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Do you compliment people when you like their shoes, coat, hat or toupee? Is it expected?
Sometimes I compliment them.
And sometimes I judge myself afterward, like “Am I promoting superficiality? What if she was perfectly fine and now she feels good about her outfit and associates the good feeling with clothing?”
Or, “Omgosh what am I wearing? If I’m dressing all nebach [I use a different word in my thoughts – “scrubby”] then will she be insulted when I say that I like her style of clothing because maybe she won’t want someone like me to like her clothing?”
Actually thank you for now I see that at least the second thought is really probably not an issue, since she probably won’t even remember me but more of how she felt and what I said.
I don’t think things are expected of you other than genuinely complimenting a bride on her wedding day.
I think that it makes people feel good and therefore it’s a big Mitzvah (as long as they are the same gender as you or a little boy).
It doesn’t promote superficiality. If the person was not superficial to begin with, it won’t make them become superficial – they will just be happy that someone cares about them enough to say something to make them feel good. And if they are superficial to begin with, it won’t add to it. People are superficial (in this way) out of insecurity. By complimenting them, you help them to feel more secure.
The only way that I could see it encouraging superficiality is if you only compliment expensive items worn by Jappy people and never compliment people who are not Jappy.
If you are concerned about encouraging materialism, why not make it a point to compliment inexpensive items worn by non-materialistic people that are nice but not expensive?
The one thing you should be careful of is “backhanded insults” .
For example, don’t say to someone,”Wow, you look so nice today” in a way that implies that they don’t usually look nice and that you are surprised.Once, someone who hadn’t seen me in a while said, “You look so good. You didn’t used to look so good!”
Being that the person was who they were I wasn’t particularly insulted. 🙂 I just thought it was funny.
It is prohibited for a male to compliment a female, who is not his immediate family, on what she’s wearing.
toupeeI think people might prefer to think you don’t realize they’re wearing a toupee.
“The one thing you should be careful of is ‘backhanded insults’ .”
That’s a nice outfit. It makes you look intelligent.
I had a question, should I compliment someone who’s lost weight? Perhaps they are ill and the weight loss is not good for them.
This is a really slippery slope, especially in the workplace and has lots of risks. Better to simply smile and say “boker tov” or “what a lovely day”
If a toupee looks good, it does not look good enough.
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