how very lucky to be a girl

Anyone who is a reader of this blog knows that I am not an advice columnist.  The only advice I’ve ever given here on this blog are my cheeky wurdz of WIZdum.  They are not meant to be followed.  And the only people from whom I seek relationship advice are those who are in relationships.  By my own standard, I am not qualified to give dating and relationship advice.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t have opinions.  It also means that when someone asks for my advice, I take that responsibility very seriously and thoughtfully.

Over the past year, many readers have written asking for my advice.  Such a funny thing, I always think.  How can they read of my failures and think that I would know the first thing about what to do?  But still, they have taken their own valuable time to reach out to me and that is worthy of my thought, compassion, empathy and time.  I always respond.  I don’t always know what to say.

But this week, I did.  And the question that had been posed was so very interesting to me because it really got me thinking about some of the fundamental differences about men and women.  The nuances of communication that must be learned.  That the innocent-seeming first thought isn’t always the right thing to say.  I took my time crafting the most thoughtful advice I could offer, and when I’d finished, I’d learned something about myself that I wasn’t sure I’d known before having had to articulate it.  For that reason, I wanted to share it with you, and my reader was kind enough to grant his permission to do so.

Kevin wrote:

I’m not sure if you can offer advice on my situation but I thought I’d give it a try.  If you have the time and the interest, I describe the incident below.  Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

I met a really attractive and intelligent woman at a party a few weeks ago.  She was in her early thirties (I’m 27) and seemed very educated and sophisticated.  She had classic curves and was wearing an outfit that really flattered her figure.  We had been talking for about a half hour and really seemed to develop a great rapport.  We had even made tentative plans to meet for coffee sometime.

Then, things suddenly went downhill. There was a pause in the conversation and I commented that she had a “really nice, hourglass figure”.  I thought she would take it as a compliment but instead she became deeply offended.  She said, “Excuse me?  Why are you talking about my figure?”  I went into damage control mode and tried to clarify my comments but I think I only exacerbated things as she rolled her eyes and shook her head.  She told me I was being “inappropriate” and that she was “very disappointed” and started to walk away….then she came back and with a look of complete disgust, WHAP!, she slapped my face and departed.

As I stood there alone rubbing my cheek, I was trying to figure out why she was so upset.  It seemed like a harmless comment to me but maybe I don’t understand women as well I should.  I do have her email address.  Do you think I should send her an apology note or should I interpret the slap in the face as a definitive way of saying she wants no further contact?

I took some time to think about this, and to be honest, after an uncomfortable period of time had lapsed with no response from me, I sat down and let my fingers do the talking.  And in so doing, I learned a little bit about my own boundaries, needs and expectations.

Here’s what came out:

Hi Kevin!

Thanks for writing (and for reading!)

I’m sorry to hear about your uncomfortable situation, and I wish that I were qualified to help, but the fact of the matter is that I am not an advice columnist and, as I’m sure you can gather from my tales, hardly an expert in getting things right with the opposite sex.  That having been said, I will offer you my opinion considering that you took some of your valuable time to ask for it.

It’s a tricky and delicate thing, getting to know someone, interacting with a new person, learning what pleases and displeases them, makes them tick, appalls and delights them.  It takes time to build intimacy.  And when I say intimacy, I am not referring to hopping into the sack.  I’m talking about the level of comfort and rapport between two people that allows them to behave familiarly with one another.

The thing about us (people) is that we all have baggage.  We all have our special features, hidden compartments, nicks and scratches.  We all have our own protective layers and boundaries.

I say this because what you intended as a compliment crossed a boundary, and most especially, hers.  While I hardly think that your words were deserving of a slap across the face, I can understand, to some extent, her reaction.

The thing you can’t know, Kevin, is what it feels like to be a woman – just as I can’t know what the day to day male experience is.

I happen to love being a woman, but as with most things in life, it comes complete with its challenges, least of which is being objectified by men.  You’ve seen it happen, I’m sure, all around you.  Men who whistle, catcall, ogle, and stare among other things.  Sir Mix-a-Lot, The Commodores, ACDC and countless others have put it in song.  I grew up listening to my guy friends rate different girls’ bodies.  We know you stare at our asses when we walk past and sometimes fail to look at our eyes, opting instead for our breasts.  And sometimes we like it.  But certainly not overtly, and sometimes not until you’ve earned that right.

The thing about complimenting a woman’s figure, is that it is intimate and sexually charged.  By complimenting a woman’s “hourglass” figure, you are making a statement, intended or not, about her breasts, waist and hips, and that’s a fairly personal thing to do.  As I’m sure you know from your own friends, family and life experience, a LOT of people have body issues.  Things we are insecure about.  Men who worry about hair loss and height and penis size.  Women who obsess over weight and skin and breast size.

While the words you used were seemingly innocent and polite, what she heard, and what you meant (I think you would agree if you are honest with yourself), is that her tits and ass looked good to you.  And there’s nothing either innocent or polite in that comment.  It would be perfectly appropriate for me to say within 30 minutes of meeting you that I love your smile.  But imagine if I told you that your pants show off your package wonderfully.  There’s only one thing you would be able to gather from a statement like that: and that would be that I am thinking of fucking you.  THAT’S what she heard.

A woman wants to know that she’s being listened to, admired, and enjoyed not coveted or objectified.  Yes, we do want to be attractive to you and we need you to tell us this.  But my unqualified, amateur advice would be that compliments are best kept to the things a woman puts out in the open for you to see.  In other words, if you want to compliment a woman, tell her she has wonderful eyes, hair or a great smile.  Tell her that she’s pretty or beautiful, stunning or breathtaking.  Tell her that she’s charming.  Tell her you like her laugh.  Her voice.  Her dress.  Her sense of humor.  The way she speaks.  Tell her you like her soft hands when she gives them to you to hold.  Tell her you that love her lips after she has used them to kiss you.  Stay away from things that are overtly sexual or can be construed as sexual.  If you want to compliment a woman’s body, wait to do so until she has shown you her body, or at the very least until you know her well enough to know that she wants to hear it.

As for further contact with this woman, if you think, after reading this, that you might understand why and how you upset her, and you feel a genuine regret for having upset her, then she may well appreciate your sincere explanation and apology.  Maybe you’ll hear back from her.  Maybe you won’t.  But that is not the reason to contact her.  The reason is for your own personal growth, compassion and empathy.  The only reason to contact her is for your own need to do so.  Any other agenda is destined to fail because she already believes you have an agenda, and she clearly didn’t like it.

I hope my words are helpful to you, Kevin, and I hope you’ll let me know what you decide to do, and how things work out either with her, or the next time you meet a lovely woman

Warmly,
Staci

In the end, Kevin did write to apologize to the woman he’d offended.  She thanked him for his apology and stated that she’d prefer not to see him again.  She went on to say that what had passed was in the past with no hard feelings and that she hoped that Kevin would learn from this experience.

I knew that he had.  And so had I.

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