It just occured to me how different the emotional landscapes of people are. While I do not want to turn this into a sexist rant, I did observe this trait particularly in women (not all of them, mind you) - is that how much they crave strong positive feedback.

This was something that I figured out with my first gf, and had never seen written down or talked about before - that when I praised her she became happy, and the more superlative and excessive the praise got, the happier she became, calling her gorgeous, the most wonderful person in the world, made her overjoyed.

To be clear I did love her and found her very attractive, but overstating my feelings for her kind of felt like I came close to lying and emotional manipulation, that I'm still not comfortable with today. But she loved it and kept doing it because it made her happy.

Needless to say we didn't stick together (for teen reasons, not these reasons), but later in life, I tried doing this, but I did notice a lot of women respond very positively to this kind of attention and affection, and I still get some flack from the miss from apparently not being romantic enough.

Maybe I am overthinking this, or maybe I am emotionally flatter than I should be, but finding such a powerful emotional lever in another human being feels like finding a loaded gun on the table.