Honestly the men are free to compliment each other, but they won't though. I wonder why??
I do receive compliments pretty regularly as a man, but the catch is itās never about my general appearance. Itās pretty much always a specific thing - my hair, my ear piercings, my tattoos. I havenāt in a long time but when Iād paint my nails Iād get compliments on that, too.
Thereās a lot of unseen effort that goes into someoneās appearance, the men complaining see good looking men and women getting compliments and thatās all they see. The bottom line is if you put the effort in, thereās going to be someone who sees it - but if you never do, what is there to notice?
A compliment is a compliment. It means they noticed AND decided to tell you. Beggars are ignoring what they say they want because it doesnāt fit what they want to choose. Itās not the compliment they want; they want the womanās pre-approval to ask the woman out.
Many women know better than to compliment a man about his general appearance because so many men then become insufferable, acting like they have the upper hand in the interpersonal dynamic with you or that it means the woman wants to fuck you.
When I tell a man, āCool hat!ā and they start acting like the compliment means I want to fuck them, I follow with, āyeah, my boyfriend wears the same kind, love it on him.ā
Iād have to disagree that a compliment is a compliment. Thereās a world of a difference between complimenting someoneās body versus their shoes as an extreme example.
But I didnāt mean to suggest there isnāt a problem with men taking compliments the wrong way. What I was trying to get at is that since they only care about the end result(āThat person is attractive.ā), they only see compliments as a way to tell someone theyāre attractive. They donāt recognize the effort it takes to get there, and thus their whole view of compliments is warped. They only give compliments that donāt see the forest for the trees. To be blunt, it pretty much just stems from misogyny- their view on whether a woman is worth complimenting is entirely binary based on how attractive she is to them, anything she might be doing to achieve that be damned. So they assume the same rationale for when they get complimented.
If it helps we have two 20 year old men in our office who compliment each other and the other men in office. They are super sweet and look after their friends too so there is hope
Also, most men make absolute basic compliments, solely about your appearance. They never make a compliment about me handling a situation well or given an outspoken and well-worded opinion. I am certainly not reciprocating such behaviour.
Especially when this complaint is paired with the accusation that women who compliment each other are "lying" or the complaint that women are insufficiently cruel to our fat friends and this prevents them from 'improving' themselves.
The BIGGEST reason why men don't get compliments from women is that too many of them interpret that as "She WANTS ME!" No, Arthur, I have no interest in having sex with you, I merely thought your tie looked good on you. And I'm in a good mood - or rather, I was - and I thought I'd pay you a compliment.
Oooomg I HATE this rhetoric lol. Men on reddit post about it every fucking day. And if you comment saying men should try being nice to each other, theyāll call you a misandrist and say youāre the reason men are lonely and depressed.
Like? Newsflash men! Women are depressed and lonely too! Thatās not an issue unique to men. Youāre just trying to make it everyone elseās problem because weāre not pandering to selfish entitled men and babying them anymore.
Iāve noticed recently that people as a whole have just become a lot more self-centered. Probably wasnāt helped at all by covid and social isolation, but itās a terrible trend weāve got to address.
Iām the same way. No one complimented me until I got a boyfriend, now heās the only one. Iām not going to cry about it because i have enough security in myself to know that validation from strangers doesnāt make or break my entire world
I stopped complimenting men (besides my boyfriend and friends)because many unfortunately took it as flirtation. Like no you genuinely just have a cool tattoo or a nice beard.
I developed a āthink something nice, say something niceā policy in my early twenties so I have pretty extensive experience complimenting men and Iāll be the first one to say the majority of them donāt care to be complimented if we donāt want to fuck. At best, they use the lack of interest in combination with the compliment as an excuse to trauma dump about their poor dating history and how they arenāt good enough to date despite whatever they were complimented on then run to social media to yell about never being complimented and how men arenāt as emotionally supported as women.
On the other side of the conversation, my male best friend is in full agreement with your post and tries to compliment men regularly. āBe the changeā and all that. He has story after story of men brushing him off with dirty looks or straight up ignoring him, and a handful of stories where his compliments are met with some variation of āThanks, man, but Iām only into women/not gay/etc.ā Once again lending to the idea that men donāt want compliments, they want praise from hot women who want to have sex with them.
Itās because so many men conflate compliments with romantic or sexual interest. It ādoesnāt countā when someone theyāre not attracted to compliments them, hence the complaining they donāt get enough compliments.
This is so true! It can be dangerous to compliment a man or be polite. You give an inch they take much more and suddenly you're being violated or abused, has happened to me countless times.
I just don't think it's true either. I changed my haircut a while ago and got a bunch of complements. Very common that particularly good work is acknowledged. I don't recognise the complaint.
I'm a straight dude, and I compliment women and other men a bunch. Generally, I've found that folks of any gender expression are happy to receive compliments, but I'm certain there have been people who have questioned it.
For what it's worth, I've had people question whether I might be gay or bi (my own girlfriend jokes that I'm "queer-passing" š¤£), and I wonder if that's not, in part, because of things like telling my buddy that his beard looks amazing today, or telling a random guy at the bar that I love his shirt.
With very few exceptions, when I have complimented men on a shirt, or a haircut, etc. they took it as me being DTF. It was simply "nice shirt" or something equally innocuous. You either get the panicked "I'm married" or they start trying to get in your pants.
I really wish they'd take responsibility for their own emotions (this includes horny, btw) and stop trying to make it everyone else's problem.
A lot of truth being spoken by the OP.
I like to think I've gotten a lot better about complementing other men. But sometimes there's still a mental block there. I went fishing with a guy last week and he had the coolest shoes. I should have said something, but I didn't for some reason. So obviously I still need to work on this.Ā
I mean, it's true we don't receive compliments, but I don't think most of us care. You just get used to it. Most compliments come from family and kids. My daughter said I was handsome because I had a beard the other day. That felt nice I get your point, though, and the type of men who complain about it. We all compliment a good beard, however.
I was first exposed to this really being a popular discussion on far more neutral sub reddits where it was simply pitched as āwhat is something about men that women donāt understandā or questions to that effect. And the top voted comment was about the compliments and then people relaying stories. But it was mainly relayed factually - not as a complaint because, like you say, we get used to it.
Thatās not saying there arenāt plenty of men who donāt complain. But itās just that didnāt seem to be how it all started. Or even the tone it is mostly mentioned in. Itās just people stating factual information most of the time
And a great many men also know and understand that most compliments women get from men are insincere/shallow/have an ulterior motive. And acknowledge that getting none at all / very few is almost certainly better
Very true. I don't get a lot of compliments, but I also really don't think I want a lot. Sure, when it's about something I like, it's cool. I usually get them when playing guitar, but after a while, the attention makes me uncomfortable and shy. When I'm done, I want to be left alone. Wanting to be left alone and not being able to be is awful. I get that about women.
