Does Not Wanting To Call My Girlfriend 'Beautiful' Make Me A Bad Boyfriend?

Believe it or not, the first real argument me and my ex got into was because I didn't call her beautiful. Actually, it wasn't because I didn't call her beautiful, but because I didn't do it every day.

From my perspective, I just didn't get it. Yes, she was an attractive girl, but I didn't fall for her because of her looks. My attraction was more closely tied to her ambition. She was a go-getter, an overachiever, someone who was so much more intelligent than even she realized. And for me, that's the biggest turn-on.

So, when she brought up this whole beautiful thing, I really thought she was being sarcastic. As it turns out, she wasn't. And she went on to let me know of all the other guys prior to me who had worshipped her, who wouldn't stop calling her beautiful and enjoyed parading her around their friends.

Never mind that she would never let any of these guys get close enough to call them her boyfriend. And forget about the fact that she admitted they really only liked her because she looked good, and she knew that because she would never show off her true personality to any of them.

Now here I was, at the top of her caring ladder, deep into a relationship with this girl and she wanted me to call her beautiful every day, as if it was some prerequisite to our relationship moving forward.

Needless to say, our relationship ended, even though we eventually got passed the whole beautiful thing. But I always think about those moments. What would push someone to need to be constantly reminded about their looks?

Of course, part of it was insecurity. Beauty was her trademark. She worked as a makeup artist and spent her days making people feel beautiful. She, herself, would never dare leave the house without a full face on, or have anyone other than me see her without makeup. And even that took a couple of months.

But I wonder, to this day, if the constant reminder was for me to realize who I had, or for her to believe that she really was that person.

Are we digging too deep?

“Beautiful. Gorgeous. No, don't call me cute. I'm not the type of girl you call cute.”

Those were real words, so maybe it was just vanity. I mean, we always try to find this deeper meaning to everything, tricking ourselves into believing that nothing is as basic as it seems. But who knows, in this case, maybe she just really loved the way she looked. Like, truly loved her looks with all her heart, to the point where she wanted to hear it every day.

Would that be so wrong? Wouldn't that fit right in line with the whole "selfie era" in which we all take part? Maybe she's just ahead of her time, and giving us a glimpse of how our children's children would behave and what they would expect.

I have to say that I never relented in this struggle. I tried following her request for two days before giving up and letting her know this wasn't going to happen. She told me my “beautifuls” sounded forced anyway, so she would rather me not bother.

Part of me is still up in the air about how normal this is. Is this a normal thing in relationships today? Am I in the wrong for not reminding myself out loud, every day how lucky I am to have a beautiful girlfriend? It's something every straight man supposedly dreams of.

At the end of the day, it was only an issue because I didn't want to do it. I'm sure there were plenty of men lined up to give her all the compliments she wanted, once I was out of the picture.

Not sure how it's actually going for her now, but I thought this would be something worth sharing. I'm curious to know if anyone else has experienced anything like this.