Girls have a super power they can use to live rent free in any guy’s head pretty much eternally. All they need to do is catch them off guard with a compliment.
A guy will keep a shirt until it literally disintegrates if one time a girl said “that color looks good on you.” Pretty much every guy that wears a particular cologne, wears that cologne because at some point a girl said he smelled nice. It’s not even a horny brain thing I don’t think. It’s just that guys get so few compliments on their appearance that every single one is massively precious to them.
girls would do this more often but there’s always the (justified tbh) fear that the guy will take it the wrong way and get weird about it :(
It goes both ways I think too. Guys wouldn’t obsess over the idea that a single compliment might be flirting if they were more used to compliments in general from both sexes. On the other hand some guys are so afraid of misreading a compliment or normal friendliness that they can’t tell when someone actually is flirting. I sort of think there need to be more voices out there meant to speak directly to men and masc people about social literacy that aren’t trying to turn them into hateful, violent, incel republicans.
hard agree, it’s a tragedy that toxic masculinity has taken over that space. I’m not the target audience being nb but I have a lot of respect for the Speeed yt channel for doing exactly that.
It’s absolutely justified fear. For every one guy who will just take it as a sweet compliment, there are ten guys who will think “she wants the D!”
Honestly I don’t think the ratio is that bad… But it doesn’t have to be, when just one creep can ruin your life…
I’ve always bought my husband red shirts because I think he looks good in a bold red color. About 17 years of marriage before he finally told me he doesn’t really care for the color, that he just wants to look good for me.
awee 🙄 (I can’t find the sweet teary eyed emoji, pretend this is that one)
Best comment xD
It’s such a dichotomy. Women get catcalled every day and feel uncomfortable and harassed. Understandable. The average man gets catcalled a handful of times in his life and cherishes those moments almost as much as their children’s births.
Doesn’t even have to be catcalling; even a normal compliment is something we remember for a long time. I don’t think I’ve been catcalled at all, though I’m not very attractive so I wouldn’t expect to be.
Hey there sugar dick.
That’s not how you should call someone with diabetes and you know that.
Hello aspartame wiener.
One time, when I was in 6th grade, an 8th grade girl called me cute. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it
I might have been catcalled once. I was riding my bike on the road when I was in college; at the time I had super long messy hair that went down past my shoulders (I’m a guy). A car drove past and this girl put her head out the passenger window and shouted something at me. She might have said “looking good, hippie!” She might have also said, “fuck you, hippie!” I’ll never know haha.
Women drown in the ocean whereas men die of thirst in the desert.
This is obviously an overgeneralization, but it matches the experience of many.
I heard a similar analogy, men are in a desert, women in a swamp. In both cases they struggle to find drinkable water.
Oh that’s good. It highlights the quality of available water.
My god if I could just get one compliment I could die happy.
I like your username, and you have great taste in Lemmy instances.
I think the difference is that this isn’t catcalling. If women’s compliments towards men were the same as men’s compliments towards women, I think men would also dislike it. Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that men don’t get compliments often, and often they stick with them, but generally those are complements and not catcalls.
If women’s compliments towards men were the same as men’s compliments towards women, I think men would also dislike it.
Nah.
Every time I’ve ever heard of an experiment where indignant women do/say to men the exact same things that they hate getting from men, they’re always astonished to see the men’s reactions as practically universally positive:
If the goal of the experiment was to make men feel the weird combination of creeped-out and ashamed that comes with everyday objectification, then the experiment failed. Instead, these fellas look flattered and expectant. You can practically see them plotting the nearest route to the cheapest hotel.
Lol
“I want to destroy your dick,” SJ Son whispers into the ear of an unknown man as she walks by.
Yeah 99% of dudes I know would be ecstatic to hear a woman whisper that to them on the street.
I’d just be so fucking confused.
Catcalling ≠ Complimenting
Catcalling is about letting the other know, that you want to fuck or harass them.
Complimenting is about verbalising beauty without any other expectations towards the other person.
There is an old idiom that goes “everything is about sex except sex. That’s about power.”
Catcalling is about expressing power over someone else body and life. It’s a veiled threat, coached in sexual terms. No one doing it actually expects to have sex afterwards. Its about saying “i can force sex on you. I can take control of you. Your life belongs to me.”
A lot of the men engaging in it above are doing it because of peer pressure, normalized misogyny and the “thrill” of getting an acknowledgement of that power by scaring women. I dont think most of them want to attack women outright to begin with, but it normalizes mixing sex with violence and dehumanizing woman.
women get so much attention its like theyre drowning. men get so little its like theyre starving in the desert.
truly ironic
Eh being 14 and having an adult woman shouting out of a car at me to get my cock out I feel is about as gross and threatening as it would be if the genders were reversed.
As someone who’s been catcalled many many times while presenting female and once while presenting male (by women). Yeah tbh it felt similarly threatening. When you’re walking alone in the dark all big burly and bearded and just hear a voice calling out sexualizing you it’s scary. Like in retrospect now I can recognize that it was probably a drunk/high/low inhibitioned young woman displaying the confidence of youth when surrounded by friends. But I was scared because if she’s comfortable doing this she probably knows something I don’t if she chooses to escalate.
When you’re walking alone in the dark all big burly and bearded and just hear a voice calling out sexualizing you it’s scary
The fear is from the group dynamics more than anything else. Gender almost plays no part in it. Age plays almost no part in it. There are several stories about a group of teens attacking a lone adult, and it goes just about as you’d expect. Anyone who is alone and suddenly becomes the focus of attention by a group will (and probably should) become worried, whereas if you’re in a group the (that is, your) reaction can be anything from ignoring to playing along because you have less to fear. All of us can imagine the difference between walking in a group or by yourself when getting catcalled. Most of us have probably seen the difference.