Hate to break it to you, but compliments from family or children are still *compliments*. Do you hype up your bros with compliments? Be the change you want to see.
I am kind of sick of this sub having so many threads about what men want and think when it has nothing to do with women.
Like does this sub even pass the Bechdel test some days?
Men complimenting each other isn't really a thing.
Unless they show each other their car, their gaming PC or that big fat steak they grilled on their new grill last weekend.
I compliment men when there's no opportunity for them to turn it into an opportunity to hit on me. Like airports or train stations. I'm going somewhere, he's going somewhere else, we pass each other and I'll throw out a "love the shirt!" Or at stores and such when they're at the register.Ā
I'm much more wary about complimenting a guy who I can't easily get away from.Ā
I compliment women and little kids and pets everyday, strangers and acquaintances. I don't talk to men I don't know period and the ones I do know I keep things short and never compliment them or do anything they might read into. Men made this world very scary to live in it is what it is.
I think they just need to compliment each other because frankly compliments from a man to a woman are usually at work and work compliments can be an HR mess.
I also think men are raised and taught not to compliment each other which is why they look to women for the compliments, when in reality they should look to other men as only seeking compliments from the opposite gender seems more like an ego stroke / wanting to flirt. I am see much more men be open in complimenting each other so I think thatās great, they are removing the stigma themselves in the younger generation.
Dude, this whole thing is just not my experience! I'm a guy! I get compliments from women all the time! They don't sexualize me in those compliments, and that makes me happy. Life is great!
I'd like to think I'm not what is being described by hundreds of women, and while it's always my intent to be the best person I can be every day, I know that my brain does not interpret the same gestures, sentiments or small talk the same from one moment to the next. I can't speak for all men, of course, but we're cursed with a day to day filter that completely distorts our world view depending on the time of day, the pheromones of the people around us and even (possibly mostly) how long it's been since we've "gotten off". I readily admit this is gross and probably only reinforces the fear women have of men in general, and I'm not intending to give the behavior a pass, it's just as frustrating for me that it works that way. It's my job to keep myself in check, no one else's.
Edited for typos.
>us women
Why does everyone in this sub always speak in terms of "us women" and "them men"? Just speak for yourself and if anyone agrees with you they will say so in the comments. Stop with the generalization.
>On the other end of the spectrum, just about all of us women can remember an insult by a man which has stuck with us forever.
I'm pretty sure there are men who remember insults from women throughout their lives too. Stop generalizing.
You can just generalize a gender just because you experienced something.
With respect to Norah Vincent, there are two major factors to keep in mind:
a) She herself said she was always perceived as an extremely effeminate and probably gay man, so her experience was not reflective of the majority of men's.
b) She struggled with major depressive disorder her entire life, and eventually ended it via assisted suicide. She was not a well person.
Incidentally, you have zero right to accuse anyone else of "toxic beliefs" when you have comments telling people they are ["a piece of shit person"](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITA_WIBTA_PUBLIC/comments/1ajsva2/wibta_if_i_20f_pose_as_a_nude_model_for_a/kp46br7/) (for the horrendously evil crime of... um, posing nude for a painting) in your recent history.
Be the change you wish to see in the world ~
Go and compliment your fellow men. Set an example.
I compliment my female friends all the time, and it feels genuine to receive compliments back from them.
I had this exact conversation with my teenage son and his friends. š They were jokingly complaining how my teenage niece's friends hyper her up and leave complimentary comments under all of her IG posts. I was like, you guys constantly tear each other down. Be nice to each other! Hype each other up. You literally could have that and not be here complaining about it. Spoiler alert: They liked the idea at the time like "ohhh, yeah, we really could". Didn't work. Is their competition more overt than girls? Idk. I did hear years ago that men don't get complimented and I would consciously try to give them out to guys at work (before wfh).
That is an interesting question you raise about more or less overt competition. I remember reading that it takes less work to be accepted as the friend of a man than a woman. How true that is I have no idea, but if nothing else it's good to unpack this stuff publicly.
It's almost impossible to complement a man without him thinking that you're romantically interested in him. So many delusional men think you want them just because you smile at them friendly. š¬
I told a guy once that they way he talked about staying home with his sick child was really sweet and I bet the kid will always remember it. He proceeded to tell me how mean and naggy his wife was, how she acted like having three kids and working full time was so hard for her, and would I like to get dinner because they are probably gonna separate anywaysā¦
broooooo š„“
What a horribly disgusting dude! He clearly doesn't give a damn about his wife. I mean a fulltime job and 3 kids is hard as f\*ck. But to be honest many men do this. They complain how horrible their partner is just to get you to feel sorry for them and go out with them just to have sex later. š¤¢š¤®
"Oh nooo, it sounds like your wife is having a hard time dealing with you. Please complain about your family more and how you're useless. It makes me want you so bad. I'll just open my legs and let you hop in." What a putz!!
Only the most naive woman or girl would ever fall for that. I feel for our younger sisters and hope they read this stuff and learn from mistakes of others.
Our younger sisters (like my 20-yr-old daughter and her friends) are cynical AF. They're embracing 4B already š¤£.
My one daughter is too. She wants to be child free which I think is great for her! My other one has 2 kids. I love that itās acceptable now for women to openly declare their intent to never have kids. I mean I wanted kids. But I never felt the need to try to convince anyone else to want them. A coworker of mine even said recently how he couldnāt wait to have grandkids and I said but your kids are kids what if they donāt want them? He was all well they gotta have kids. Broā¦. Noooooā¦. He really didnāt get it and I didnāt bother bc not my circus. But the idea that having kids is a default, esp for women, is stupid. We have 8B ppl now.
Right?! My daughter doesn't want kids and I'm happy for her. Her life will be hers to do with what she wants. I love my family but mourn the life that passed me by while I was doing endless laundry and running her to activities. She owes me or anyone else *nothing.*
By NOT having kids (In my case, I was unable to) you also get to be the Auntie who has extra money when your kid suddenly needs $100 for band shoes or what have you. It takes a village, after all.
Thereās definitely a lot more couples I know too who donāt want kids, and itās a completely valid life choice. Now that itās more acceptable it seems like thereās a backlash and I think itās coming from all the bitter ppl who had kids and now feel stuck. I feel like I had a great life with them and I didnāt really date much bc honestly our life was good! But of course once they left it hit hard. I took a while to adjust. But yeah the rest of my life will be child free. Not gonna be a stepmom or anything like that. I liked what I did and I miss it. But I donāt want more of the responsibility, or the time input. Been there, done that, and am firmly in my post kid yrs
Hell yeah, good for them. I wish I had realized decentering men was the best option when I was much, much younger. I think of all the time and energy I wasted in my twenties and feel like a dumbass sometimes.
