How to effectively compliment a girl without chasing her

[Big Daddy]

Hey gents,

I've been running very frequently on a situation these days that I couldn't quite figure out how to overcome it. Ever since I started reading GC, I put a collar on complimenting a girl because really, they hear it all the time. And besides looking like "just another one", it does feel like chasing her to me. But it seems that I'm going too overboard with not complimenting a girl (or not compliment her too explicitly / directly... I'll share situations in a sec) when she expects some kind of "feedback".

A girl once sent me a sexy picture, which I wasn't quite expecting, and I really liked both her attitude (that one that leaves you with a sly smile) and the picture, but figured that if I gave her an explicit "oh my, you are so sexy in this pic" feedback it would sound like chasing. So I said to her that I liked it, but in a very implicit way (I can't quite remember exactly what was it), and that was not quite the right call. Later on she said that I have "feedback problems", referring to this episode, and I don't blame her, because I can't really deny.

Another situation. I was talking about modeling with a girl, something in the lines of (my reads and commentary in parenthesis; I'm not an experienced guy so they might be flawed. Feel free to point them out):

Her: "Look at these actresses! There isn't such thing as ugly women, just woman 'before plastic surgery'... I still have hope that I might get 'fixed' one day *laughs*" (my read: she tried to communicate that she think she's ugly when she obviously knows she's not, just to hear me saying "I don't think you need plastic surgery!")

Me [knowing that she hadn't done plastic surgery]: "*Laughs* Yeah, but I really prefer the models / actresses before plastic surgery" (an attempt to communicate subtly that I think that natural women, like her, are better looking)

Her: "Damn, so there is no fix to me! *Laughs*"

Me: "*Laughed a little more hard. It was funny at the moment and caught me off guard* Even though I laughed, I still think they're better off without surgery"

Her: "You see... when I say you're different from most men... any other guy would say to me 'but you don't even need being 'fixed' (i.e. surgery)!'"

That was the sign that I was looking for. After I said "I'll take that as a compliment ", she said that, "well, there are two sides to the coin (not complimenting her as her white knight would do)", and that that was just my personality (which implies that it's not necessarily a "good thing"...). Since I had "feedback problems" in the past with her as well, I think that she tried to say to me that going too overboard with it is not a good thing either, even if she thinks that this is "different".

So dudes, the thing here is that I don't want to feel like an idiot complimenting them (even when I really like something, just like when the girl sent me the pic or even though I find the second girl very attractive I didn't say it directly), filling up their ego until they turn their back with confidence due to the power shift. I tried going subtle, but it seems that it's not working; the girls end up feeling that I don't give them any feedback at all, sometimes. Do you guys have better ideas on how to do it? If so, I'd love to hear how you would address each situation, because I have a far better understanding with examples

 

[DesiBro]

When she sends you a sexy pic, she's already chasing. The appropriate response to that is to qualify the behavior. Not the time to be worrying about chasing.

 

[Whizzy]

For some reason I have a feeling the laughing wasn't quite genuine, any idea if it was?

 

[Big Daddy]

Are you referring to one specific moment?

None of them were "hahaha", hard laughs. They were like little, sly laughs / smiles, I just didn't know how to represent that in text. I think the only moment that you could consider real laughing is where I pointed that she got me off guard, which was genuine.

Well, yeah, I can't say 100% sure that the "laughing" was genuine, of course, but the probability is very high (based on her personality, past interactions, etc).