Who's your daddy?

What a great weekend with the men in my life! Happy (belated) Father's Day to all of the men out there who look after the people in their lives. We love you!

With that, I'm going to dedicate this week to the man-folk!

I've realized that I have a harder time approaching and complimenting men. I think that it's for two main reasons: one, it seems to me that it's more difficult for men to really express themselves through clothing - t-shirts and shorts seem to be the uniform for this time of year. Two, if I approach a man, and compliment him on what he's wearing, I'm concerned that it will come across as flirting. I realize how silly that sounds, especially since nearly everyone that I've complimented so far has had a conversation with me about my blog and what it's all about.

So today, in an effort to psych myself up for a week of men, I spoke to Chris. Chris is one of those people who's job it is to stop complete strangers, and talk to them about adopting a child in a third world country. I let him give me his spiel (I wasn't a taker though - due to a bad experience that ended up with my identity being stolen!), and when he was done, I turned the tables on him.

My question for Chris was this: if a woman walking by you on the street compliments you on your shirt, what do you think? His immediate reaction? "She's flirting with me". Ah HA! We ran through a few scenarios. What if her compliment is that you're really good looking? "Flirting, definitely." What if she says she likes your shoes, and keeps walking? "Maybe she just likes my shoes, but she's probably hoping that I'll stop and talk to her".

WOW!

Interestingly enough, Chris called over a female coworker Maya to get her take on things. So we put the question to her: would you ever compliment a strange guy, walking down the street, JUST because you liked what he had on, and NOT to flirt with him? "Definitely, but he'd probably think I was flirting!"



And there you have it folks. I'm going to keep asking this question to men this week, and see what kind of reponses I get.

The conversation with Chris and Maya continued. Chris tells me that even when he ISN'T trying to sell something, he is constantly striking up conversations with strangers. Maya says that she always makes a point of complimenting people when she see something that she likes. Maybe there's something to be said for a job that really puts you out there?! I give these two a LOT of credit for doing what they do. Irritating though it may be, I think that much like my experiment, it's something that forces you to push past your comfort zone.