If I hear one more man tell me: 
I'm not going to tell you you’re hot, it’ll inflate your ego - I’m going to scream. 

I seem to have found myself in situations, both romantic and platonic, where this phrase, or something of a similar vein, has been directed toward me. After a recent conversation skirted around the edges of debate on this topic, I felt compelled to write something about it. 

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I have to preface this article with the obvious: that I certainly do not think I'm hot shit (this couldn't actually be farther from the truth). But this is a hard topic to broach without sounding arrogant. As a scenario that a lot of 'conventionally attractive' women, of all different appearances, seem to find themselves in more often than you'd think, I believe it's worthy of discussion. 

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Have compliments become a lost art?

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Here's an excerpt from a conversation I had with a man the other week, verbatim:

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Me: “So just because someone’s hot, you don’t think they should be told that they are?”

Him: “No, they’ve been told it enough.”

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I've had similar conversations before, and similar statements made, with and by men. So what the hell has happened to just giving someone a compliment?​

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The 'I think you're hot but I'm not going to tell you' narrative needs to be unpacked. Firstly, you've admitted that you find me attractive, but you evidently don’t possess either the confidence or a strong enough belief itself to say it outright, so you’ve shifted it from the first-person perspective into the second-person. And what is the desired response here? Do you want me to be flattered or offended? 

 

The answer: the latter. It’s backhanded. They're acknowledging it, making it obvious they too agree with ‘everyone else’, but are being just indirect enough to make you doubt whether they genuinely mean it. Perhaps they believe it'll make you think you're better than them. It’s ultimately them saying hey so I do think this, but I also don’t think you need to hear it, because I assume you hear it all the time, and I don't want to give you that satisfaction.

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The fact that you think I hear that all the time says a lot more about your ability to assume than it does about the perception of my desirability.

 

And if many men have this mindset, do you see the obvious outcome here? 

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After conducting some market research (aka asking my hot female friends if they have had similar experiences), the resounding answer was affirmative. Narratives like these subsequently infiltrate into relationships too. Take for instance: dressing up for a nice occasion, not receiving a compliment and hearing the common response: but you know I think you're beautiful. That, in this scenario, is irrelevant. If you've purposefully gone to a lot of effort for something, then it doesn't matter, step your game up.

 

This essentially circles back to how withholding honesty is problematic. It stifles connection, which ultimately, and ironically, is unattractive. 

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So WHAT if we already know our boyfriend finds us beautiful (I'd hope we would) or whether we get told we’re hot every single day by ten different people? Why does it make it any less meaningful? 

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Why CAN’T women have a big ego?

 

Whilst on the surface, comments like these may appear flippant and irreverent, naturally, there's a bigger issue at play - and it is to keep women small. It's the idea that women shouldn’t, and can't, have an ego.

 

Being egocentric, for a man, is often encouraged, held underneath a guise of pride for their career or personal achievements. But if a women is objectively hot, she needs to stay humble, she needs to remain unsure of herself - as she is then, less of a threat.

 

Glorifying being humble is a concept rooted into our society and has different nuances when it comes to masculinity and femininity. Think of phrases such as ‘the girl next door’ or ‘she’s beautiful but she doesn’t know it’. It's the idea that oblivious ignorance makes you 'more'. The less aware you are, the hotter you are.

 

This is something I’ve never understood myself. Most individuals have a warped vision of how they perceive themselves versus how they think they’re perceived and then how they’re actually perceived. I would say most people don't view themselves as flawless; the reality is, everyone has, and hides, their insecurities. A person can hear a hundred nice things, and one bad, and the brain automatically focuses on the bad.

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I know this works both ways and applies to men as well. At times, women withhold so they don't inflate a man's ego; from both sides, it becomes a power play. But due to patriarchy and gender standards, the nuance is different. There is also a difference between withholding a compliment completely versus these aforementioned indirect comments. 

 

Look, gender aside, too many compliments aren't good for anyone's ego, whether they be physical or non-physical. I doubt every woman wants to hear an endless stream of how amazing they are. This is not what I’m getting at. It’s the specific phrasing, the distinct I don't want to boost your ego, is when it turns into an issue. And whilst it might not be that deep to you, everything is deep to me.  

 

Because if the bottom line is I don't think you deserve to hear this,​​​​ in all honesty, I’d rather you just say nothing. ​​