Complimenting a girl

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I really like this girl and want to give her a compliment. I can't seem to do it. Does anyone else here find it hard to give a girl a compliment? Why do aspies have trouble giving compliments?

Well, I don't know why but I do know that my AS bf has a really hard time complimenting anyone-- especially me. He says he thinks these things and they just .... don't come out. It's almost as if the compliment gets stuck in the filter between brain and mouth. I am relieved to say that I completely lack that filter

IMO if you think of "complimenting" someone, you already lost. What you're going to say will come out artificial, separate in intent from everything else. "This is normal stuff. And this is a COMPLIMENT FROM ME TO YOU". Awkward.

Flirting, on the other hand, can smoothly interweave with normal behavior with various degrees of intensity. It's basically just "act normal, but let it show, a little, but consistently, that you're fonder of this person than of everyone else".

If they respond to this (NT women are quite perceptive in such social regards), then you can become less subtle. If they do not, then you can pretend your subtle signs of affection weren't even there.

IMO this is how its generally done, and it helps people avoid "a swing and a miss" type embarassment. Coming up to a cute girl on a bus and downright asking her out is a movie cliche, one that in real life opens you to possibility of public humiliation. That's why even the less-fragile NTs usually know to flirt first, and make sure there's a response.

So how do I flirt?

BTW, I still want to talk mainly about compliments, so let's not get to far off topic with flirting.

I remember this was definitely covered before, so maybe have a trawl through the forums and see if you can find the thread(s).

Rule of thumb about compliments; say something about things they chose (hair style, clothes, jewellery etc) not what they are (eye colour, voice etc).

Complimenting someone on their taste or style goes down well; it sounds like you admire them as a person. If you focus on external things that they are stuck with, it can come across as a bit creepy, unless you are already in a relationship with them.

Sadly, it varies.

Have you noticed how saying something witty can get you laughs at one point, but not at another? The joke is still witty, but the context has changed. Maybe you don't say it during a pause, or maybe their mood is too serious, or maybe someone just used a similar joke 20 seconds ago, or maybe you told it too fast and started laughing first...

Same goes for any other interaction, including flirting. Flirting is NOT A SEPARATE THING. Its a MODIFIER to what you're already doing naturally.

The biggest favor you can do for yourself is to develop a degree of fluidity where you can react to change, instead of trying to "think up a preset action hours in advance" and then "apply that action".

So if you see this girl you like, say, at a tennis court, you could just be funnier and friendlier around her than around others. It should come naturally if you like her, without being overbearing or creepy. Consistent, subtle, then not-so-subtle. If she doesn't act friendlier back, just keeps it on normal level, then nothing bad happened, anyway.

What you don't do is come up to her and blurt out some idiotic "compliment" - "Hey, nice rack- tennis rack, I mean".

*cringe* ugh, No! Definitely no 'sexual' compliments...

I was trying to show what happens in reality when a guy works himself up, gets all nervous, and blurts something stupid. "Must find something to compliment on, must find something, oh no, she's looking at me-". He may just be trying to talk about the tennis rack, but the andrenaline/tunnel vision result in such an accident.

That's why I don't like "compliments". They never worked for me. They're too much of a jarring difference from regular behavior to come off as natural and smooth.

Seconded.

Whatever you compliment, it must be something she has control over.

The very best compliments are compliments over something that have nothing to do with her looks whatsoever. Grand generalizations about 3 billion people are hazardous but I'll risk it anyway....compliment something she does, some skill you have observed. A compliment of a skill she has or a thing she did (maybe a good deed you observed her do) will go over much better than "you have beautiful eyes". This I can absolutely promise you even though I don't know her.

last time i even tried, it was in the workplace, and i told somebody i thought their nailpolish was pretty [it was very artistically done nail polish]. this person then complained to my supervisor that i was sexually harrassing her. i never understood why this person did not just say to me, "leave me alone and say nothing to me ever again!" instead of trying to get me fired and jailed. i to this day don't understand how merely saying somebody's nailpolish is pretty, constitutes sexual harrassment. nevertheless, i was read the riot act by my supervisor, and told to not say anything to anybody unless it was a supervisor. i replied that i would not say anything to anybody even if they were on fire. i would not even pee on the whole lot of them even if they were all on fire.

i do not compliment people because i rarely think in a complimentary way.

my mind does not often process things in a way that makes me think in any other way but one of mere acknowledgment, and i do not vocalize acknowledgment. the only exceptions are where musical and artistic creations are presented to me. if i like music that someone composes i will say that i thought it was excellent.

i do not consider intellectual achievements in a way that makes me feel inclined to be complimentary, because the answer was always in existence, and they merely found it.
creative expressions however are born in the mind of the creator, and i have a sence of admiration for them if they are good.
if someone is much smarter than i am, and they solve a problem that i can not, i merely acknowledge internally that they solved it because it is to be expected with their superior brain.
the same is true for people who are good at sports. if someone can kick a ball accurately, i simply think "well there you go", and i do not comment because there is no reason to comment as it would not change the fact that they can kick a ball.

