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The Weird Thing That Happens When You Accept A Man's Compliment

It's an unfortunate truth that when a man compliments a woman, those compliments aren't always sincere. Often, they come with an expectation of how the woman should respond or the sick, icky feeling of knowing that a stranger was objectifying your body.
And sometimes a really weird thing happens when a woman agrees with a man's compliment — he gets mad. Feminista Jones, an author and activist, pointed out this phenomenon on Twitter last week.
In an epic tweet thread, she details the weird way some men respond when women show a little self-confidence.
Jones wrote that she often experiences men who catcall her on the street and get angry when she says "thanks" and keeps walking.
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She's not just existing in some weird bubble — many women replied to Jones's post with their own stories of men who got upset when they agreed with a compliment. Some of them even included screenshots.
This isn't the first time someone has pointed out that men can't handle it when a woman agrees that she's beautiful/has a nice body/has a beautiful smile/etc. In 2015, BuzzFeed wrote about an 18-year-old woman who did a social experiment in which she agreed to the compliments men gave her and then posted their responses to Tumblr. (Spoiler alert: many of the men said something along the lines of "jk...I take my compliment back.")
Many of them also said that she was vain for saying "I know" when they complimented her beauty in some way.
Jones told BuzzFeed that she had seen stories like this, and that compelled her to add to the conversation.
"It's not a new idea, but in my own experience when [a man] complimented me and I say 'I agree,' they get upset," Jones told BuzzFeed. "It’s the idea that they bestow the compliment on you, and you’re not supposed to be aware of it."
By the end of her thread, Jones perfectly sums up exactly why men get all up in arms when a woman accepts or agrees with their compliments.
Because, really, compliments that come from men who then get angry that you agree with the compliment aren't about you at all — they're about them, and their ability to have power over your self-worth.
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