Don't Compliment Girls You Want to Date on Their Looks. Here's Why

Over on the forum, we had a member who protested that he struggles to compliment women on anything other than their physical appearances. He doesn’t care about or pay attention to women’s ornamentation, he says, and wouldn’t complimenting on something else be ingenuine? Here’s some of what he commented:

Iʼve long believed that the purpose of compliments in the early moments of an approach is to communicate sexual intent, which signals confidence and avoids creepiness.

For the intent to be sexual, I would have thought compliments on genetic features would hit the mark better than those on clothing or adornments. After all, a child she could give you might inherit her eyes, hair, complexion, or facial features — but not her shoes, blouse, handbag, or earrings. (Expensive earrings, maybe!)

You might think, “No, no, a girl isn’t thinking about having kids with some guy she just met,” or vice versa. But hold on — this isnʼt conscious.

…

I donʼt know if this is a problem most guys face, or if Iʼm just some genetic anomaly that is somehow immune to acrylic nails and handbags.

Well, on the rare occasion Iʼm actually impressed by some trinket, I now know what to do!

…

Maybe you luck out and she has a killer walk or some other standout behavior, but that’s 1 in 1000. What do you do with the other 999? Revert to a very genuine compliment on her physical features? I do most love those, but Iʼm told thatʼs not seductive.

He had a lot more theory behind his approach to opening with looks-based compliments. I love theory! The one issue with theory, of course, is that if you’re using it for something practical, like, say, putting girls in your bed, you need to turn your theory into testable hypotheses and test it out. Then test competing hypotheses. Then find which works best.

I can tell you, as most any other guy in the game can as well, that looks-based compliments are very suboptimal most of the time with girls (there are times and places and ways they can work. But in general you don’t want looks-compliments as your go-to).

Let’s look at why that is and what you can do instead, EVEN IF you don’t care a lick about women’s fashion choices (like our forum member).

 

Direct Openers Can Be So Much More

It was cool for about fifty seconds when guys started posting direct approaches on YouTube, TikTok, and wherever, but then almost immediately you discovered these guys were all doing the same basic, boring, generic, looks-based compliment openers:

• “Hey, this is crazy, but you’re really cute, can I get your number?”

• “Excuse me, you’re really beautiful, can I take you out sometime?”

• “Hi, wow, you’re hot. Want to get a coffee with me sometime?”

These guys get a couple things right: they generally come in at least somewhat genuine-seeming, and they often use ‘sometime’ in their ask (so they don’t get shot down with “I’m busy right now” rejections where she assumes you want her to go somewhere NOW).

Everything else about openers like these are absolutely atrocious though.

Also: it’s mystifying to me how guys today are still opening this way.

When I was a complete newb still dipping my toes in the pickup waters, almost 20 years ago, I learned a few basic truths:

1. Never open a girl by complimenting her looks

2. Never go straight for the number grab

3. Never use the words “can I get your number”

4. Never make the ask out a QUESTION

5. Never go for her contact info before you ask her out

I keep having people tell me things like, “Well, pickup isn’t popular anymore because all the techniques from pickup have filtered out into the mainstream,” but they really haven’t.

This is all super basic stuff I learned as an absolute beginner two decades ago, and guys are going out approaching, getting millions of views on social media, still making these ultra-rookie mistakes.

You can do so much better than this, and get SUCH better results with women – and it all starts with what you’re opening with.

Your direct openers should NOT be ‘giving up the farm’ from the first breath.

 

Why Don’t Looks-Based Compliments Work?

I have dated some very beautiful girls.

The first time I had a girlfriend like this, I asked her, “What does it feel like when people tell you you’re beautiful?”

Her answer was a very nonchalant, “I’m used to it. I don’t feel anything.”

I used to go out with her often. Nearly every time we went out, I would hear this conversation occur, often multiple times:

RANDOM GUY OR GIRL: “Wow, you’re BEAUTIFUL!”
GIRLFRIEND: “Thank you! You’re so kind!”

She acted so expressive, wowed, and grateful for the compliments. She was a charming girl, and knew how important it was to seem gracious. But the truth was, someone complimenting her on her beauty immediately made that person extremely ordinary to her.

I, of course, had already learned that you don’t compliment women on their looks. I didn’t say a thing to her about her looks, at all, whatsoever, until after I’d shagged her a bunch of times and she was head-over-heels in love with me. (at that point, you can compliment her on her looks as much as you want)

Here’s what complimenting a girl on her physical features does for you:

• It makes you ordinary. You’re just the same as every other chump coming up to her talking about her beauty.

• It hands her the power. You think she’s beautiful. What does she think about you? Unless she returns fire with “You’re extremely handsome” the power scales are weighted in her favor. Maybe you’re an airy-fairy type who doesn’t like to think about these power dynamic things, but nevertheless it still matters.

• It makes you look superficial. People who talk about superficial things come across like superficial people. This is simply the way that it is.

• It makes her feel objectified. This is a slightly complex issue. You probably hate hearing feminists shriek about “Objectification!” It’s annoying and stupid. Men HAVE TO objectify women as part of the mating process; if you entirely remove objectification, you also remove the male ability to get an erection. There goes the human species! Nevertheless, you don’t want her feeling objectified on the approach; it’s a weird feeling, and it’s anti-seductive.

• It makes her feel self-conscious. She didn’t choose her looks and has no control over how other people see them. Pointing them out to her turns her inward and focuses her on herself. It feels a bit weird.

