I wrote this article after a man made the comment me that I looked like I was gaining weight. He said my knees looked fatter. I believe he thought he was being funny, but he wasn't laughing a couple of seconds later (read further to see why).
Things Men Shouldn't Say to a Woman
Everyone loves compliments, especially women. And it's easy to find something nice to say about any woman if you look hard enough. Someone who has a bad complexion and missing teeth, for instance, might have beautiful knees. But do people, especially men, see those knees? No, they zero in on our weak spots and attack like mosquitos at a Mississippi barbecue.People, especially men, do this seemingly without effort. For instance, once I went with a guy to pay our respects to a friend of ours who had just a baby. When my friend opened the door, she looked great. You know -- happy, radiant, the glow of motherhood shining in her eyes. But this guy blurts out, "I thought you just had a baby!" Geez, Louise! Why didn’t he just moo and snort like a pig? He might as well have said, "How come you still look like you’re pregnant, you big fat cow?" That’s all my friend and I heard.
When are you due?
Another time, this man I hadn't seen in a while came up to me when I was under a lot of stress and had been hitting the bars lately (chocolate bars, that is). After we exchanged pleasantries, he says, "Are you pregnant?" It really hurt, especially since I didn't even have a boyfriend. He might as well have said, "By the looks of that gut you got on you, big mama, either you're seven months along or that food baby is totally out of control."
Any man should realize that women are sensitive about our appearance, especially our weight. We're forever checking ourselves out in shiny objects that reflect our images - mirrors, picture windows, Christmas tree ornaments. We're doing all these double takes, and sadly, most of what we’re seeing isn’t going to get us in next year’s swimsuit issue. We see saddlebags, water weight gain, and a teensy pimple we couldn’t resist squeezing that now looks like Mt. Vesuvius poised to erupt.
So don’t make us miserable by saying something like, "Are you gaining weight?" I had a guy say this to me once. I decided to buck up and stand tall--not get all insecure and mousy like I usually do when someone makes a negative comment about my appearance. "What do you mean?" I snapped. He didn’t flinch, the oaf. "Your knees look fatter." That’s the honest truth, that’s what he said. It caused a knee-jerk reaction. I kneed the jerk.
What happened to your hair?
And it's not only their weight. Women continually fret about their hairstyles, so why do men always have to say something like, "What did you do to your hair?" That means whatever you did, it’s bad. Real bad. Ugly. Hideous. You're ruined for life. There’s no hope! Get a sack over that head, Medusa!
If men would just pay attention, which they won't, things would be so much better. Instead of the aforementioned comment about your hair, they could just say, "You've done something interesting with your hair." Then we could say, "Oh, thank you." And we might add, "Do you like the way it’s ______ (parted? cut? styled? colored? combed? whatever), and the man could say, "You know, you'd look good no matter how you wore it." See, isn’t that easy? Over and done. He doesn't have to lie, you don't have to feel bad. And rest assured that we’ll change it back to the old way if it looks that awful, because our girlfriends will hint to us that it's not our best style, and we’ll change it without getting our feelings hurt. But if a man tells us it looks bad, we’ve got two options. We’ll either wear it the new way just to spite him. Or we’ll be passive/aggressive and change it, but we’ll start having a lot of late night headaches.
Guys should not get into hair color, either. I've had men say to me, "What color did your hair used to be?" This is a slap in the face. It means I got gypped by my stylist or was so cheap I bought some tacky off-brand grocery store hair color and did it myself, and it’s a freaking disaster. Any woman who colors her hair a tint besides blue or purple believes with all her heart that it looks "natural." There never was any "used to be." A man just needs to say something like, "Your hair color compliments your eyes." That’s all. Short and sweet. This is not rocket science.
Have you tried wearing makeup?
I was talking to a male friend in college once, whining about not being able to get this other guy, Clint, to give me a second look. I wanted commiseration and sympathy, but instead he says to me, "Have you ever thought about wearing makeup?" The a-hole. I was wearing makeup! Mascara, foundation, blush, eye shadow--sixty bucks worth. If I looked that bad with makeup, what a completely hopeless wretch I was. He could have just said, "Give it time," or "The guy’s not good enough for you." That’s all I needed to hear. But Einstein tells me, not in so many words, that with my pithy complexion and squinty eyes, I'd at least not be so ugly if I'd only mask myself a little. I ran back to the dorm and cried a river of black mascara that cut valleys through the blush on my cheeks, cascaded over my chin in waterfalls, and puddled on the floor between my legs.
Before I go any further, let me assure you that I’m not ugly. I’ve been told by lots of people, millions of them in fact, that I’m "cute." I’ve been compared to a couple of models and actresses. I say this only to emphasize how easily men fall into the deep dark pit of sabotaging themselves. No wonder their wives and girlfriends are mad at them all the time. Sometimes I think men would be better off if they just let their little head do the thinking, since most of the time the big head seems to be up there just for show.
Are you exhausted, you look so tired?
Here's another example of exactly what I'm talking about. Once I had a party. This man comes in and says, "You look tired." Du-uh! I’d been cleaning and cooking and scurrying around all day, for criminy sakes. Of course I was tired, but I didn’t want to look tired. "Beautiful, great, stunning," he could have inserted any of those words in place of "tired" and he’d have made my night (and maybe his, too). But no, the doofus had to say I looked TIRED. So I rushed off to the bathroom, smeared on yet more blush and cover stick to reduce those dark circles, and went around all night with my eyes flexed open so that I might have looked startled or surprised, but I WOULDN’T LOOK TIRED.
I've got an endless supply of these kinds of examples, but I'll close with this one, just to drive the point home. Once I got caught in a storm with no umbrella on the way to meet my date after work. He sees me at the door and gawks like I’m Frankenstein in stilleto’s. "What happened to you?" he says. The nincompoop. I sat across the table with my head turned down, worrying: "Was my mascara running? Did my hair look like Medusa? Had the concealer washed off, revealing Mt. Vesuvius?" Couldn’t he have just said, "Hi, it’s good to see you." Nope. Too dumb. Stupid and dumb.
Sometimes I just want to scream, "Come on, guys! Think about it. What do you want from us? You want us to be good to you, right? Then take some advice from Thumper. 'If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!'" But will they listen? Do they ever listen? Of course they do. But only to the football game, or to each other's crude bodily function jokes.
Please feel free to share this with the men in your life, if you feel like it will do any good. Which it probably won't....