I don’t understand. If you were at a small college in a small town, why would you feel any need to be closeted in a larger place? Wouldn’t it be the other way around, that you would feel a lesser need?
I’ve always gotten recognition for being smart so those comments don’t mean much anymore. Same for my red hair. I appreciate the compliments but I’ve heard them my entire life. But, I’ve always been tremendously insecure about my looks so, shallowly enough, it’s the compliments on my appearence that I really remember.
The night I turned 30, I walked to the corner convenience store and got hooted at by a car load of college students. It’s stupid but that made me feel a lot better about turning 30.
The slightly sexually harrassing IT complimented my legs and that’s an body part I’m really, really insecure about so I appreciated that compliment too (despite it’s source).
Strangely enough it wasn’t much of a compliment, but it allowed the start of my healking process after the bad time I had at secondry school.
A girl I knew a little and quite liked told me near the end of my sixth form (ie graduation in US terms) “You know, you’re not nearly as bad as people say you are”
That gave me a little spark that allowed me to start undoing the harm of several years of psychological torture that had been used against me and amplified by my as yet undiagnosed depression.
Within the last five years, I have received two compliments that made me get puddle-eyed, and that showed me that I am doing something constructive with my life.
I had a parent of one of my students come up to me and SWMBO after her daughter successfully testing for 2nd Degree Black Belt. She started out simply saying thanks and suddenly broke down crying. She thanked us profusely for the positive difference we had made in her daughter’s life, how her daughter had changed from a painfully shy little kid into a dynamic, outgoing, vivacious young woman. We’d received similar compliments but none that heartfelt, and it just made our day.
And then…two weeks ago, SWMBO’s daughter, The Teenaged Terror, came up to me out of the clear blue sky, hugged me and said, “Thanks for being my dad”. Given the problems that she has had with her biological father, that comment just hit me right between the eyes. I got puddle-eyed, hugged her back, and said, “Thanks for letting me.”
I’m still floating over that one!
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Years ago, I wrote a few game reviews for gamespy.com (If you want to look 'em up, they’re by Matthew “Mystery Roach” Mercer). I got a mail from the editor saying that GreenMarine from the Unreal dev team liked my writing style.
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This one really wasn’t meant to be a compliment, but I took it as one. It was a slow day at work, and one of my co-workers had a book of “Would You Rather” questions (Zoomaboo? Something like that.). Mostly silly stuff like “Would you rather sweat green perspiration or fart blue smoke?” Anyway, he read out a question: “Who would you rather be; Trainee* or Monster?”
“What’s the real question?”
“Would you rather be dumb as a box of rocks and well-liked, or so intelligent that nobody can identify with you?”
*Not his real name, natch.
Is this something out of a Stephen King novel?
My most cherished compliment came from a friend: “Ron, you make me feel like I’ve been drinking all day.”
Eh, it was supposed to be “the slightly sexually harrassing IT guy” but I left out the guy part. He’s harmless and I know he’s got a huge burden at home with ill family members but he’s shown me polaroids of an extrememly explicit nature that he “found” in a laptop case. :rolleyes:
I’m not a Christian, and far from religious, but I often teach poets who write about their Christianities. One day, when I was still in grad school, I was teaching one such poet (William Blake) and explaining his thinking in imbuing his poetry with his Christian beliefs (that I personally think he should have spent long years in the nuthouse for) and two young women in my lit. class came up to me afterwards and told me that I was a good Christian man.
What could I say? I thanked them for saying so, and felt that I had taught Blake pretty well that day. Maybe even channeled him.
“Nice ass!”
My girlfriend making a larger-than-life enlargement for herself of a full-body photo of me that she had taken while I was wearing only a pair of gym shorts
My Freshman Rhetoric Professor telling our whole class that I had written the most mature sentence he had ever written
Covering a continuing campus newspaper story that became a regional story and told by a pro reporter from a mid-size city (non-local) daily that he read all my stuff.
After I had been away from work for awhile, my supervisor at work telling me that he was amazed at how organised my files were
A co-worker telling me that I was the biggess a**hole she had ever met.
Some Univ classmates from Chile telling me that I had a Mexican accent.
My father crying while reading my ACT test results report
My biggest nemesis PhD program professor telling the dean that the only reason he did not flunk me out of the program was because my answers were too good
A State Trooper telling me I must be a professional speeder with a revoked license because he had been trying to catch me on an Interstate Highway for more than forty miles
Being told “You are god!” by a co-worker after solving a seemingly intractable problem
Raucous laughter by the native speakers evalauting my fluency after telling a joke made up on-the-spot in French
A firm, heartfelt handshake while looking me straight in the eye from a formal rival at our twentieth high school reunion
Pin-drop silence while reading (as a Lector) at church in Spanish
This humility thing does not come to me so easily.
:smack: :smack: :smack:
Overheard in a recording studio: “OK, boys, <my name> is here. Jam session’s over. Now we get to make records!”
Once I walked into a session, where they were listening to the recordings they’d made, and they were great - except there was no bass on any of the tracks. I asked what happened to them, and was told: “Well, we wanted a real bassist on these tracks, so we waited until you got here.”
Having given my new supervisor a CD of a radio documentary I assembled a couple of years ago, so he could assess my skills, he (with 30 years of solid radio experience) told me I was a “master editor.” When he asked how many tracks I used, I said “one.” He was flabbergasted!
