When you find yourself in a meeting, on a date, or in a new classroom, compliments can be useful and, often innocent, icebreakers. Having said that, while some compliment seem very straight forward others can be a trickier to decipher, depending on who is giving the compliment and who is receiving it. Compliments make up a big percentage of how we address and communicate concealed opinions and feelings towards another person.

The words we choose to describe a person can reveal unconscious feelings we have towards that person or even deep rooted belief on what a person should look like or be. For example, I attended a sociology class last summer on “Race and Ethnic Relations”, we got into a long discussion about whether or not being referred to as “exotic” was offensive or not. On one hand, one girl said that it was offensive because it showed shallowness. If the guy does not bother to know what kind of ethnicity or minority the girl is and simply describes her as “exotic”, it seems to indicate that the guy, either does not care about where she comes from or at least exhibits a lack of curiosity or interest. As an Asian French-American girl, I relate with this statement because people have said to me that I looked very exotic based on my citizenship but did not care about knowing more about my background.

On the other hand, another girl, who lived all her life in Philadelphia, explained that she felt flattered to be referred to as “exotic” because it made her less “generic”.In sum, the girls in my class took this compliment differently based on what it meant for them. Another example, is the compliment “sexy”. Personally, I have a gender-biased opinion about this word. For instance, when I imagine someone sexy: if it’s referring to a guy, I imagine those handsome men in TV commercials for suits or cars while for a “sexy” woman, I imagine the blond neighbor of Max and Caroline, in the TV show “2 broke girls”. To me the word “sexy” has a vulgar connotation, especially for women. So, even words, as generic as “exotic” and “sexy” already seem to have an ambiguous meaning and understanding.

In addition, compliments are tightly linked with westernized beauty standards which contributes to the divergence in understanding. In fact, compliments are also the projection of a standard someone has on you and whether or not you fit their personal standard or the society’s standard of beauty. For example, if we look at the Chinese standards of beauty it has to do with: heart-shaped face, wide eyes, delicate frame, and very pale skin. In fact, one of my friends, who just completed a master’s degree at UPenn, said American TV shows, movies, and media has a polluting effect on what we see as beautiful or worth complimenting and has had definitely an impact on Chinese beauty standards.

What was even more striking, was an article which compared American selfies and Chinese selfies by teenage girls and they found out that one common feature was “The fair-skinned standard” which is basically“a strong standard of beauty in China, and it requires you to be as white as possible, with big eyes," Another interesting fact is that cute wins out over sexy, as I was talking about previously, it is better to be cute and with younger features rather than looking sexy like Kim Kardashian.

Finally, beauty is not arbitrary to people it is dependent on media and culture. An article published in Bradley University Press on body and standards, notes that “Such variations in ideals of beauty often reflect the roles women and men are expected to fulfill in a given society. For instance, in contexts where women are valued mainly for their fertility—their ability to bear and nurture children—often full-bodied women with broad hips and ample breasts are considered the most beautiful.” As the article mentioned, in societies such as Fiji, large bodies are a symbol of one’s status and power. It is not surprising, therefore, that individuals who would be classified as obese in the US are considered the most attractive and desirable members of this culture.

What is even more polluting is that, we equate beauty or a certain body type with qualities: if he is muscular he is assertive and can protect me, if she has wide hips she can procreate easily and so on. What people look like should not be associated with personality traits and should not be a veil to hide political or pseudo racist comments. On a final thought, compliments can convey more than the simple fact of having a “nice smile” or “nice skin” and, if used with good intentions, it can have different effects than what is what intended to do.