i am not aware of visual beauty, and i have (almost) never seen anyone i consider to be pretty or good looking. faces are generic to me, and if someone asks me if they are pretty, then i will usually say things like "you'll do". in the "pictures of hot aspes" thread, i see that some people get many compliments like"omg you're so cute" , but i can not see how their face is any better or worse than anyone else's.
their nose is where it should be, and their eyes are placed correctly in the front of their head, and they are clean and tidy. what makes them "cute" is mysterious to me.

if you think about the measurements of the distance between their eyes, and the ratio of that distance to the distance between their eyes to their nose, and then the ratio of the distance from their nose to their mouth etc etc, i see that there are only millimeters of difference in those distances between "cute" people and non "cute" people (people who's photo's never draw a comment).
i do not understand why it is important.

i said all that because i am trying to explain why it never occurs to me that someone is "pretty", and therefore i never think to tell them they are because i do not really know if they are or not..

some people give compliments as a way to get appreciation from people, and they are lying. i never compliment someone as a means to elicit their fondness for me. when i read the advice for "picking up girls by choosing a well crafted compliment", i think extremely ill of it, and i realize i am so far away from normalcy that i feel quite remote from the rest of the world.

if a girl is wearing a nice dress, she would already know it, and she would not need me to tell her she is wearing it. i do not care what color or pattern is on a persons clothes. as long as they do not smell, i have no opinion whatsoever.

Say "You are alright", then pat them on the head, then look distracted.

I think the easiest way to compliement a NT girl such as myself is to be honest.

If she does something you admire, smile.
If she does something for you say thank you.

Work with what she's good at. For example - Say she's good at writing and you're not, when you have to write something ask her to do it or to help you with it and add "because I like the way you write."

Compliements are best when they are honest and not thought about too much.
Making someone feel appreciated is the best kind of compliement.

I don't know how much this helps, but I hope it's not all useless!

If you give the "wrong" compliment, or say it in the "wrong" way, suddenly the recipient is very unhappy. As an Aspie man, you're thinking logically, which leads to the perfectly rational conclusion that complimenting=doom. So naturally you feel reluctant.

Try to make a compliment fast and casual; it minimizes the chances you have of stepping on your tongue. Walk by her, be sure she's seen you, and say "Cute shoes!!" with a smile... and keep on walking. I suppose I should add that she should actually HAVE cute shoes on that day (ie no ragged tennies, Birkenstocks, etc). NT women are weirdly obsessed with shoes, so unlike other appearance-based compliments this one won't get an outraged response about how terrible she thinks she looks.

I agree. I'd just wait till I noticed something I liked about the person, and just say it....though mostly I never really did, because I've heard so many phoney compliments that I fnd it hard to imagine I'd be believed, and then there's the problem of whether or not it's right to cynically feed somebody's ego just to groom them for whatever else is really on your mind. So I'd never compliment spuriously, and I'd never use it as a deliberate method for manipulating.....if I like something about somebody, then on a good day I'll say so, regardless of any wish to get off with them or not.

As for flirting, the best potted definition I know is that flirting = playing. I'm happy to play with anybody as long as I like them enough, but it's not meant as any kind of coded sexual message. I've known loads of people I've had a good giggle with, but I haven't necessarily ended up in bed with them. Of course we tend to warm to each other, which certainly doesn't do the sexual prognosis any harm, but really it's just a laugh. Any other kind of flirting leaves me cold.....I'd look and feel like a complete idiot if I tried to emulate it, and people who do it look like idiots to me. I've always been able to find partners without bothering with it at all, so I don't see the point of an Aspie trying to go that way.

I reckon an ounce of genuine interest in the real person is worth a ton of scripts from "how to get more girls." I know it's a hard message for anybody just starting out who feels desperate and just wants to know how to get there, but I always found that the more directly I approached the mating game, the worse were the results. When I relaxed, everything got a lot easier.

I don't know many other aspies but I am one, and my friends, both boy and girl, often say I'm good at complimenting girls. Boys often ask me for advice too . It probably stems from my family being mostly female. But anyway:

1. Focus on non sexual things. Trust me, it makes misunderstandings less likely.

2. Focus on what is pretty about her. You know: smile, hair, eyes, new clothes, voice etc. I haven't found a girl who isn't attractive in some way.

3. If she is so pretty that you can't decide what to compliment on. Or you find being specific too embarrassing. Just be general, E.G You look pretty today. It's simple, It's probably overused, but It always works for me.

4. Say it naturally, trust me, I often observe my fellow men trying out their 'pickup lines' with that special 'pickup line' voice. It sounds wrong and it doesn't work.

5. Just say it, if it's embarrassing find a friend who happens to be female, explain the situation and ask to practice. The more confident you sound, the better it will work. A trick I use is allow my aspieness to take over, and say it frankly, while ignoring social cues . As long as you know her reasonably well it should work.

Finally, I'm not a flirt, I don't pick up girls, I just like seeing girls smile. My advice may only work for me. Maybe I'm just good looking. But as far as I know, my ways make girls smile, and as far as I know girls like boys who make them smile. So try them.

P.S If anyone disagrees with my advice, do tell. I love suggestions, and I love to learn new ways to compliment girls, as I said, I love making girls smile. It's my thing.