And there was a time back in the '70s, where some of us were hanging out at a bar on Saturday afternoon. The afternoon shows were loosely structured jams, and musicians from the audience could come up and play. The band took a break, and six of us who had never seen each other nor played together before, played so well that we got a standing ovation from the patrons and the staff! This was a time when you really had to deserve a standing ovation to get one. (The band was miffed - they didn’t get one.)
The best one, though, was “yes, I’ll marry you.”
Way back in 1945 all pilots in the squadron had to renew their instrument flight ticket. I flew my check ride with the squadron commander Lt. Col. Lucius D. Clay, Jr. and after the ride he said, “Excellent job, Simmons.” Clay wasn’t given to handing out posies and I felt really good about that.
I have three.
The first requires a bit of explanation…I am a medieval enthusiast and part of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). Two years ago, I was taken as a squire in the household of a man whom I had always felt was the pinnacle of chivalry, honor, kindness, and respect. He was to me everything I felt a knight should be, and he was the same to many other people, and one of the very small number of knights in our kingdom that belongs to our highest order of chivalry. When he took me as his squire, in court, before the King, the Queen, and the assembled populace, he said this:
“This man is already a knight in all forms, save for the arts of combat. That is all I can offer to teach him.”
Those words, from that man, were both stunning and humbling at once.
Number two, not so much explanation needed, is from my wife:
“There is no one in the world whom I would rather spend the rest of my life with.”
And last but certainly not least, from my son:
“Daddy, you are my very best friend. I love you!”
I was working on a complex bit of doctrine for the (U.S.) Army’s Engineer Center. It had to do with land mines. Everything connected to everything else.
The General listened to my brief, he knew I was about to retire. He said I had ‘The most flexible mind’ of any officer he ever met’ and that I ‘thought like a sapper.’ He meant that in the nicest possible way of course.
I thought I didn’t have one, then I realized I did.
In my teen years I ended up going to India three times. Now my mother has always been really standoffish. But then I went to India, I lived just like they did, didn’t expect any special treatment, made friends with everyone I possibly could.
When I returned I found out they were all calling me “milapri” - which means, generally, someone who is ultra-friendly and nice and not in the least standoffish, and meets everyone with equal love and friendship*.
That was to this day the nicest compliment I ever received.
*Man, we make our language do a lot of work.
Plagiarist. 
I got a one of my best compliments just yesterday: “I’ve worked with a lot of people who do what you do, but none of them have the mind you have.”
At least, I *think * it was a compliment.
Kind of a long story here. When I was about 20, I was working at a summer stock theatre that had a ‘cabaret’ type show after the main performance in the theatre’s restaurant and bar. The actors from the show would get up on a small stage and sing numbers that they enjoyed, while being accompanied by the musical director. After the official show was over, and the paying customers left, the crew would all hang out and drink in the restaurant with the staff, and I would usually noodle around on the piano. One day the lead trumpet player from the pit (Jim) stayed around and told me that we should work up a couple numbers to do at the cabaret. I was flattered and said sure. This trumpet player was in his 50s, and had toured with many big bands, had played with Count Basie, BB King and others, so I was pretty excited. The next day, he told me we had two slots to fill at the show, and we were going to do these two songs - and handed me a napkin with the chord changes on them. That was it. Luckily for me, the bass player from the pit was hanging around, so he jumped in to play base, I sight read the chords, and Jim took lead. I got through the songs pretty well, and this became a running gig for the summer. Once we figured out that people got ‘paid’ for performing with free drink tickets, we started doing 3 or 4 songs a night, usually with me sight reading chord changes off a napkin.
Near the end of the summer, Jim and I were sitting at the bar talking about what to do for our next song, and he said, “Man, you just don’t even know what you’re doing.” I was a little confused, and he said that in all his years of playing, he’d never really worked with anyone so young who could feel the music on a basic level and just do the right thing. I may have missed a change here and there, but it didn’t matter because my style was right. His final words on the subject (and this is the compliment part) were, “You’ve got old ears.” He died a few years after that, but I’ll never forget that summer. Thanks Jim.
“Good kick.” Said by this insane, insanely talented 4th-degree blackbelt who taught a few classes at my previous TKD school. He didn’t last because he was way too hard-core for the way our school ran, and most the students (self included) were terrified of him. He didn’t compliment students: according to him, most people screwed things up, some got it right, and very, very few did things well. I was the only girl in the class, and it was a huge confidence boost.
Runner up: “You’re beautiful.” I’ve been told that all of once in my life, and I know he meant it.
I don’t know if gratifying is the right word, but a younger French man once told me that my breasts were “philanthropic”. I guess as in full and friendly and generous.
Other than that, just today one of my home health patients said I was a wonderful nurse. That always makes me smile.
It was maybe my second year playing street hockey, pick up game at the local rink. I was playing on the opposing team of the friend who got me hooked on playing the sport. I took the ball up center and there he was. He was leagues better than me. Still I saw him coming and somehow deked him like he was standing still. Flipped the pass to a teammate for the easy goal.
I can’t even remember how I did it. I’d been practising trying to get everything a bit more instinctive and it worked. I saw him coming and just went right past him.
The best part was the looks on the faces of every one playing. :eek: The guy I passed to barely got his mouth closed and woke up in time to get the pass. After, my friend came up and said “Nice move.” It was echoed by everyone else playing.