Anon’s tombstone:
“She really liked my voice.”
I (afab) intentionally give my male friends and coworkers lots of non sexual compliments, and it’s been a mixed bag for people I don’t know well. I genuinely love men’s business wear, so I frequently go for a comment about what they’re wearing (think “I like your shirt” or “that’s a cool pattern,” not “that shirt makes your eyes pop” or “you look sexy in that shirt”), and about a third of the time, they still seem to think I’m coming on to them. Since I got married and wear my wedding ring, that’s down to about a quarter.
non-sexual
“You look sexy in that shirt”
I mean…
You missed the word “not” there I guess?
I’m not good at reading comprehension.
I agree. Tim Cruise is short.
how is the eyes pop one also in the not category
I try not to compliment men’s physical attributes. Given that around a quarter of them still react like I’m flirting when I compliment the pattern they have on while I’m wearing a wedding ring, I don’t want to go any further, lol. Maybe I should have said non-flirty instead of nonsexual though, because I agree, that’s not a sexual comment.
yeah that makes sense
That’s an example of a compliment I don’t give. I’m not trying to start something I don’t want to finish and I don’t want to finish anything.
In my defense, I am very drunk and I do look sexy in that shirt thank you very much
I was told blue looks good on me by a girl.
10 years later, most of my shirts are blue.
I hope she wasn’t colour blind 😬
Turns out she was making a BJ joke and occasionally lies awake cringing at the joke that everyone missed.
Purple for me. Fortunately I like it too.
I did a lot of clubbing in the '90s. Once, a beautiful girl came up to me and said: “You’re gorgeous” and then ran off. Thing is, though, I was in my early 30s at the time and she looked about 16. So, obviously, I didn’t pursue her. But that’s stuck with me for over 20 years. I can still hear it in my head.
One time a buddy and I were out drinking and on our way out he ran into a childhood friend. So while they were catching up I was just leaning against a table and listening to their conversation and people watching.
A pretty attractive woman came up to me, looked me dead in the eyes, and said “you’d be more attractive if you had some self-confidence”, and then walked out of the bar.
I think about that every day. Because I have never in my life been told I need “more confidence” (actually, it’s usually the opposite haha).
Maybe she wanted you to approach her, you ignored her “signals” and the only reason that could be, at least from her point of view, was that you lacked confidence.
Aahhh… so, that morse code…??
Yeah I assumed so. It was a few years ago so we probably talked for a bit at the bar (I am not allowed to go get drinks by myself cause I’ll end up talking to strangers for 45 mins haha) but I don’t remember her from any other point in the night.
Idk it was just really strange haha
Shit like that, I’d probably not read too much into it. Some girls just like to fuck with people (people have been trolling before trolling was an internet term). She probably left laughing how she fucked with your head (yeah, some beautiful girls are fucking deeply ugly on the inside, and vice versa)
I’ve received a lot of compliments on my voice in life, Nicknames for it throughout school; i didn’t have a period of voice cracking, literally woke up one day and my voice was different (scared the shit out of my parents that morning).
I hate my voice 🙃
Everyone hates their voice haha just know it sounds different to other people than it does to you.
I feel like I prefer the voice I hear in my head than the voice I hear when I record myself :(
I’m not saying anything about right or wrong or societies roles, but I don’t even think it’s hyperbole to say my wife has been complimented thousands of times more then I have in our lives. It’s incredibly rare for me to get a compliment from a stranger, and even then it’s usually from other guys saying they like some item I’m wearing. It really does feel fucking incredible when it happens because it’s so insanely rare. And not to toot my own horn too much, but I’m not that bad looking, so I can’t imagine what it’s like for people with less fortune than I have in their appearance.
I’ve received two compliments from women out of the blue in my life. The first time was when a coworker told me i had a nice voice and should do voice acting for anime. That was 2006.
The second was another coworker said “at least you’re cute” to some offhand joke i made. That was 2018.
At that rate, I expect another nice comment around 2032 or so.
The data indicates 12 years which would be 2030.
That’s a lot more optimistic!
I’m assuming that there’ll be an additional wait period. They are experiencing heavy call volume at this time.
It’s austerity now, so we can probably expect a bit of deflation on the compliment market, pushing back projected compliment growth rates.
omg my last one was in 2018 as well. we can be besties
In 1998, the young lady working the cash register at the taco bell near where I worked told me I have really pretty eyes. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
The same thing happened to me, only it was at a Carl’s Jr! Rejoice, for we have pretty eyes! (At least according to 2 random fast-food workers)
I don’t remember basically anyone from my secondary schoold other than my 4 close freinds and this one girl that randomly asked me for a hug one day, said I give really good hugs, then basically never spoke to me again.
Damn people are lonelier than me?
There’s always someone happier than you in the same way there’s always someone more miserable than you.
But there will never be anyone more you than you.
A girl once told me I am not horrific to look at. God that fucked me up lol.
I feel that pain. It’s like that “worst she can do is say no” thing. When I was 12 my friends were joking about who another friend should “date” (ofc in the capacity that 12yos manage that) and someone JOKINGLY suggested me, I even laughed along for a second. Her answer, rather than laughing along or something, was a deadpan “eww”. That fucked my confidence for years
When I was in elementary school, a girl who was generally mean to me and everyone else told me I have nice teeth. That was over 10 years ago and I still vividly remember it.
