Is it normal to receive a compliment from a male colleague including the word 'beautiful'? Twice a male colleague has commented on my appearance using the word 'beautiful' and it just always seems such an emotive word to use at work. The first time was on a new dress I was wearing (he also said wow when he saw me), the second was when I changed my hair colour - on this occasion he did it in front of our CEO and he added 'i probably shouldn't say that' or 'im probably not allowed to say that' (I can't remember which); my female CEO responded with 'he never says that to me'. Both of these compliments were months apart. If he'd complimented and said 'looks lovely or nice', I may not have picked up on it (although to be fair no other males in my organisation notice these things) but beautiful is such a strong word for work. We get on, occasionally have email/teams banter, he has a tendency to try and bring me in on conversations and he once commented via email that I'd intentionally made a minor mistake on something to cheer him up - his comment was 'i think you've done that to cheer me up'.
It all sounds ridiculous when I write it down but as you can probably gather I've developed a crush on this guy. So do you think he is flirting or just being friendly or does he just like flirting at work to lighten up the day? I can't really comment what he's like with other female colleagues as we work in different offices the majority of the time but I do know he's funny and other females have commented on that.