The hidden truth of compliments

The Girl recently got back together with her old boyfriend after a break. The Boy claims he sees The Girl differently now, respects her more as a human and not just a 'pretty young thing'. And he constantly calls her sexy and compliments her legs and chest, but never anything else.

And that makes me wonder about compliments. When someone gives a sincere compliment, it's because they've noticed something about you that they like and admire. Let's just break off for a moment to establish the meaning of the word 'sincere':

• Something you didn't have to fish for. When someone knows you're looking for a compliment they'll automatically look for what you want to hear: "Um, um, nice... nose?"
  
• Not sarcastic, condescending or patronizing: "aww, you're so grown up finally getting yourself out of bed and twenty-seven!"
• Not immediately following somebody else's compliment. When this happens it generally means that either the complimenter is trying to re-establish his or her hold on you by being the nicest most adoring person in the world, or agreeing with whatever the previous person said.
• Not aimed at somebody else. This is almost exclusively done to make others feel jealous, though it can occasionally be in an attempt to boost the confidence of the complimentee, in which case the compliment has been tailored and therefore isn't spontaneous: "Doesn't my girl have the finest pair of boots you saw?"
  

Now that that's done, let's think about why people give sincere compliments. Some of the things I've been able to come up with:

• They've noticed and admire something about you and want you to know that they like it.
• Um... that's pretty much it.

So obviously if someone gives you a spontaneous compliment it's because they like something about you. So what sort of compliments do we get? Most females are used to this kind of compliment:

• "You're so cute!"
• "You look lovely."
• "Hey, sexy."
• "You look hot in that."
• "I like your hair today."
• "Nice legs."
• "Love the boots."
• "You smell good."
• "That meal was delicious."
  

Plus expressions of awe at the size of various anatomicals. For males it's much the same thing, with the addition of "wow, you're so strong and manly." So what does this tell us? Well, if a sincere compliment is someone expressing what they like about you and the only compliments you recieve are related to your looks and your cooking, it can be safely assumed that that's all they've noticed about you.

That's not to say that you shouldn't be complimenting your partner's looks if you like them, but a good relationship has other compliments in it as well. No relationship built on "nice legs" was ever fated to last. The compliments of a good match may look something like this:

• "Hey, sexy."
• "That was delicious."
• "Wow, you're smart! Took me ages to work that one out."
• "Aww, you're so caring."
• "God, you're brave!"
• "Nice legs."
• "Your [insert gender-appropriate anatomical features here] is/are huge!"
• "Thanks for doing this. You're so helpful!"
• "Your taste in music is genius."
• "You're good at that!"

You'll notice a healthy mix of compliments based on looks, personality, skills and all the things that define a person. If you want to show someone you love them show them that you love all of them. Not just their looks, not just their brains, not just their talents. If you can't bring yourself to compliment all of them, do you really like them enough to stay with them? Or are you just not noticing? It should be noted that in the case of The Boy I think he's just obtuse. It's not that he doesn't notice The Girl's good features, it's just that after a whole - wait for it - week of sleeping alone there are currently other things occupying his mind.