Once upon a time, I dated a girl. She was quite attractive, despite the fact that I have since decided she was most assuredly the spawn of Satan.

At the time, men were constantly drooling over her and showering her with compliments of how attractive she was. One day while spending an afternoon together talking, she said something to me that I thought was very telling and which I have remembered to this day.

“I hate it when people tell me I’m pretty.”

Confused, I questioned why on earth she would refuse a compliment such as that.

“It’s just such a stupid compliment. ‘You’re pretty.’ It’s what you tell someone when you can’t think of anything else to say about them.”

As much as I hate to say it, Spawn of Satan had a point. When I looked at it that way, it really was kind of a hollow compliment, especially since it was so often cast about by men who were only interested in outward appearances and physical entanglements.

And yet I couldn’t help but feel like I was also one of those shallow men. Heck, I’m STILL one of those shallow men. Looks matter to me, and I was dating this girl in part, because she WAS pretty. It had been the first thing I noticed about her. It wasn’t the only reason why I liked her (hey, I’m not COMPLETELY shallow), but I couldn’t deny the fact that if she hadn’t been so pretty, chances are I wouldn’t have asked her out in the first place.

And so I resolved that I would try to compliment her on other more profound matters. I would prove to both of us that I didn’t just want her for her looks, and she would see how different and non-shallow I was compared to all the other men chasing her. I resolved not to call her “pretty.”

Oddly enough, she dumped me just a short time later. Girls…they’ll really mess with your head.

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One night several years ago, I went to a hockey game with some friends of mine. While we were there, a blond that knew my friend sat down to visit with us. She had long blond hair and a big set of eyes that kept staring at me as I talked. At first I thought I was really being really suave. In only a few seconds of meeting this girl I already had her hanging on my word and playfully hitting my arm! She started flashing all the signals she could that suggested that she was interested in more than just my knowledge of collegiate ice hockey.

Not long had passed however, before I started to notice some odd behavior from this girl. First of all, she appeared to have the attention span of a gnat. Her eyes flickered around the hockey rink while her head bobbed around doing that thing that dogs do when they think they hear something way off in the distance.

She also seemed to have no sense of continuity. One minute she’s be talking to her friend sitting beside her, and then it mid sentence she’s turn to me and ask me the capitol of Delaware, while simultaneously turning to my friend and asking her where she bought her classy belt. Although, in her defense, it was a pretty sweet belt.

But the thing I remember most, was the way she responded to me. I had never met this girl before in my life. But she would sit there and stare at me like we were long lost lovers. In passing I made some clever remark that I’m sure wasn’t terribly funny. I don’t remember what it was, but I’m sure it was something ridiculously lame.

“Hey, you know why ice is so cold?”

“No, why?”

“Because it’s frozen.”

Whatever I said it was something stupid. But apparently she found it to be the funniest thing she’d ever heard. She erupted in laughter. She placed her hand on my shoulder for flirtatious support as she proceeded to cackle into the night, her bellowing guffaws echoing across the hockey rink. People around us started to look at me. I’m sure they must’ve thought I was the funniest man alive. A comic celebrity in their midst, taking in a night of ice hockey. The blond continued to laugh uncontrollably while she gasped between breaths, “You’re so FUNNY!”

I sat there and looked at this woman as she laughed while keeled over and latched on to my shoulder. I looked around the seating at various people in attendance. I looked at my friend and her classy belt. To this day, I remember the moment and my inner monologue so very clearly. As I looked at the gasping blond before me, struggling for breath because of my hilarity I thought to myself, “Matt…there is no way, you are this funny.”

Turned out I was right. The blond didn’t sit by us for too long. She spent most of the hockey game going from one guy’s shoulder to the next. I smiled when she made it all the way to the opposite side of the rink by the third period. For her, the game was in the stands.

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I always think it’s funny when people argue about who’s life is worse. I mean really, when it’s all over, how do you tell who won??

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I am an avid complimentor of women. You might say I’m an addict. A woman-complimenting addict. There’s just no substitute for a classy woman, and I just genuinely admire them. I can’t help it. It’s fun. Maybe I’m too old fashioned. I just really enjoy complimenting girls, or doing fun little things for them. Sometimes it’s a problem. I try to really tone it down because I think a lot of girls would be weirded out and assume that I’m madly in love with them. That’s not the case, I just genuinely think a girl is fun, or beautiful, or clever, or talented, or whatever. So I try to bite my tongue from time to time. But every now and again I can’t resist any longer and I have to do something awesome. I’ll draw them a personalized cartoon, or make a card, or even write a song. I just really love to see the smile on a girl’s face when she’s told that she’s appreciated.

I think in this day in age, a lot of girls can’t take a compliment. I’ve met a few who would argue with my every time I tried to make them feel good about themselves. Yup. They actually would make me feel bad, for trying to make them feel good. Go figure. I think learning to take a compliment is a good quality for everyone to learn. Maybe if more people learned how to accept compliments easily, there would be more people who give them.

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