It came to me recently that there are two ways to tell the girl of her beauty in English: "You look beautiful" and "You are beautiful". The latter feels much more personal for some reason, even though both touch upon the same idea in a very similar manner: as if I reach to the soul of the person I'm saying it to, and not just the outer shell. Maybe I'm wrong; I'm just figuring it out.
Certainly, the best way to go would be honestly: compliment what you find attractive or worthy of praise. Even then, there are different kinds of honesty: I'm sure most females of any age will never find something like "Your body is good enough for you to star in porn" attractive.
So, let's suppose I find the girl I'm interested in physically attractive - how do I compliment that without any subtle negative or undesired connotations ("I like your body", which is much more sexual than aesthetical)? Either of the above, or something else?
The same question applies to any other kind of compliment: what do I say and how do I say it?
I am super insecure about my image and sensitive to feeling objectified (history of modelling and eating disorders doesn't help).
A comment like "you've got beautiful eyes" makes me feel suddenly exposed - has this person been looking at me and judging me all this time? What else have they noticed and not commented on? Is it only my eyes that meet objective standards of beauty? If I didn't have nice eyes, would this person be ignoring me? etc. etc.
However, the same comment phrased differently "I love looking into your eyes" or "your eyes make me feel gooey inside/like a kid again/insert-cheesy-phrase-here" will have a completely different effect on me. I will respond well, feel that the speaker is being honest, and be genuinely flattered.
The difference is that the first comment is phrased objectively "you are x", whereas the second is more subjective "I feel x when I'm with you". Because it's subjective, my brain doesn't question it - I feel that the speaker is being completely sincere.
Or something like that, anyway... it's sort of a difficult subject for me to articulate :/