Written By: Katie Tetz
Brought to you by my friends Steven and Ty
Valentine’s weekend had the potential to turn into a successful double date getaway to Banff. My girlfriend and I decided to drive to the mountains last minute and meet one of her coworkers and his friend visiting from Ontario.
It was going to be a standard Banff Saturday night- Grizzly House, hotel pre-drinks, Aurora, Dancing Sasquatch, McDonald’s.
And possibly even Valentine’s Day brunch at the Banff Springs in the morning.
But alas, the boys failed miserably at whatever it was they were trying to achieve. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say their goal was sex…based on this hotel room conversation at 3:00 am:
“Ty why are you pouting?”
“I’m fine.”
“No Tyler – you’re obviously upset about something. Do you regret not getting McDonalds?”
Slouched over in bed he tells me, “I’m not mad that you didn’t have sex with me; I’m just mad that nobody did.”
There I was, consoling a thirty one year old male who I may or may not have mistakenly made out with 5 hours prior because nobody wanted to have sex with him.
Another Valentines Day for the books.
I felt sorry for the guys. Not because they didn’t get laid, but because they seemingly had no clue as to why their behavior produced those results. Or rather, no results.
But I can definitely tell you what happened.
For reference, a backhanded compliment is an insult disguised as a compliment. Usually a person will recognize when they’ve delivered one of these by accident. Both parties will have a chuckle as one person says, “I didn’t mean it like that!”
Or sometimes a guy will give a girl a backhanded compliment on purpose to get her attention and undermine her self confidence. Neil Strauss, author of The Game, calls this “negging”. It’s like the adult version of teasing the girl you had a crush on in elementary school. For example, one guy I was seeing for a little while told me, “You’re a 6.5/7.” He explained his completely superficial 7 point rating system that included legs, hair, eyes, breasts, etc, etc. Not a bad rating [that’s the compliment part] but he obviously got my attention with the 0.5 point loss.
“You lose half a point because you kind of sound like a little mouse.” There’s the insult meant to shock me, cut me down a little, and then cause me to want his approval. It’s a mean little trick.
Ya – he was a dick. But that was a perfect example of negging. He knew what he was doing.
Steven and Ty did not know what they were doing. Zero game. And zero apologies for their accidental insults.
One way to not get laid? Unintentional backhanded compliments followed by no recognition makes you look both inconsiderate and unintelligent. And this is what Steven and Ty did. All. Night. Long.
Examples:
When we arrived in Banff we met the guys at Earls for double mojitos.
Steven to Julia: “You look better with glasses on.”
Ty to Julia: “You’re prettier than I remember.”
They sure know how to make a girl feel beautiful.
Then we all went to the Grizzly House for fondue where I’m sure we disturbed the couples around us with our completely inappropriate conversation topics.
Ty to Katie: “You have big boobs but you’re trying to hide them in that dress. Can I see?”
No.
“I just want to see what you bring to the table.”
Are you kidding me? This guy is thirty one years old.
Later on in Aurora we were all on the dance floor. Incase you’ve never been to this night club let me give you some context: It’s very dark in there.
Ty to Katie: “You look amazing in this lighting”
It’s DARK in here Ty. Was that supposed to make me feel pretty??
By the time we arrived at Dancing Sasquatch Julia and I were almost ready to call it a night, probably because we felt ugly. Things turned around when we met a bachelor party inside. Our “valentines dates” pouted in the corner until we decided it was time for chicken mcnuggets and cheese burgers.
Julia met an attractive Australian outside of McDonald’s and made out with him (obviously). The whole way home the guys whined and bitched about Australians and how “You girls could go home with anyone you wanted” followed by “Can we cuddle when we get back?”
YA. RIGHT.
Don’t get me wrong. These two were hilarious and really fun to spend a Saturday night with in Banff (okay, mostly they were just fun to make fun of.) But never in my wildest dreams would I date either of them.
I’m not sure what was worse- the backhanded compliments, the fact that they didn’t recognize how insulting they were being, or the pouting.
Needless to say we skipped out on Valentines Brunch. Julia and I put on our glasses and went to Starbucks by ourselves where the lighting was dark and moody so I’m sure we looked amazing.
What’s the greatest/worst back handed compliment you’ve ever received? I’d love to hear. If anything, you might make Steven and Ty not look so bad. Best of luck to them both.