As a point of comparison, imagine you’re minding your own business, when a random woman approaches you. Smilingly, she tells you, “Excuse me, this is random, but you have the most ATTRACTIVE nose I have seen in forever.”

How do you react? Probably you’re going to feel a bit awkward, right? You are probably also going to wonder what the heck this woman wants with you. Meanwhile, you will be wondering about your nose, whether it is really as attractive as she says, and thinking either that this woman must have bad taste, or really excellent taste, or perhaps that she is just flattering you to get something from you.

This is what happens when you open with looks-based compliments: it creates this whole awkward dynamic that is anti-seductive, usually, and hurts your chances.

Usually.

There ARE exceptions.

 

When Looks-Based Compliments DO Work

Looks-based compliments CAN work in CERTAIN situations:

1. When a girl is down-to-fuck (DTF). DTF girls just need a signal from you, any signal, that you are as down for the fuck as they are. As soon as they get it, you are off to the races, baby. Looks-based compliments generally work much better here than non-looks-based compliments do.

2. You are extremely adept in your delivery of them. I’ll never forget the night, in my playboy apprenticeship years, when a master seducer pulled a gaggle of four girls and a guy from a nightclub back to my apartment (we had a few other guys from a bootcamp there as well)… and the way he hooked them was by approaching a girl with big boobs and opening her with a direct compliment on her big tatas. How’d he do it? “Excuse me, I saw you standing here, and I just had to tell you… no, no, I can’t say that.” She insisted. He laughed. “No, it would be totally inappropriate.” Now she was very intrigued, and insisting he tell her. “Well, okay. I just thought you had really amazing breasts. I’m [HIS NAME].” The girl ate it up, and was totally flattered by the compliment (lol), but keep in mind: he was a very fashionable, high-status-seeming guy, and she was wearing a plunging neckline dress and clearly putting ‘the girls’ out on display. So it was a calibrated risk, that opener!

Unless you are in a DTF scenario or you are highly adept with your openers, however, my general recommendation is that you AVOID looks-based compliments.

Looks-based compliments are the bucking bronco of the compliment world.

You only want to climb on that back of that hoss if you know what you’re doin’.

 

How You Should Be Complimenting Women Instead

If you can’t compliment women on their looks, what can you compliment them on?

The single most important factor to building initial trust with women – trust that allows a connection to develop into romance – is attitude-similarity.

This is how similar women feel their and your underlying attitudes about life and everything else are. Similarity is a cornerstone of my One Date System and I cover it on Girls Chase in multiple other places.

What makes for a good initial compliment is one that establishes similar ATTITUDES between you and the girl you open. Tell her she is really pretty, and she is not going to feel like your attitudes are the same – well, not unless she is DTF and regards you as ‘really pretty’ as well.

Thus, we want to compliment women on things they have chosen or cultivated – things that express their underlying attitudes, which by us complimenting them on them imply we also share those attitudes.

Here are some examples of things you can compliment women on that inject some similarity right into the opener:

Fashion: compliment her…

• Jewelry: earrings, necklace, pendant, bracelets, rings, anklet
• Clothes: jacket, blouse, jeans, skirt, dress
• Other accessories: scarf, gloves, boots, hat

Grooming: compliment her…

• Hair: hairstyle, curls, sheen, volume
• Makeup: application, coverage, creativity
• Nails: color, design

Movement: compliment her…

• Walk: baddest, meanest, most confident walk you’ve seen all day
• Posture: excellence, regality
• Movement: grace, subtlety, precision

Presence: compliment her…

• Energy: infectious, vibrant, vivacious
• Vibe: chill, suave, magnetic

Each of these – unlike her physical features – are a manifestation of her inner self.

They are things she has picked or cultivated to express WHO SHE IS and WHAT SHE VALUES.

When you compliment on them, you tell her, “I’m attracted to who you are.”

+ similarity, + trust, +attraction

 

Later Compliments

These above compliments are well-suited as opening compliments.

As you progress through the courtship, you can compliment women on things they reveal to you as you get to know them better. Elicit her values, deep dive her, have her tell you things about herself, and approve of the things she shares that you relate to and like.

• “I really like that.”
• “That’s amazing.”
• “That’s so impressive.”
• “I’m amazed how you handled that.”

Etc.

That’s all you need to say, though you can certainly use more fleshed out compliments too.

Complimenting gets easier as the interaction progresses, assuming you are having women tell you good things about themselves.

 

Wrap Up

Unless you really, really know what you’re doing, you should not be opening women with compliments on their looks. Instead, use an initial compliment that highlights something she cultivated or chose that will build similarity with her based on her underlying values.

Then after that, unless you really know what you’re doing, or she is very clearly DTF, you should not be complimenting on looks as the courtship proceeds, either. Instead, compliment on things she tells you about herself that you like and value.

When can you compliment a woman on her looks? Once she’s yours.

That is, once you’ve bedded her on several (typically three or more) recent occasions and she has converted to an established lover of yours.

One parting note: when the relationship gets rocky, when she starts to question whether she wants to be with you or not, or when she gives you drama, DON’T compliment on looks.

Save looks-based compliments for when the relationship is secure and she is firmly (sexually) yours.

Do that, and you’ll never have to worry about shooting yourself in the foot with compliments that “give the farm away.”

Chase

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