# Baffling Comments/Compliments **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 29, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701 "2006-08-29T19:06:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MaddyStrut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@MaddyStrut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaddyStrut)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/21 "2006-08-29T23:02:30Z")
A date once told me I looked just like a character from his favorite novel. It wasn’t a graphic novel or a picutre book or anything, just a regular fictional novel (I’m trying to remember which it was, but I can’t recall right now). How on earth could I look like a character who never existed? ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/22 "2006-08-29T23:10:12Z")
A girl in highschool told me I had the most perfect nose she’d ever seen. Never before, never since has anyone else even mentioned my nose. At. All. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/23 "2006-08-29T23:17:54Z")
> [@Bobotheoptimist](#): > > I wasn’t involved, but I once heard a guy tell a girl (both about 21yo)- > “Wow, you’re gonna be beautiful in about 5 years” Go to a mall and go look at some women, stop fantasizing about screwing them for a few minutes and compare how women move, especially walking in heels. The older ones make it all look so fluid and graceful, twenty y/o’s in 3+ inch heels many times look like a 5 year old on a bike that just ditched his training wheels by comparison. A well cared for 50 something can look truly heartstopping if she wants to even to guys 30 years younger. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/24 "2006-08-29T23:18:03Z")
I once got complimented by a nurse on my blood pressure. THAT was one I really didn’t know how to respond to. My best friend is pretty darn tall for a girl - she’s 6’1 and has fairly broad shoulders, and she’s pretty sensitive about it. A relative-by-marriage of hers once complimented her by saying: “You look so SUBSTANTIAL!” “Uh, I’ve gained weight,” she replied. “No no, it’s not that, you’re just… SUBSTANTIAL!” ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/25 "2006-08-29T23:20:48Z")
> [@Mindfield](#): > > Still another told me I looked like Michael J. Fox. My hair style at the time might have been kinda like his, and he and I are both short, so maybe, just possibly, if you smeared your pupils with vaseline. Be grateful, in my case I was told I looked like Chris Farley. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/26 "2006-08-29T23:23:20Z")
> [@Helen's Eidolon](#): > > My best friend is pretty darn tall for a girl - she’s 6’1 and has fairly broad shoulders, and she’s pretty sensitive about it. Maybe she would prefer something like “come down here and kiss me” ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/27 "2006-08-29T23:29:36Z")
I’ll admit that I usually think of weird compliments as thinly veiled insults. “WOW, you have such intensely symmetrical clavicles!” …the rest of you looks like a pustulant swelling on a pigs anus, but your collarbone is nice." ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/28 "2006-08-29T23:47:35Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Be grateful, in my case I was told I looked like Chris Farley. I was once told I looked like Charles Gibson. Er, I’m a GIRL. Some guy in a bar once told a friend of mine, “If you lost 20 pounds, you’d be the hottest girl on campus!” At first she was kind of pissed, but she got over once it occurred to her that she really needed to lose about 50 pounds. Another person once complimented the same friend on her “beautiful Aryan features.” While yes, she does bear a bit of a resemblance to Meryl Streep when her face is thin (as it was then) and she had long blond hair at the time, she never made any bones about having a total dye job. Back in my Comp Sci classes in the early Dark Ages \, the professor once gave us a programming problem for homework and a set of data in the school computer to test it. When I looked at the test data, I saw that he hadn’t done them quite right: It was supposed to be a mixed-up set of numbers from 0 to 51 (yes, we were sorting a deck of playing cards), but he had given us 1 to 52. I went to his office to tell him, and he hemmed and hawed a bit about how to fix it. I quietly suggested that simply changing the 52 to a 0 ought to do it. The light went on and he turned to me and said something along the lines of, “Gee, you’re smarter than I would have thought!” Um, thanks? ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/29 "2006-08-30T00:06:06Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Go to a mall and go look at some women, stop fantasizing about screwing them for a few minutes 😕 I… I don’t understand. What is this “stop” of which you speak? > [@drachillix](#): > > and compare how women move, especially walking in heels > The older ones make it all look so fluid and graceful, twenty y/o’s in 3+ inch heels many times look like a 5 year old on a bike that just ditched his training wheels by comparison. > A well cared for 50 something can look truly heartstopping if she wants to even to guys 30 years younger. But would you use that as a pickup line between 21 year olds? “Hey baby, look me up in about 30 years when you stop walking like a 5 year old boy trying his first two-wheeler”? I’ve never been the ladies man, but I have to think that wouldn’t work too well (sure didn’t work for Russ) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/30 "2006-08-30T03:11:27Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Interpret that as “You have presence!” Could be. 🙂 I decided to google it for the hell of it, and there were two types of hits: 1. how to dress to seem taller 2. that being confident makes people seem taller. If 1 it’s by accident, 2 is possible, however. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/31 "2006-08-30T03:32:22Z")
I once received the compliment that “I would make a good yoga teacher”. :: puzzled look :: “Uh, thanks.” ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/32 "2006-08-30T03:33:33Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > I once received the compliment that “I would make a good yoga teacher”. Did you have both your feet behind your head at the time, 'cus then that would make way more sense. ---
**Author:** ![Agonist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@Agonist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agonist)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/33 "2006-08-30T04:38:36Z")
An acquaintance once had a strange bump on her forehead - some sort of boil or something. She was very self-conscious about it, but I thought it looked exotic. Being the science-fiction geek that I am, I tried to compliment her by telling her I thought it made her look “alien”. For some reason she didn’t seem all that flattered. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/34 "2006-08-30T04:50:54Z")
My last girlfriend said I had a sexy nose… …because it _“looks like a dick!”_ (It has the barest suggestion of cleft tip, normally only discernable by those who are close enough to fuck me. In no way does it resemble the male or female regenerative organs of any extant species.) Anyway, she fixated on my “dick-nose,” and often said it was a physical manifestation of my character. In a _good_ way, somehow. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Roland\_Orzabal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@Roland\_Orzabal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Orzabal)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/35 "2006-08-30T04:56:39Z")
People continue to insist upon telling me I look like Keanu Reeves. I do not look like Keanu Reeves. The only similarity I can see is that we both have dark hair. I can only be thankful that, since seeing “A Scanner Darkly”, my gut reaction of wanting to vomit upon thinking about Keanu Reeves has lessened to the point where I can almost take this as a compliment. One particular person has likened me to Charlie Sheen. This shall not be discussed any further. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/36 "2006-08-30T05:00:58Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > Did you have both your feet behind your head at the time, 'cus then that would make way more sense. I am one of the least physically-flexible people on the planet. That’s another reason the compliment was so puzzling. I can only presume it was because I was radiating some kind of inner peace… which, considering where I was in my life at that time, would be _really_ misleading. ---
**Author:** ![Whifton\_Polekitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Whifton\_Polekitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whifton_Polekitty)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/37 "2006-08-30T06:55:15Z")
My mother insists I look like Johnny Depp, which I simply do not understand. An ex girlfriend told me one of my best traits was the was my eyelashes clung to my glasses. And I have be described as “strategically rumpled”. Whahhhhh? ---
**Author:** ![Whifton\_Polekitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Whifton\_Polekitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whifton_Polekitty)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/38 "2006-08-30T06:57:31Z")
BEEN described, damnit… ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/39 "2006-08-30T06:58:36Z")
Several times my son was stopped on the streets of West Los Angeles by people, usually young women, who would ask him who he was. They would say, “I know you’re somebody, tell me who.” He would answer, “Of course, I’m somebody! I’m me!” He never added, “you witless wonder.” but he wanted too. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701/40 "2006-08-30T07:01:49Z")
I told a girl tonight, “You are light. You are truly levity in darkness and light incantation.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-comments-compliments/370701.md?page=3)