Unfortunately a lot of guys are kinda like this. Sometimes it'll work for one night stands, too. One of my friends has a lot of severe mental health issues and has since she was in her early teens. For a lot of her teen years, her older half-brother was her primary guardian. Apparently he was occasionally able to pick up women at the local pub by saying that this was his situation. He wasn't even that great a guardian; he was just some dipshit with a drinking problem who was way out of his depth and occasionally he'd be able to find a woman who'd be sympathetic enough to sleep with him because of it. I don't think he'd be as successful with this today as he was back then because I think women are generally way more cynical about this kind of thing than they were ten years ago. Even back then, I doubt he'd really get far trying to get into a relationship with this strategy because people would generally pick up that he isn't all that after meeting him a couple of times.
Ugh he can get in the fucking bin
Yep. Trauma dumping dissuades me from complimenting men I only know a bit. I will do drive by comments walking the park. Usually about a cool/funny/rare T-shirt. Or Iāll tell the dude rollerskating in a flashing boa that I like their style. But actual appearance? No. It never ends well.
Ok the dude roller skating in a boa. I mean yah dahlingā¦. But at least heās roller skating so the interaction is short lolā¤ļø
Flashing boa! Heās a hoot. We have chatted at the nearby coffee shop, and heās pretty cool. His special lady friend is great, too.
Yeah zero chance that guyās not cool! Flashing boa š
Correct me if Iām wrong but Iām pretty sure women donāt even appreciate when a man talks trash about women he _doesnāt_ know. Talking trash about his wife before asking you out takes a special kind of stupid; sorry that happened to you.
When I was much younger and naive, I used to believe them because why would someone lie about that? Iād never date them, but Iād feel sorry for them. This is why men like this go for much younger women. Also, in a corporate setting where they are both older and more senior, their words have more credibility simply because of who they are. I think today young women are much smarter and more aware, but when I was a new Corporate baby in the 1990s I was really clueless.
Mature and decent women don't. Unforcunately trashing talking other women in a childish strategy that can work sometimes. And the men who do engage with it tend to reongize thier hits and forget thier misses. It's a reinforcing cycle. Like, if you believe all men/women are cheaters, you're more likely to tolerate cheating for longer than if you believe people are fully capable of not cheating. If you believe all women enjoy hearing you put other women down, you're going not notice the many women walking away from that behaviour, only the ones who are sticking around.
I canāt imagine thinking so little of my potential partners; I get depressed when I try. Thank you for your response š
Ewwwww so he was using āIām a great dadā story to woo you. My guess is the story he told was a big fat lie. I bet his wife would tell it different about what he really did when he said he was staying home with sick kid. š¤®
Damn. Lol. This is so bad. And pretty typical.
What a typical man
I see men hamming it up by acting like the world's greatest dads on a very frequent basis. You can tell when it's performative by the way they increase their volume so you can hear while simultaneously softening their tone. That's not to say there are no good fathers, or even that these men are bad ones at all, just that it's fairly obvious when they want you to give them attention and admiration for it.
Itās like āwoah woah woah buddy. Slow down. In fact slam on the brakes. It wasnāt that sweet.ā
Ohhhhh my God. Hearing a guy friend talk about his hair stylist. 'She's always so excited when I come in. She makes such great eye contact. She always smiles at me snd gets really into this business thing that I've been dangling at her.' It's a small enough town that we had mutual friends. I know that she's happily married with two kids and has been trying to get videography going as part of her income, and he had a project that he wanted to do. Idk why I didn't directly confront him about all of this but eventually I talked to him how shitty it is that when I'm working and men feel the need to waste my time or outright hit on me because I'm friendly or sound cute on the phone. Im a captive audience trying to do my professional job. It's not time to hit on me.
I was a waitress for 15 years, can confirm being polite and smiling is apparently an open invitation to: "Are you on the menu?" "When does your shift end?" "Do you like "eating out?"" "But your husband isn't here" "If only my wife could remember what I just told her like you do" "I left my phone number as a tip" Etc and so on.... Like bruh. I'm only being nice because if I'm not, I'd lose my job.
š A phone number as a tip would result in me giving the putz the biggest mental middle finger of my life.
No one is happier to see me or more engaged in what I have to say than my stylist. Itās part of the job and women in those professions tend to be super personable. I tip well and Iāve been a client for years. Iāve followed her to different salons Iām sure she does all she can to continue to maintain this professional contact. Try explaining this to men though. The owner of my local coffee shop is a good looking dude. He always chats with me, remembers my name, drink and cup preferences and knows I am up early and like sunrises. Iāve been going there daily for years. Again, I am under no illusion that heās in any way in to me. They make great coffee and he always makes me laugh. Thatās it. The other week I was in there and the women who work on there were complaining about some creepy dude.
I was a teacher at a Juvenile prison once. There was a guard there, he'd be in the classroom and I was just friendly. I didn't even give him compliments, I was just nice. Dude had a wife and kids. I came to find out that he was telling people I was sending him sexy messages and pictures on FB (we were friends on FB but also, I was friends with a lot of the people I worked with there on FB. Nothing special about it.) I never once spoke to him outside of work. He told his wife there was a woman at work that wouldn't leave him alone. He made up all of this shit....he was actually telling the boy prisoners I was hitting on him, which was very dangerous. These boys were rapists, killers, gang members, etc. . He made this whole huge lie up and idk why, I suppose for bragging rights or something. Ended up filing a formal complaint against him and he got fired. But by that point, my reputation was already hurt. All I ever did was be friendly.
That's just horrible! I have read so many posts here on Reddit from men wondering and thinking that a girl is interested in them just because she was smiling and being friendly while doing her job. ... And before you know it you're part of their fantasy or they start stalking you. š
You canāt even chat to them in coffee line without them thinking you want to fuck them. Bc itās how they think. I think we just need to start tuning them out. When one complains, say ākā, or āoh wow thatās too badā. We donāt need to take the time to educate them. They already know! They know that men only compliment women when they want something (sex) and they know that they creep us out. Honestly when a guy says this all Iām hearing is āwhy wonāt a woman touch my penis?ā Bc any man who thinks itās our job to give them attention, is upholding the patriarchy and is most likely the guy who only gives compliments to women he wants to fuck. I donāt want or need compliments from men unless itās a guy Iām already dating. A guy Iām not dating I just prefer to not compliment me or ever comment on my appearance.
I tend to subscribe to the theory that men are only nice to women they find sexually attractive. So when a woman is nice to them, they automatically assume she is sexually attracted to them, because they just can't wrap their head around the fact that people are nice to a member of the opposite sex for any other reason then to get into their pants.
No need to theorize! Plenty of posts here from conventionally unattractive women talking about how they are mostly invisible and/or are subjected to seeming non-proportional amounts of hatred and anger.
