There never was a woman who did not prefer an oblique compliment to a straight truth - if the latter were unflattering.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have never been good at doing impressions of women. Which is understandable. There's a gender issue.
I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.
Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.
One of the reasons, surely, why women have been credited with less perfect veracity than men is that the burden of conventional falsehood falls chiefly on them.
Nothing is worse than a beautiful girl fishing for compliments by saying how gross she is. On the flip side, I find genuine humility and modesty attractive.
A woman can be seeking attention and also make a statement.They don't need to be mutually exclusive.
I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.
Nothing ruins the flow of conversation more quickly than refusing a compliment you have just received. Never disagree with something nice that is said to you or about you.
In my own writing, I tend to be very honest, and my goal is to identify something people think but are afraid to say. That's not the general cultural expectation of women.
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.