Thursday, August 14, 2008

Last time I checked, that isn't how you compliment me.

Not in vanity, but in honesty here... I get hit on. It's not like I can't walk out of the house alone, but there seem to be spurts where it happens more often and I get seriously annoyed. Because someone needs to teach these manlets how to properly compliment a female.


Example of a not-skeezy encounter: this happened... oh, years ago. Tim and I were already together and for some reason I was wearing a fake diamond on my ring finger. I thought I was clever and I liked it. Anyway, go to the bank one day, go inside, and a guy holds the door for me as I walk out. I thank him (my mom taught me properly) and he says, "Every nice looking woman deserves to have the door held for her." I thanked him again and he talked to me for a second. Then (and this was tried casually) asked if I was free for lunch as he was on his lunch break. I thanked myself for wearing a fake ring and said I was engaged. He said, "Well I hope I didn't offend you. You tell your fiance he is a very lucky man." He told me to have a nice day and walked away. Polite (if a little fast on the lunch date) and didn't use stupid words or phrases to say he appreciated how I looked.


Now some typical failures: these are just random but have happened more than once. Whistling. What? I'm a dog that needs to be called to you? No, so quit your stupid whistling. Staring at me for a really long time and turning it into one of those dirty leers. Ew. I know what's going on in your head. And just so you know, if I had a bottle of bleach, it would be splashed in your eyeballs and I would be at home taking a rape shower (not a literal rape shower, just that shower that you need because you feel gross, you know that feeling).


So the worst of the worst? Stupid slang terms. "Boo" and "shorty" are not terms of endearment boys. They are stupid slang words that the majority of us find moronic, at best. Ya know what? I don't even like hearing "baby." Unless it's from hubby. Point is, this will not work: slowing down your car and leaning out the window to shout, "Hey shorty, what's up? You lookin' good." Any variation of those words are equally as bad. If you think I'm pretty and can't come up with a good way to say it, maybe you should shut up. If you're going to make pervert eyes at me, prepare to be burned at the stake (in my head) or confronted if you do it at the wrong time or when I'm with the wrong people.


I leave you with another story of successful flattery. From a first grader. That's right, his dad taught him right. About three years ago I worked for an after school program in the "bad" part of town. Really though, the statistics for this area are bad and we got walked to our cars if we left late. So as my students were leaving my classroom to go to their next section, I had a first grader ask me, "Miss Ashley, are you going to marry your boyfriend?" I told him we would get married one day. He said, "Good. You're too pretty and nice not to get married. You tell your boyfriend he's a lucky man."


I think the first grader made me blush. I told his dad about it and he laughed. I guess the kid had a little bit of a crush. I still think about how stinkin' cute that was.


So how about it men? Care to start teaching these boys and manlets some real manners?

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