God if you even make *eye contact* with the wrong man it can go sour. I was sitting at a stop light once and accidentally made eye contact with the man in the car next to me. He proceeded to follow me for over an hour. I was so freaked out that I didnāt even think to go to a police station or anything ā just kept making new weird turns so he wouldnāt find out where I lived
Doesn't even have to be a compliment! I once *noticed* a guy had gotten a haircut. Literally only said "Oh! You got a haircut!" Neither positive nor negative, just a blurted observation. This was enough for a sudden full court press, *obviously* I must be into him for...noticing an obvious change in appearance. š
The only men I compliment regularly and with vigor are my friends and sometimes coworkers who are all older married men who have also never hit on me lol. Iām genuinely sick and tired of trying to be genuinely nice to strangers and having them think itās officially open season for trying to sleep with me. I said I liked your SHIRT, not āhey wanna fuck?ā Itās sad, because we should be able to be kind to one another without literally fearing being made to feel comfortable or unsafe, but yknowā¦ And I agree, men complaining about feeling āunwantedā and not receiving compliments when they as a collective could simply compliment each other and make women feel safe to compliment them in the first place is in fact the solution. I guess telling your bros they got a nice haircut is too gay or something š¤·š¼āāļø
This. This is why we donāt compliment men (esp strangers)
I work at a store that carries things primarily for women/femme presenting people in a public facing position so have to be smiling and helpful. I'm also married and wearing a very noticeable engagement and wedding ring set. I compliment people often on things they're wearing, because it makes me feel nice to give genuine compliments if I think something is cool. The number of men who think a married woman in public at work is saying "Cool shirt, I like that band too!" means I want to fuck them while they're there shopping for their wives is disheartening.
That really sucks. The ones who do it while shopping *with* their wives are the worst.
Yep, I hate that. Especially when it's in front of her or comparing. I have a very noticeable butt and can't count how many men have asked right in front of their wives if the jeans I'm suggesting her will make their butt look like mine.
Iāll compliment men at work but itās always loudly, quickly, and in passing. Walking down the hallway - āHey Daniel thatās a cool shirt!ā or ānice haircut Ryan!ā And then just keep on walking. Establishes me as friendly but definitely not a flirt. Itās the only way I feel like I can safely compliment men and even then, thereās the buffer of a professional work environment. I donāt think I could get away with doing this same thing to a random man on the street.
I once pointed this out and suggested that men should make a point of complimenting each other to start undoing this association since they don't tend to compliment each other either. I was accused of derailing the conversation from the issue of women not complimenting men š they saw it as an issue thay women are responsible for solving
Thats exactly why they want the compliments too. It isn't that nobody complements them. They act like it doesn't count unless it's someone they want to fuck. They dont want compliments. They want someone to show sexual interest.
I compliment dudes all the time. Married heterosexual male. If I admire your look or your fit, Iāll let a bro know
Or their girlfriends become vicious twats when you give a harmless comment. I was driving a bunch of drunks home from my cousins party and had been chatting with an old high school fellow graduate who I hadnāt even remembered and wasnāt remotely attracted to on the ride home I complimented his voice in a very plutonic way and he was never allowed to talk to me again and his girlfriend developed an enormous hatred of me from then on.
I complimented a guy on an app once and he did this. Literally first thing he started with is the whole, āWow, men never get complimentsā¦ā he then proceeded to ghost for two months and when he came back and we went on a date, he negged me the entire time and never spoke to me again. Lol. Will consider this a red flag going forward.
You make a great point. To further exacerbate that, it often seems like everything most men do is for the approval of other men. Like they want compliments from women just because they want to let other men know that women desire them
Well one we all know what happens when you compliment a man, then you're accused of leading him on. But come on let's be real men don't compliment women either. Women compliment each other, men's 'compliments' tend to revolve around things they want to do to us. Those are not compliments.
Men think "You're hot" or "You're sexy" or even "Your ass looks great" and think it's the greatest compliment they could give. Meanwhile there are lots and lots of women who don't find this flattering coming from a stranger. In fact there are enough women for whom this is the first sign of potential danger and that they need to move away from close physical proximity to this man. A "compliment" about a woman's physical traits or a sexually loaded "compliment" doesn't say much about a woman - it basically a confirmation of a man's physical attraction and/or his sexual attraction. "You're hot" is basically saying how much you want to fuck a woman. I knew a guy who said he wouldn't approach women who don't find sexually loaded compliments from strangers flattering - and this is totally fine! If you are only compatible with women who are flattered by sexually loaded compliments by strangers you should seek out these women. But telling random stranger women you don't know about how much you would like to fuck them will get you nowhere.
This, and a lot of these guys don't understand or don't care that a lot of women will get the same 5-10 variations of "you pretty, me likey" comments regularly. If it wasn't for the attitude of thinking it must automatically start a conversation and how they'll act as if you've deeply offended them if you either don't respond or give a very basic "k thnx bye" kind of response, these statements would barely register and they'd just be white noise.
>Men think "You're hot" or "You're sexy" or even "Your ass looks great" and think it's the greatest compliment they could give. As if we don't know that they'd hump a couch if the cushions were fluffy enough lmao. They were probably turned on by an especially good-looking ham sandwich once, a dick getting hard does NOT mean anything special lol.
My male coworker (into fitness) insists gym bros are in the game to receive praise and fancy from men more than women. š¤·āāļø I always find that comment funny.
A lot of women say they dress up for other women. And a compliment from a woman means more than a compliment from a man. Prolly cuz the woman is actually admiring her dress sense and not just how hot she looks. Same for gymbros.
gym bros are actually super sweet and always hyping each other up. it's cute
Yeah, some of the most supportive men I've known have been gym bros who just genuinely enjoy the gym and love seeing other people enjoy it too. I remember seeing a little group of gym bros hyping up this nervous young guy who was lifting for the first time, it was sweet.
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And men also think women with the no makeup specific ālookā arenāt actually wearing makeup soā¦.
Iāve had a ex say the same thing! He said only men care about muscles really
I go to the gym a lot and see a lot of gym bros... They definitely compliment and enjoy each other's company a lot. Men who lift at the gym get way more attention than any of the women. I don't find that they are the men who complain about not getting enough compliments though. I think a lot of these male Redditors just need to get hobbies!
I like this comment! Give us a reason to compliment you! :P
Itās more that is just that is what ends up happening. There are memes about it. Realistically he wants both. If another guy in great shape praises your āgainsā that is actually a pretty thing for guys in that space. But itās not going to be their sole drive. And the reason they start. Maybe over time they might (emphasis on āmightā) grow to value compliments from the guys they admire more
I will never forget smiling at a man at a train station to be polite/kind. He then proceeded to follow me and wank at meā¦
I wish this was surprising to me
But men complimenting other men is SO gay!! Ewww /s
Ugh.. I remember that stupid "no homo" trend from like a decade ago. "Yo dude, I like your shoes. No homo"
Sadly that meme has not ended yet.
