Two Eight Eight: Compliments

Well, I am still afraid to be seen on a dance floor, and I'm still afraid to use the pool where I live. But tonight's worry is about compliments.

Yesterday evening I was down in the courtyard talking to one of my neighbours, a lovely red-haired girl who's been here for almost four years now. She had friends over to use the pool, including one girl whom I'd seen before and was very hot indeed. My neighbour told me that she'd an awkward conversation with our property manager about the girl.

The property manager had been talking to my neighbour when the visiting girl climbed out of the pool. The manager looked at her and commented that the girl had "really come into her own". My neighbour shut the conversation down by crisply saying that, yes, the girl had become a grown woman at some point in her life. She told me yesterday evening that she found the comment "creepy and inappropriate".

I had to partially agree with her, at least on general principles. I'm not sure I'd go as far as "creepy", but it was an awkward and very odd comment. "Come into her own" sounds just a bit too much like saying "well, she's in her prime breeding years". I suppose it also sounds like "well, she's finally inherited that five million from her rich uncle", but that's really not any less odd and awkward,

Now, yes, the girl is very attractive. Late twenties, maybe five-seven, very slender, long light brown hair, lithe and lissome in a very high-cut maillot. I've exchanged a few words with her in passing. I know her first name, and that she works (I think) at Sephora. That's all I know, really. She doesn't have a local accent,  but I know nothing about her origins or life.  She's certainly attractive, and she's been pleasant to me. I told my neighbour that if I wanted to compliment the girl, I'd just say that she was very attractive and let it go at that. My neighbour assured me that saying that would've been fine, but the whole breeding-years implication wasn't.

Now my neighbour has been someone I've chatted with and had courtyard drinks with these last few years, I'm sure that I've walked by her, raised a red Solo cup or a wineglass, and said something like, "God, girl, you have long legs!" or just said, "Great legs, girl!" when I've seen her in short shorts on her balcony. She's always just smiled, raised her own drink, and nodded her thanks. We're on good terms, and she's never been annoyed by anything I said. I've always made any compliments part of my persona as an aging roué, and she's responded to the persona. I may be lucky in that she and I are born natives of a region where that particular persona still has some currency. We both know how the ritual works.

I'm no longer sure what I'd do in terms of complimenting a lovely girl in, say, Manhattan or Wellington. Tonight I'm thinking that it's like being on a dance floor. At some point you lose the belief that you have any skills, that you might have something to do or say that would make you feel like you're doing things right. Offering up compliments is always a risky thing, but I think I've lost the ability to do it any place that isn't...here in this city or this downtown.