Okay, guys, before I rain on your parade, let me say that I’m with you: women are incredible. Gorgeous, virtually all of them. Among the most beautiful creations in the natural world. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with looking at them, finding them astonishing, and even saying so in the right circumstances.
So why is it that they don’t always consider it a compliment when we glance smilingly at them or remark on how lovely they appear to us?
Honestly, the answer here is so simple I shouldn’t have to point it out.
But we’re guys, and guys can be dense, so I’ll go ahead and explain it with a couple of quick mental exercises.
First, I want you to imagine that you’re working at a job you like, a job you put a lot of pride and effort into and that you’re good at. You studied your ass off getting the right degree or training for it, you gave a genius interview, you’ve done everything right since you were hired, you’ve saved your team’s butts with your creative ideas on a regular basis, you’re always on time, you stay late when you need to – you’re the perfect employee.
And no one ever says anything appreciative to you about any of that.
Well, maybe once in a while someone does, but for the most part, they just take your talent and intelligence and work ethic for granted. Other people get lots of kudos for their efforts and get promoted every year or two, but your career just kind of putters along unnoticed.
So now imagine you’re walking down the hall, and a coworker says, “Hey, nice bipedalism, buddy! I mean, you’re just being exceptionally bipedal today.”
Then, a little later, you’re in a meeting, and your boss says, “Look at you and your opposable thumbs. Lots of people have thumbs, but you sure know how to oppose them. Good job.”
Nothing about your terrific productivity. Nothing about that suggestion of yours that made the whole department look good. Just regular and consistent compliments about attributes that are mere artifacts of being born human.
You may very well think you have a really nice walk. You may consider your hand-eye coordination better than average, and maybe in elementary school you were best at “One-Two-Three-Four, I Declare a Thumb War.” But compliments about having two legs and opposable thumbs are still likely to sit ill with you if all your real accomplishments are being overlooked.
Mental exercise number two:
You’re walking down the street. For whatever reason, you need to find something in your wallet, so you take it out and start digging around in it. As you’re walking along, you realize that someone significantly larger than you is approaching from the other direction, staring at your wallet. When you look up, the person smiles and says, “That’s a nice wallet full of money you’ve got there.”
Even if the smile looks genuine and you’re on a crowded street where nothing is likely to happen, isn’t that going to make you uncomfortable? Especially if it happens again half a block later, and another block after that?
“Yeah, that money’s lookin’ good, dude.”
“Whoo-eee! You’re loaded, aren’t you?”
How many comments like that will it take before you put your wallet away and hurry onward even though you may not have found whatever business card or free-coffee coupon you were looking for?
The thing is, if you see someone who has surprisingly good opposable thumbs or a really confident walk, or if you see someone in possession of an impressive sum of money in their billfold, it really ought to be a nice thing for you to comment on it, if you truly mean it in a positive, encouraging way. But in the world we live in, people often go unvalued for their talents, hard work, and striving. And in the world we live in, people are regularly accosted by strangers and relieved of their money through physical force or threat of violence. These facts create a context in which compliments about bipedalism and fat wallets could easily be unpleasant and even hurtful, regardless of the intent behind them.
So if you want to live in a world where you’re free to look at women as you like and tell passing strangers how beautiful you find them, then you need to get to work. You need to build a civilization in which women receive all the rewards and acclaim they deserve for their personal accomplishments and abilities. You need to build a civilization in which women feel completely safe at all times from unwanted physical advances and sexual assault.
You need to create a world in which people feel valued enough, and safe enough, that appreciative observation of their superficial attributes won’t be taken the wrong way.
In the meantime, if you just can’t repress your instinct to make eye contact with pretty women in public and smile at them, here’s a suggestion:
Smile at everyone.
If we all did that, and meant it, I guarantee you many things would get better much more quickly.