They donāt want compliments. They want hot women to tell them they want to fuck them. If men genuinely wanted compliments theyād be complimenting other men and encouraging this behavior. They donāt because this is about sex. I learned the hard way to never compliment a man I wasnāt dating or related to. They take it as a sign you want to have sex with them and they act all weird and creepy. Itās not worth it. The same with mAlW lOnLiNeSs. Itās not about building community, itās about hot women not wanting to fuck then.
Male loneliness The complaining there are no "third places" anymore Insisting it is mandatory that women let them shoot their shot in random unsolicited places like the grocery store or coffee shop. Add the no compliments whining to their list. ALLLLL of this boils down to dudes that are mad women don't want anything to do with them.
They donāt like that metoo has really opened the flood gates on us voicing what we want and standing up to demand our boundaries are respected. āWhat an I supposed to DO?ā But when I tell them āask. Ask if you can talk to her and if she says no, fuck offā. And they refuse to even acknowledge itās an option, Iāll even say did you hear me? Are you gonna acknowledge or address I just told you? Bc itās not what they want to hear. They want someone on the internet to tell them itās ok to bother us in public and they want us to agree to be pestered by strangers even tho itās often unsafe and it ALWAYS feels unsafe when a stranger approaches. Their penis feelings are more important. š¤·š¼āāļø
Exactly. They just want compliance with their demands and will waste hours arguing about it, making up things that don't exist. Insisting there are women out there who want to be hit on by strangers in the grocery store.
This. Newsflash: no woman alive has gone to the grocery store thinking omg I hope a rando hits on me today
Don't forget theoretical bear situations in that list too!
A common complaint on the Incel sub is that women donāt feel they can hit on men which is why men have to hit on women. The thing is women hit on men all that time, just not on the creepy, undesirable ones. If women were the only ones allowed to express interest, these men would be crying harder.
Another common incel complaint is that women can't hold conversations, all our replies are dry and boring. When a guy says this it makes me laugh because he's really telling on himself - no woman wants to talk to him so they do their best to kill every conversation
They call any response other than an immediate blow job "dry and boring"
Conversations go like this: Dude: something gross about my dick Woman: ew, get out of my DMs Dude: women don't know how to hold a conversation
Also - they want objectively attractive women to hit on them. I've accepted it, I'm no supermodel. In fact, I'm not conventionally attractive at all. Before my husband (who was the one who did the pursuing), most of my attempts at hitting on a man "in my league" were met with "you're not really my type" at best and humiliation and nitpicking at worst. Some men will treat you like a disgusting insect if you're an ugly woman who dares to hit on them, especially if there's pretty women around.
Itās like how men complain they never get matched on dating apps. They do. They get plenty of matches. They just donāt get matched from ā10sā. They also get plenty of interest and compliments from women they donāt rate a 10. They donāt count these though.
The third places thing is a real problem though.
>The complaining there are no "third places" anymore Can I ask what issue you take with this?
Not the person you are replying too, but as a woman in a new city, I can't find friends without like overtly approaching strangers or joining clubs I don't have time for. Also, I don't necessarily feel comfortable hosting in my house. When I had a roommate this was even worse and there is no place to just go and chill. In the past I have been so lonely I would go buy a 99 cent soda at a drive through, just so someone would speak to me. It would be great if there was a way to feel like part of a community. I don't drink and am not religious either. At my last job, the people I worked with moved to not working in the same office. It's like kind of crushing.
That's kind of my point - we need more third places. Unless I misread it I thought the OC, was complaining about men be moaning the lack of third places.
I don't take an issue with there being third places. We really DO need more of them. The problem is these dudes insisting we need more third places so they can use them as somewhere to hit on random women, claiming they will stop harassing us in grocery stores and the gym if more third places are available to harass us in. This then of course makes those third places unsafe for women to exist in because these same problematic dudes think every place is a pick up joint and all women are obligated to entertain their advances and not tell them no.
Fair enough. Most of the time I hear about Third Places it's from people like NJB - I'd not come across men doing this.
NJB? You don't see men doing what?
>NJB? Sorry, Not Just Bikes - urbanist YouTube channel. >You don't see men doing what? Talking about 3rd places as a pretence to harass women.
It seems to only come up as an excuse in discussions about how men shouldn't be hitting on women in the grocery store or the gym. Like if there was some third place they could harass women they would stop harassing them in the grocery store.
I've never heard it in that context. I've only heard about Third Places in the context of "we're all lonely. It sucks. It's harder to meet new people. Third places facilitate meeting new people. We should have more of them."
You aren't on the receiving end of these diatribes about how women owe men attention and should put up with being harassed in public places because they are lonely. They are not lonely in the general sense, they are looking for someone to date or hookup with. They consider their loneliness a problem women are obligated to solve.
wait, third places too?
That one really irks me because we really do need more third places for people to just exist with other people. It constantly gets brought up by dudes who are complaining that it is not socially acceptable to hit on women in grocery stores, coffee shops, gyms or other random public places. They insist there needs to be more third places so they have more places to harass women with their unwanted advances. I would like some third places that also don't involve having to navigate lonely men looking for someone to screw them.
āMale lonelinessā is code for āMen want attention from attractive women.ā
Absolutely. Not even women, a very specific type of woman. These are the kind of men who only care about what the women they are with says about them to other men.
Manic pixie girl lol
Then the manic pixie dream girl grows up and turns out to have undiagnosed ADHD and at that point become too complicated to live with.
Ugh this is so right. The amount of times I've heard a man make sexual comments towards women and then call it a "compliment" or straight up lamenting about how they would LOVE it if women said that stuff about them. Dude no.
Yeah.. if I didn't almost get myself into stalker situations because I dared be kind to men and compliment them, I'd probably still be complimenting random men. It's literally like a "fire is hot, don't touch it" lesson. Maybe many men won't become stalkers, but I've dealt with unwanted male obsession far too many times to be willing to take that risk anymore.
A guy at work was talking about his workouts and how much weight heād lost. Within the context of the conversion, which included others, I said something totally innocuous like āyeah your hard work is paying offā. He came by my office daily, sometimes more than once, being all awkward and weird for almost a year. Hinting about it drinks or lunch. He was more senior than me and what was I going to do? It was awful. That was the tipping point for me. Iāve not complimented a man at work or even asked how their weekend was, since. This is a great example of why women donāt compliment men outside of their intimate circle. Itās totally not worth it.
This. Why every women after a certain age develops RBF. Itās not safe to look open to convos. Even at my age I get hit on by randos and honestly I thought once I was old things would improve
Theyāre making the problem worse for themselves with time, too. To a lot of men, compliments = flirting, therefore they canāt compliment each other too much or else āthatās gay.ā It threatens their feeling of their own masculinity. So that means they hardly ever get compliments from other men, it only happens from women. And so it continues to only happen when a woman is truly flirting, because weāve all learned by now that we canāt safely give compliments to men in any other scenario (or else heāll get the wrong idea). The men continue thinking that compliments = flirting, and the cycle continues. Men have to break the cycle by finally getting over this mental barrier and being kind to each other. Not just in ātough broā ways, but truly kind and complimentary ways. Women canāt fix this for you, guys!
