To be annoyed about this compliment about my hair

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I've been growing highlights out of my hair for a few years. In December I had my hair cut and restyled so all the highlights have gone.

I was out today with the bloke I'm seeing, and he said

'can I say something about your appearance? Your hair looks lighter now, It was very dark in December, it looks better now. Me and ......John noticed this after you had it cut.

I said I wasn't sure why he was telling me this and he said.

' I thought it might be helpful'

Way out of fucking line. I am surprised you did not dump the bastard then and there. The bloody cheek of him!

Why?

The one where we wish we'd spotted shit qualities in men much sooner.

Just an opinion. Others are available.

Oh and @Fancycheese she's hardly going to upend her life. She describes him as a bloke she's seeing not her husband!

John sounds rather like a MN sock puppet. Some people in real life do have friends like this, to whom they are able to attribute their own questionable viewpoints, knowing they can then dodge some or most of the flack their thoughts might provoke.

Exactly. It's nothing but a rude insult. Why the F do people need to make comments like this? Say it looks nice if you must, but saying it looks BETTER is an insult. As you say, it's saying that you've been looking shit the whole time before your changed your hair (or whatever you've changed.)

I would infer that after you had your highlights cut out your hair was much darker and your partner and his mate agreed they didn't like it. Now that it's got lighter in the sun he/they like it better and he thought it would be helpful for you to know that.
Perhaps ask him if he'd find it helpful for you to let him know what physical traits he would look better with or without.

No you didn't understand correctly

If that's what the OP says and was clear from their conversation then sure.
But from her first message he said '

can I say something about your appearance? Your hair looks lighter now, It was very dark in December, it looks better now. Me and ......John noticed this after you had it cut.

That's unclear to meif he meant it looked dark before or after the haircut. It sounds to me like he thought it looked dark after she had the last of the highlights cut out, and now it is sun lightened he likes it more again.

But tbh I think the weirdness of discussing and assessing her appearance with his friend, to a in depth enough level that he recalls the conversation and thinks its relevant 3 months later is what would put me off.
Have they been regularly reviewing her hair colour together?
Bizarre

Literally LOL-ed at this.

Think this is a clumsy compliment dressed up as an unhelpful comment 🤣 bless him?

My boyfriend gives me compliments that sound like insults all the time, I think it’s because he’s autistic though. He often prefaces them with “sorry, I just thought I should tell you…”. And I think he’s about to point out some spinach in my teeth.

I suspect anyone who makes a comment like that probably doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to understand the difference between what they said and “your hair has caught the sun - it looks lovely”.

An appropriate compliment is simply "Your hair looks nice" A borderline compliment is one which suggests it's an improvement "I like it better than..." Anything ending with "I thought it might be helpful" isn't a compliment, it's feedback that assumes his opinion on your appearance is important. Now, he could simply be lacking in social skills (the number of posts feeling he did nothing wrong indicate how common this is) or it could be a sign of arrogance and entitlement. What do you think? You know him.

Sounds like a typical man thing to say, it's a clumsy compliment. What he means is that he and his mate John like your hair as it is right now. It's really not that deep.

75% of respondents thought the OP was BU. Not "one" - a whole 75%. Maybe you should have checked that first?

The thing is, though, that the OP knows him better than you do and is not happy about his comments. Also, instruction and advice might be considered helpful by the person giving them, but compliments are not designed to be helpful, they are supposed to flatter, or make someone feel good about themselves, or at best, be a spontaneous, genuine and positive reaction towards another person, so it is odd he said he thought his comments would be “helpful.”

Basically, all he did was to let her know he thinks her natural winter hair colour is too dark and that a lighter hair colour is “better.” At its absolute best interpretation, it’s damning her with faint praise and more than a little bit cack handed.

Your reading comprehension is atrocious. He said she looked better now.

Really really not hard to understand seeing as the OP stated so in her opening post 🙄🙄

My interpretation……He prefers your hair lighter, presumably the colour it was when you first met.

He doesn’t want to be controlling or upset you, but wants you to know that if you are torn between it being light or dark, he prefers it light.

He probably talked to ‘John’ about if it’s a good idea to tell your gf that you preferred their old hair colour (rather than them sitting down and critically reviewing your before and afters).

He might feel it sounds less harsh saying he and John spoke about it, rather than he’s been thinking it since you cut your hair.

Sorry for laughing but the final ‘I thought it might be helpful‘ was such a ridiculous thing to say, I couldn’t stop myself.

Anyway, I’m mystified as to what he thought might be ‘helpful’ about his comment on your appearance. It read almost like he was giving you performance feedback.

Yes, it’s hilarious. As if he and John are the authorities on your hair, and he felt it was useful for you to know their report’s conclusions ‘going forward’.

Thanks everyone.

As he was telling me about my hair I patted his arm repeatedly and said 'thanks so much for your letting me know all about my hair and your thoughts'

He said 'i dont like that I'm not a dog you are petting'

We have added 'i thought it might be helpful'. And me giving him friendly dog pats to the collection of little things we say and do that make us laugh.

He is 60 and from a very old school background also a clumsy communicator.

I've been commenting on his shirt today too and my preferences. He didn't like it but strangely did like me saying that I'd discussed his shirt with a friend.

Men are so different!