BOY, have I got good news for all you urban males out there.

My fellow men, if you have turned pasty and plump through years of working in an office, I present to you the easiest way to get compliments from a woman: Get a tan.

Take a look at Exhibit A: Me. I accidentally turned brown while on a recent overseas trip - eastern Europe was sunnier than I thought - and it has got me surprisingly rave reviews.

The first compliment came soon after I stepped into the office.

That colleague muttered something like 'wow... you, uh, you, um, look really good', as her brain struggled to accept the shockingly new and improved Teo Cheng Wee compared to the old and dowdy one.

'You should keep your tan,' she said when she was finally ready to string a sentence together. 'Guys look much better when they are tanned.'

Okay, point taken, I nodded. Thanks.

I thought that was that. But then came an unexpected deluge of praise and approving comments from other female colleagues during the course of the week.

Out of the corner of my eye, I even caught one gawking from across my cubicle.

'Uh, yes?' I asked, hoping that it wasn't because I had ketchup on my mouth.

She quipped: 'Gee, your skin tans really nicely. It even brings out the colour of your clothes. You know how some people look like lobsters while others look like charcoal? You look like, like...'

Brad Pitt? Cristiano Ronaldo? Tony Leung?

'... honey-glazed ham.'

I made a face. But it's fine, I reasoned. Heck, I'm desperate. I'll take any compliment I can get. (I mean, some people do find honey-glazed ham delicious.)

But seriously, this incident made me realise how I have taken my once-tanned skin for granted.

I never used to have fair skin, thanks to my daily regime of playing football under the blazing midday sun in my secondary school and junior college days.

In fact, my skin darkened so much that after a week-long school trip to the Riau Islands, my mum initially didn't want to open the door because she didn't know the stranger standing outside.

Yet, perhaps because half the boys in school were dark at that time - there was obviously a bit too much football being played in my school - no girl ever come up to compliment my brooding good looks. Therefore, I never thought much about it.

Fast forward 10 years, however, and it's a different story.

With most men these days spending half their time in the office and returning to their original pasty selves, this incident has made me realise that the tanned look is suddenly a hot commodity all over again.

'Seriously, you look around the office, who has nice, sporty tanned skin?' one female colleague asked, before reeling off a series of names and comparing their pale skin to that of dead people wheeled out from the morgue.

The funny thing is, while most women gush about guys looking good with tanned skin, they have the exact opposite approach when it comes to themselves: Stay out of the sun at all costs.

I have female colleagues who religiously apply sunblock - so what if they stay indoors the whole day and avoid the sun like the plague?

These are the same people who want to have lunch only at the office cafeteria because the sun's damaging rays would destroy their delicate skin if they walk to the coffee shop across the road.

I think it's time I pointed out to them that it takes 30 seconds to cross that road. If the sun's rays were that powerful, the entire planet would be a nuclear wasteland.

Going by their curious logic, women should stay indoors to protect their skin to look good and men should go outside to get theirs destroyed - but also to look good.

Doesn't make much sense, but never mind.

What I have to agree with is that this has been a good second run with my dark skin. But I'm afraid it's time to say goodbye to it again.

Yes, despite all the women telling me that I should maintain the tan by hitting the beach or pool and all the lovely comments, I think there's nothing more vain than baking yourself.

It's fine if you are really the sporty type and you got your tan because you were wakeboarding, cycling or canoeing.

But suntanning has to be, for me, the single biggest waste of time in the name of vanity.

Think about it. People don't suntan for five minutes - they bake for five hours. And it's not as if anything useful is going on during that time. You're not getting healthier, your brain isn't being stimulated.

You are just using all this time... lying around. All in the name of beauty. You might as well spend five hours putting on make-up. Or combing your hair, for that matter.

I'm sorry, I love the compliments but I have better things to do with my life.

I'm going out to buy some honey-glazed ham.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Jun 9, 2008.