Was this weird of me at work?

[Handsomesquidward]

I'm a straight woman, I work in a semi-formal office environment. We have a young girl there who has beautiful long, blonde Rapunzel hair and who is just beautiful in general.
I haven't really spoken to her as she's in another department. I saw this girl and I just said 'Hi I hope you don't mind me saying, just wanted to say I really love your hair, you look beautiful!'
She seemed really happy I'd said it and appreciated it.
My other colleague was in the toilets too and had heard, she told me it was really weird and creepy id said that.
I feel so embarrassed now and wonder if I shouldn't have said anything. I was just trying to be nice, I imagine some women would be very jealous of her and she gets some cattiness, I don't think I said anything inappropriate.
Just wondered what others think? Surely it's a sad world where you can't compliment people.

Firstly, I am sorry for your experiences with sexual harrassment, but you need to stop projecting abnormal situations onto normal interactions and treat inappropriate touching in the same way as someone saying a spontanous one-off comment about your hair. just because you had a horrible experience that is not normal does not mean that the whole world should stop normal interractions between each other.
Am I supposed to ask "Will I make your day with a compliment?" each time before saying anything? You're now being ridiculous.
Id rather chance it and give 99.99% of people have a better day than not say anything to anyone.
If someone says a random 'nice dress'- are you now going to take them all to grievance because of that one experience? If 'for safety' you want to avoid pleasant interactions with people and if you still feel uneasy about people saying genuine and nice stuff, then you need to consider therapy as this is not normal.

You're so desperate to keep this stupid thread going, PenguinLord. I really don't give a fig what you think about anything and your fake wittering about my experiences.

I'm not going to answer your questions or respond again but stop telling other women how they should feel about your views on complimenting. You don't get it. Got that. I won't be responding but feel free to hector along in this echo-chamber all you like.

You need to wear a badge rather than expecting the whole world to know exactly what you want and change to suit you.

@HasToStop I think you may be my long lost sister ...... ☺️

People frequently compliment my hair. I shave my head and then have beautiful, and very colourful, hair art painted in. It would be quite weird if everyone in the office pretended not to notice. I mean, it'd be absolutely fine but people do tend to comment.

Likewise if someone on my team had a dramatic colour change or restyle, it'd feel strange beyond belief for me not to offer a compliment 😮🤷

The examples given by Pillock are absolutely nothing like making unasked for comments on personal appearance. Pillock seems to have considerable difficulty distinguishing between what are acceptable workplace interactions and what isn't.

Holding a door open or passing over a cup of coffee are helpful actions, intended to be helpful. Of course you would thank the person.

Asking about how someone's weekend was, potentially strays into not acceptable because the questioner may well know nothing about the person's life outside work and it's presumptuous to expect answers. If the response is a one word "fine" - then the questioner should leave it. You (general you) have no right to know anymore about colleagues' life outside work than the colleague chooses to tell you.

On the other hand if the question was "how was the Taylor Swift show" because the questioner knew her colleague was going to it - perfectly fine.

I was discussing this thread with the head of my firm's HR department and the head of our training department last night at a work social event. HR head's advice on "paying compliments" was that the "love your dress/bag/shoes/coat etc, etc" where did you get it?" ones are fine. It's an acknowledgement of something the person being "complimented" on is in control of. The conversation arose partly because of this thread and partly because the male head of training, like many of the female attendees but none of the other male attendees, had made an effort to dress up. His outfit was extremely stylish and he was pleased I commented on it. That comment was on his clothes - not his looks.

In HR head's view the "ooh you're beautiful/ you look beautiful" ones are not acceptable in a work place.

Take your own advice about not dictating others what to say and think and jog on with a cookie. 😎

@IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle just so you know, you claiming that one normal interaction isn't comparable to another normal interaction doesn't make it so.

God knows why you're so averse to compliments and positive social interaction but you do you.

Sounds exhausting to be this bothered about something that probably doesn't happen all that often. If you get one say thank you and move on like everyone else, sheesh.

Wear a badge of it means that much to you and people will steer clear

That post is so incomprehensible and incoherent it's actually impossible to respond to. Although it confirms your inability to compare like with like.

You also a quite remarkable capacity for twisting and reinventing what other posters have said; although that capacity may well simply be tied to your lack of understanding what has been written.