Not extremely relevant, but I knew an older lady once that came up on a newborn baby and said "That baby sure does have some pretty shoes." She thought the baby wasn't all that adorable, but wasn't going to SAY that. I thought it was funny.. anyways..
It's pretty much impossible to pick apart what people say without going into an all out interrogation with them. If someone says "ma'am" then does it really matter if they thought you were actually a female or were just being polite? Either way, the experience was positive.
I've never been one to do the whole make-myself-look-bad-so-you-look-better thing. I just don't think it's necessary. If someone looks fabulous, you just say HEY, you look great! I see no need in breaking myself down along with it. I don't think it's the fault of the CDer if a GG is misleading in their compliments/statements or has a hidden meaning. And just because we're GGs doesn't mean we have the key to crack every verbal puzzle. Maybe there's not always a hidden message at all, but being the suspicious overthinkers that we are, we come up with possible alternatives anyways.
