Compliments

It’s not often this happens, but I have to completely disagree with on of the things Bill put up on the opening page. He wrote “If a guy gives you a compliment or shows any interest in anything you're saying, it's to either get into your pants or, if he's already gotten into your pants, to shut you up.”

While it is funny, and partially true, it’s not completely accurate. I wanted to amend this before we give some of our female readers complete complexes over guys and they never date again. Our goal is not to turn the girls in our audience off of guys, just to get you to break up with your jerk boyfriends so, well…you know, we’ll have a shot at you. So I’m going to go a bit more into detail (“yammering on” as Bill puts it) about what it means when your boyfriend or a guy gives a complement.

This is going to require some semantics, so bare with me. In the English language there are two rules that we utilize in spoken encounters everyday. Those being “I understood,” and “You understood.” Basically the I & You are accepted as having been implied, even though they’re not spoken. Native English speakers can easily follow a basic verbal exchange between two people like this; “Going to the store?” “Heading there later.” You don’t have to add the personal pronouns of you or I; the meanings of the sentences are still understood by the listener.

That being said, there is a similar, unwritten, rule in ‘guy talk.’ Something that all males understand as being implied, but is never spoken, when giving a compliment to a female (surprisingly, it has nothing to do with intercourse). Let’s look at a few examples.

“You’re a pretty good driver.”
“You hit pretty hard.”
“You’ve got pretty good taste in music.”

These are the ‘pretty’ examples. When a guy gives you a complement using the words ‘pretty’ or ‘good,’ there is an implied meaning to it. Basically, at the end of each of those sentences the phrase “for a girl” is understood to be added in the male mind. The complement translates to, more or less, “while you’re not as good at that as the most incompetent male, you have surprised me by showing that a female can reach that level of accomplishment.” Let’s take another look at the examples.

“You’re a pretty good driver…for a girl.” Meaning, “If I shut my eyes I could almost believe that I’m in a car being driven by a slightly incompetent man, and not a woman.”

“You hit pretty hard…for a girl.” What he’s saying is, “If you were my ten year old brother I’d actually be proud of you.”

“You’ve got pretty good taste in music...for a girl.” Translates to, “Wow, there’s at least three CD’s you own that I like, and I’m only tempted to throw half your collection away when you’re not here.”

The next level would be ‘great’ complements. The meaning depends on the context. For instance, “You’ve got a great sense of humor,” which means “I would put your sense of humor right up there with the average guys. It’s so rare to find a girl who can make me laugh almost as much as my male friends…and I might like to have sex with you as well.” Or, if the term great is used in direct reference to something about you - such as “You have great legs,” that does mean that he thinks you have great legs. That and he’s trying to get into your pants.

Now if a guy actually says he ‘loves’ something about you or something that you’ve done, then he means every word of it. For example – “I love your tits,” “I love having sex with you,” or “I love when you make me breakfast.” Those are the tender moments, free of implied meanings or interior motives, that you should enjoy.

I hope this helps you understand the male mind a bit more. In closing I’d just like to add one thing. If he says “I love when you give me head,” you’re safe. If he says “You give a pretty good blow job,” there’s potentially something being inferred that you might need to be worried about.