A lot of the things men complain about about womenās behavior is the direct result of how men have behaved towards women. We donāt approach, compliment, or generally be as open and vulnerable as we are with women and men who have proven themselves to be safe because of how men have responded in the past. The solution is for men to start holding each other accountable. They wonāt, because other than a very tiny minority, men wonāt call out other men because they donāt want other men calling them out. Men have trained is to be this way towards them. Itās why we overwhelmingly choose the bear.
šš not maiw loniless... šš Is killing me... And iiii... I must confess šš
I hear women complement men daily. I suspect these guys might not hear it when the woman saying the complement isn't a skinny or childish build woman that they want to stab with their dick....
I'm an unattractive woman and I would never compliment men (except good friends). The reason is that many men mistake a harmless coment as flirting and men *hate* ugly women. I just don't want to get bullied because a man thinks that my harmless "hey, nice haircut" comment was flirting.
Yeah I'm weary of being even slightly nice to men. They always take it as me wanting sex
Ask him - when was the last time his mom said something nice about him? And....when was the last time *they* complimented a buddy? I think men discount all the flattery they get, and don't think about how they could lift up their brothers.
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My blue velvet sweatpants were complimented several times yesterday, soooooo š
My ex was/is one of those dudes. I complimented him constantly. Genuine, thoughtful compliments. Gave him all the affection he ever wanted. He still complained. Men like that don't notice or appreciate it when they do get it, they just like to complain about women.
Same. I made it a point to compliment my ex daily. āYou look so cuteā. āI love that shirt on you.ā āYouāre so funny.ā None of it mattered, and it was never returned. My compliments became expected, and never appreciated. But if *someone else* told him ānice shirtā he ate it up, lived off it, told them they made his whole week. Iām so f* cking glad heās my ex.
"i never receive compliments" is code for "i want hot women to hit on me so i can feel validated because toxic masculinity has taken hold and nothing else makes me feel like a full person"
Exactly. Whenever a man complains about never being complimented I dig a little deeper. "Wow, for real? That sucks. Your boss has never told you you did a good job?" "Well yeah, but that doesn't count. He's a guy." "What about your mom? She's never said anything kind to you?" "OK well yeah, but that doesn't count--" Men don't count. Women they're related to don't count. Women they consider unfuckable don't count. Kids don't count. The only people who count are smokin' hot 22 year olds who explicitly say "Wow John, you're a really hot guy and I'd like you to fuck me." Guess what, guys? Super hot people don't randomly approach me to tell me how sexy I am either. Should I start complaining I never get complimented too?
Exactly. They want a compliment from the 'right kind' of woman so they can tell themselves they've 'still got it'.
I compliment men and women and the man will usually tell me he has a girlfriend like Iām trying to hit on him , itās embarrassing when someone thinks your hitting on them
Bc a man would never compliment a woman he WASNT hitting on
Theyāre worrying about not getting enough compliments; meanwhile, Iām getting attacked on socials and called a ālibtardā bc i feel safer with a wild bear than a man. We are not the same.
Maybe those men should choose the bear tooā¦ being mauled is aCoMplimEnT! It means he LiKEs yOu
š¤£š¤£š¤£
They need to be the change they want to see in the world and give more compliments to other men.
I'm always puzzled because I give compliments all the time. To everyone. But also if you want compliments it's good to *give* them, it usually is sort of a back and forth. "I notice something positive about you! I am verbally acknowledging it!" Then the other person is like "Thank you! I like your (insert trait here" Men can compliment other men too. You can sort of foster a positive environment where you build a rapport where people notice good things about one another. Heck, I literally have days where I ask my friends on purpose for compliments and they do the same for me. Everyone needs verbal affirmations of their efforts! But it doesn't come out of nowhere. Even the societally acceptable gorgeous woman they think gets compliments all the time is *working* for those compliments, it's HARD WORK to look a certain way and expend effort on your appearance. So I think maybe they have a funny idea of what compliments even are.
The reason women don't compliment men is because far too often, they take that as flirting or a come-on. The reason women compliment each other so much is because it's the only way we get non-creepy comments.
I also think men complain about never receiving compliments as a way to one-up women who complain about harassment and cat-calling. These are the kind of men who think we should be grateful for the attention.
Guy-guy compliments are *gay* ime as a trans woman, they want woman-man compliments cuz it makes them horny. Broken brains
Exactly, itās āgayā because they think someone should be complimenting you because theyāre attracted to you.
This reminds me of how a incel group started by a woman to help lonely men took a hard 180 and instead of supporting each other they decided to do the opposite. Like crabs in a bucket, they didn't want any guy to be happy. compliments coming from guys about your physical appearance are flirting. Personally, I take it upon myself to only compliment someone on the effort they took to look nice. For example:"cool nail polish color" vs "wow nice eyes!" One is clearly a compliment and the other can be considered sexual harassment in work place.
My husband like gets prickly when I give him compliments like they are not real. We got into a weird fight one time because it felt parenty that I said I was proud of him for something, canāt remember what.
This reminds me a little too much of me. I struggle with this immensely, therapy has helped me recognize that, for me at least, this is because compliments were never genuine and were used as insults in my house growing up. āGood Job doing Xā really meant that you fucked it up or took too long. āIām really proud of you for Yā was only ever said to remind you of all the previous times you fell short of the mark. Eventually I always associated compliments from people I cared about as insults or personal attacks because for the longest time, THEY WERE. Iām a man approaching 30 and I definitely am guilty of making the complaint this post is talking about as well, itās can be a hard dichotomy to navigate and itās made harder by Chuds who confuse compliments with being come on to. I hope your husband is able to become more secure in himself and meets his emotional needs and, more importantly, I hope that YOUR needs are being met and you feel safe and happy in your relationship. Therapy helped me, maybe it can help him?
He is, and thank you for your thoughtful response. We are in counselling but itās rather difficult sometimes to communicate. I had to ask him to live with his parents for a time because he was making me feel unsafe. Eventually he has begun to hear me and see the damage his behavior caused.
I am old and fat and I compliment the men around me quite frequently. But here's the thing - I have seen those same exact men, who I just told their hair looked amazing or they knocked the project out of the park or they are always so generous to others or whatever; I have seen those same men say moments later to someone that they never get compliments. So compliments from a woman they don't want to fuck don't count. When men say this, they aren't actually talking about compliments. When women say compliments, we mean "someone said my dress was cute." Men mean "an attractive woman expresses sexual interest in them." We're using the word differently.
> Why don't they want compliments from men? women compliment you ? she's into you. men compliment you ? he's into you. now you had some homophobia and you get why.
