I know that women love compliments, and I’ll be the first one to step up and receive my compliment with grace. That said, there are a few compliments that I’m not too fond of receiving. Maybe because they reveal your real thoughts about me – and it ain’t pretty. If you’re fond of saying these things (below) to your lady friends and wonder why they get upset, well, let me break it down for you:

Anything that ends with ‘… for a girl”

We’ve come so far in the women’s movement that this sentence should be eliminated from existence – unless it’s to say, “You pee standing up and aim so well, for a girl.” Any other variation is unacceptable. If you think you’re trying to say she’s awesome, try another way. This only just shows your chauvinistic side that on some level thinks women can’t do the same things as men, so much so that you need to mention it out loud. My favorite ‘compliment’ is, “You drive pretty well, for a girl, almost like a guy.” This makes me so mad because my driving skills are excellent, so this stereotype really burns my nuts.

“You’re so cool, how come you’re still single?”

Uhm.. I had this ‘compliment’ thrown at me by men a lot when I was single. The subtext of this is; All girls want to be in a relationship. So if you’re cool, then you’ll definitely be in a relationship. All these men just couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been snapped up already. It was not really a compliment because it assumed that I wanted to be in a relationship and not single by choice.

“I like girls with meat on their bones”

I once had a guy that described my thighs as ‘chunky’. I almost died. If you think that you’re helping by wanting chunkier girls, please remember most girls want to be skinny and fit not for men, but for other women. Also we don’t like to be reminded of the fact that we might in fact have ‘meat on our bones’, rather we want to pretend that we are that willowy creature from our minds. So stop pointing it out.

“You’d be prettier if you smiled more”

“Oh will I? Thanks for telling me. After all, that’s what I want, to be prettier. Thank you for looking out for me.” You might think you’re doing a girl a favor by telling her when she looks pretty, but no. We know when. If we wanted to smile more, we would. So back off.

“You’re not like other girls”

This is a weird one. On one hand it sounds like we could be unique but thinking about it, what does it say about your opinion of other girls? Sure we’re cool and awesome and we know it but this also means that you think other girls are second rate, even if we made the cut.

So before you go about blabbing and ‘complimenting’ be sure that you know what you’re really saying. Girls aren’t just gonna sit there and take every ‘compliment’ you throw in their direction. Good luck!