I got a lot of that in life from people I would interact with remotely in my work. I don’t think it was a supposed to be a compliment given from either hand, just surprise from unmet expectations based on too little input.
Someone told me she had been watching a comedy special and one of the comedians looked just like me. I knew who she was talking about, it was Fortune Feimster. I do in fact look like Fortune. Heck, other than her southern accent we SOUND exactly alike too.
She seemed to immediately regret having compared us, even though I said “Ah yeah, probably Fortune Feimster. She’s cool.” I don’t know why it embarrassed her to have mentioned it. Nothing wrong with Fortune. I know what we look and sound like. I look and sound like this every day.
I guess she realized she compared me to a fat lesbian comic? Perhaps others would feel bad about this? As I look like a fat lesbian comic, it was no problem for me. (I’m not a lesbian myself but I do outwardly fit the bill)
An off the wall encounter: I was doing a transaction at a bank once and the teller (female, I’m male) said out of the blue: “you smell so good”
I was rather nonplussed. What an odd thing to say in that context?
As a happily married man, I just completed the bank work without saying anything and left.
I suppose if I had been single…