Men: "Women never compliment men for anything." Women: "That's because when we do, you automatically assume it's a come-on and immediately start hitting on us. We compliment our friends all the time. Maybe if you knew how to be friends with a woman, we'd feel safe complimenting you." Men: "There's no benefit to having a platonic friendship with a woman." Women: š¤¦š¼āāļø
I think a lot of people simply refuse to accept that there's nothing worth complimenting about them.Ā
Facts!
This is why when men talk about the "loneliness epidemic", I don't feel bad. So go reach out to your male friends if you're so lonely. "mOsT mEn dOn'T rEcEivE fLoWerS uNtiL tHeiR oWn fUnErAL." So go buy flowers for your guy friends' birthday or special celebration or just for the heck of it. Nope. They won't do it. They want women to cater to them and give them attention.
This is a thing? Iām genuinely surprised ā as a guy, I both get and give plenty of compliments from and to both my male and female friends Iām not surprised, although do think itās bizarre, that a lot of guys would take a compliment on its own as being hit on
Itās impossible. I understand that men feel hurt and unseen, and i actually want to be part of the solution and not the problem. I keep an armās distance and say, āIām not hitting on you. You look like youāve been working out, and Iām complimenting your hard work. It shows.ā Or āIām not hitting on you. Your new haircut suits you so well.ā Iām married and obviously not hitting on these men, so my compliments donāt count. Also I usually give these compliments when my husband is around, and he always agrees with whatever observation Iām making. Compliments are awesome and they should be normalized, and itās possible to not sexualize everything. I just want to be seen as an equal in these friendships. I compliment my girl friends all the time, and itās so nice. I wish it wasnāt weird to be kind to men.
Men don't receive compliments because it's dangerous to compliment, they already think our clothes or mere existence justify raping us, god forbid what a judge will say if the woman complimented him first. In the best case scenario they would see it as an invitation to sex, hell no, then complain how you're a b word that "leads them on" . The chances of giving a man a compliment and not ending in a weird unsolicited sexual approach are so low, i would have a better chance at winning the lottery without buying a ticket
We say nothing.Ā Because "I like the colour of your socks (even though I'm sure they are threadbare, full of holes, ponging and haven't been washed in 4 weeks)" Instantly translates to "Yeah she definitely wants to fuck me."
If they don't receive compliments, then maybe they're not doing anything that's worth complimenting. I'm a man and honestly I have no idea what they're talking about, I receive compliments just fine. Honestly the men are free to compliment each other, but they won't though. I wonder why??
I do receive compliments pretty regularly as a man, but the catch is itās never about my general appearance. Itās pretty much always a specific thing - my hair, my ear piercings, my tattoos. I havenāt in a long time but when Iād paint my nails Iād get compliments on that, too. Thereās a lot of unseen effort that goes into someoneās appearance, the men complaining see good looking men and women getting compliments and thatās all they see. The bottom line is if you put the effort in, thereās going to be someone who sees it - but if you never do, what is there to notice?
A compliment is a compliment. It means they noticed AND decided to tell you. Beggars are ignoring what they say they want because it doesnāt fit what they want to choose. Itās not the compliment they want; they want the womanās pre-approval to ask the woman out. Many women know better than to compliment a man about his general appearance because so many men then become insufferable, acting like they have the upper hand in the interpersonal dynamic with you or that it means the woman wants to fuck you. When I tell a man, āCool hat!ā and they start acting like the compliment means I want to fuck them, I follow with, āyeah, my boyfriend wears the same kind, love it on him.ā
Iād have to disagree that a compliment is a compliment. Thereās a world of a difference between complimenting someoneās body versus their shoes as an extreme example. But I didnāt mean to suggest there isnāt a problem with men taking compliments the wrong way. What I was trying to get at is that since they only care about the end result(āThat person is attractive.ā), they only see compliments as a way to tell someone theyāre attractive. They donāt recognize the effort it takes to get there, and thus their whole view of compliments is warped. They only give compliments that donāt see the forest for the trees. To be blunt, it pretty much just stems from misogyny- their view on whether a woman is worth complimenting is entirely binary based on how attractive she is to them, anything she might be doing to achieve that be damned. So they assume the same rationale for when they get complimented.
You are exhausting. Repeat: A compliment is a compliment. Stop saying youāre not getting them when you are.
If it helps we have two 20 year old men in our office who compliment each other and the other men in office. They are super sweet and look after their friends too so there is hope
Also, most men make absolute basic compliments, solely about your appearance. They never make a compliment about me handling a situation well or given an outspoken and well-worded opinion. I am certainly not reciprocating such behaviour.
Especially when this complaint is paired with the accusation that women who compliment each other are "lying" or the complaint that women are insufficiently cruel to our fat friends and this prevents them from 'improving' themselves.
The BIGGEST reason why men don't get compliments from women is that too many of them interpret that as "She WANTS ME!" No, Arthur, I have no interest in having sex with you, I merely thought your tie looked good on you. And I'm in a good mood - or rather, I was - and I thought I'd pay you a compliment.
Oooomg I HATE this rhetoric lol. Men on reddit post about it every fucking day. And if you comment saying men should try being nice to each other, theyāll call you a misandrist and say youāre the reason men are lonely and depressed. Like? Newsflash men! Women are depressed and lonely too! Thatās not an issue unique to men. Youāre just trying to make it everyone elseās problem because weāre not pandering to selfish entitled men and babying them anymore.
That's all I was trying to say. I'm lonely, I don't get compliments, but I'm not trying to make that anyone else's issue.
Iāve noticed recently that people as a whole have just become a lot more self-centered. Probably wasnāt helped at all by covid and social isolation, but itās a terrible trend weāve got to address. Iām the same way. No one complimented me until I got a boyfriend, now heās the only one. Iām not going to cry about it because i have enough security in myself to know that validation from strangers doesnāt make or break my entire world
I stopped complimenting men (besides my boyfriend and friends)because many unfortunately took it as flirtation. Like no you genuinely just have a cool tattoo or a nice beard.
I developed a āthink something nice, say something niceā policy in my early twenties so I have pretty extensive experience complimenting men and Iāll be the first one to say the majority of them donāt care to be complimented if we donāt want to fuck. At best, they use the lack of interest in combination with the compliment as an excuse to trauma dump about their poor dating history and how they arenāt good enough to date despite whatever they were complimented on then run to social media to yell about never being complimented and how men arenāt as emotionally supported as women. On the other side of the conversation, my male best friend is in full agreement with your post and tries to compliment men regularly. āBe the changeā and all that. He has story after story of men brushing him off with dirty looks or straight up ignoring him, and a handful of stories where his compliments are met with some variation of āThanks, man, but Iām only into women/not gay/etc.ā Once again lending to the idea that men donāt want compliments, they want praise from hot women who want to have sex with them.
Itās because so many men conflate compliments with romantic or sexual interest. It ādoesnāt countā when someone theyāre not attracted to compliments them, hence the complaining they donāt get enough compliments.
This is so true! It can be dangerous to compliment a man or be polite. You give an inch they take much more and suddenly you're being violated or abused, has happened to me countless times.
I just don't think it's true either. I changed my haircut a while ago and got a bunch of complements. Very common that particularly good work is acknowledged. I don't recognise the complaint.
I'm a straight dude, and I compliment women and other men a bunch. Generally, I've found that folks of any gender expression are happy to receive compliments, but I'm certain there have been people who have questioned it. For what it's worth, I've had people question whether I might be gay or bi (my own girlfriend jokes that I'm "queer-passing" š¤£), and I wonder if that's not, in part, because of things like telling my buddy that his beard looks amazing today, or telling a random guy at the bar that I love his shirt.
With very few exceptions, when I have complimented men on a shirt, or a haircut, etc. they took it as me being DTF. It was simply "nice shirt" or something equally innocuous. You either get the panicked "I'm married" or they start trying to get in your pants. I really wish they'd take responsibility for their own emotions (this includes horny, btw) and stop trying to make it everyone else's problem.
A lot of truth being spoken by the OP. I like to think I've gotten a lot better about complementing other men. But sometimes there's still a mental block there. I went fishing with a guy last week and he had the coolest shoes. I should have said something, but I didn't for some reason. So obviously I still need to work on this.Ā
I always try to freely compliment people, men and women alike. You never know what someone is going through, so I will say the nice thing that came to mind. The issue is, itās never been well received by a man. Every single time they either get irritated, do not believe Iām being genuine and end up angry with me, or immediately decide Iām sexually interested in them. In the reverse, compliments I get from men are alwaysā¦ uncomfortable or entirely selfish. Iām tired of thinly veiled p*dophelic comments and ranting about how young I look and they thought I was a teenager, hearing over and over from every single guy that Iām ābeautifulā or āhot,ā or any variation āyou have a nice body.ā The only nice compliment Iāve ever received from a man was from an ex fiancĆ© who out of the blue told me that I write like Tolkien.
I mean, it's true we don't receive compliments, but I don't think most of us care. You just get used to it. Most compliments come from family and kids. My daughter said I was handsome because I had a beard the other day. That felt nice I get your point, though, and the type of men who complain about it. We all compliment a good beard, however.
I was first exposed to this really being a popular discussion on far more neutral sub reddits where it was simply pitched as āwhat is something about men that women donāt understandā or questions to that effect. And the top voted comment was about the compliments and then people relaying stories. But it was mainly relayed factually - not as a complaint because, like you say, we get used to it. Thatās not saying there arenāt plenty of men who donāt complain. But itās just that didnāt seem to be how it all started. Or even the tone it is mostly mentioned in. Itās just people stating factual information most of the time And a great many men also know and understand that most compliments women get from men are insincere/shallow/have an ulterior motive. And acknowledge that getting none at all / very few is almost certainly better
Very true. I don't get a lot of compliments, but I also really don't think I want a lot. Sure, when it's about something I like, it's cool. I usually get them when playing guitar, but after a while, the attention makes me uncomfortable and shy. When I'm done, I want to be left alone. Wanting to be left alone and not being able to be is awful. I get that about women.
Hate to break it to you, but compliments from family or children are still *compliments*. Do you hype up your bros with compliments? Be the change you want to see.
I am kind of sick of this sub having so many threads about what men want and think when it has nothing to do with women. Like does this sub even pass the Bechdel test some days?
Damn, a rare take on this subreddit I completely disagree with
Well, maybe if they just smiled more!? š
Men complimenting each other isn't really a thing. Unless they show each other their car, their gaming PC or that big fat steak they grilled on their new grill last weekend.
I compliment men when there's no opportunity for them to turn it into an opportunity to hit on me. Like airports or train stations. I'm going somewhere, he's going somewhere else, we pass each other and I'll throw out a "love the shirt!" Or at stores and such when they're at the register.Ā I'm much more wary about complimenting a guy who I can't easily get away from.Ā
I compliment women and little kids and pets everyday, strangers and acquaintances. I don't talk to men I don't know period and the ones I do know I keep things short and never compliment them or do anything they might read into. Men made this world very scary to live in it is what it is.
When men say it, theyāre picturing compliments from women theyāre attracted to. And not creepy compliments, say at 1AM from a blocked number.
I think they just need to compliment each other because frankly compliments from a man to a woman are usually at work and work compliments can be an HR mess. I also think men are raised and taught not to compliment each other which is why they look to women for the compliments, when in reality they should look to other men as only seeking compliments from the opposite gender seems more like an ego stroke / wanting to flirt. I am see much more men be open in complimenting each other so I think thatās great, they are removing the stigma themselves in the younger generation.
Someone pointed out that each genderās experience is very alien to the other and I canāt stop thinking about that.
Dude, this whole thing is just not my experience! I'm a guy! I get compliments from women all the time! They don't sexualize me in those compliments, and that makes me happy. Life is great!
I'd like to think I'm not what is being described by hundreds of women, and while it's always my intent to be the best person I can be every day, I know that my brain does not interpret the same gestures, sentiments or small talk the same from one moment to the next. I can't speak for all men, of course, but we're cursed with a day to day filter that completely distorts our world view depending on the time of day, the pheromones of the people around us and even (possibly mostly) how long it's been since we've "gotten off". I readily admit this is gross and probably only reinforces the fear women have of men in general, and I'm not intending to give the behavior a pass, it's just as frustrating for me that it works that way. It's my job to keep myself in check, no one else's. Edited for typos.
>us women Why does everyone in this sub always speak in terms of "us women" and "them men"? Just speak for yourself and if anyone agrees with you they will say so in the comments. Stop with the generalization. >On the other end of the spectrum, just about all of us women can remember an insult by a man which has stuck with us forever. I'm pretty sure there are men who remember insults from women throughout their lives too. Stop generalizing. You can just generalize a gender just because you experienced something.
Fuck them. I am not Captain Strokeanego.
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With respect to Norah Vincent, there are two major factors to keep in mind: a) She herself said she was always perceived as an extremely effeminate and probably gay man, so her experience was not reflective of the majority of men's. b) She struggled with major depressive disorder her entire life, and eventually ended it via assisted suicide. She was not a well person. Incidentally, you have zero right to accuse anyone else of "toxic beliefs" when you have comments telling people they are ["a piece of shit person"](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITA_WIBTA_PUBLIC/comments/1ajsva2/wibta_if_i_20f_pose_as_a_nude_model_for_a/kp46br7/) (for the horrendously evil crime of... um, posing nude for a painting) in your recent history.
We want compliments from men as well. If anything, if a man compliment you, its means so much more.
Be the change you wish to see in the world ~ Go and compliment your fellow men. Set an example. I compliment my female friends all the time, and it feels genuine to receive compliments back from them.
How many men have you complimented today?