“You look like a greek statue.”
“No seriously, you look like a trophy topper man. Or Brad Pitt.”
Both delivered in the same night by two different but very sexy girls. Ego +9
I have had two compliments in my life that have touched me-
Two people I knew at University (I wouldn’t call them friends, I didn’t know them well enough for that) were talking about me at a party, and one of my close friends overheard. They said “Hippos is one of the loveliest people i’ve ever met, I have never met anyone so friendly”.
That touched me so much, I was so shocked it came from two people I barely knew.
And more recently a lady came up to me in the gym, and I had never even seen her before, and said “I always think its important to tell people the good things in life and so I wanted to tell you, you are my complete and utter inspiration and motivation in life. I see you here working so hard and it gives me so much hope and energy”.
It shows me how kind people can be.
One thing I noticed reading through these posts is that everyones compliments are about inner, abstract qualities. Not about looks or other similar things we mostly worry about.
Oh great, make me look shallow.
My mom once mentioned how kind I was.
In college, a history professor I adored remarked on a column I’d written for the school paper. “She’s so funny!”
About a year and a half ago, while I was pumping gas and finishing a cell phone call to a friend, laughing and telling her I loved her, a man came up to me and told me I was beautiful.
A little over a year ago, I was eating alone at a favorite restaurant, wearing a favorite dress, and thinking happy thoughts. A woman I’d never met before came over and said, “I just wanted to tell you that you look like you know exactly who you are.”
My younger brother very rarely comes out with comments, but he occasionally asks my advice or thoughts on something, which is very flattering.
In this moment today it would be this:
I was fired from my last Security job because my ex-cop bosses were lying about things and violating University policy, and when I busted them for it, they closed ranks, denied everything and fired me for “lying”. Only I didn’t lie, they did.
This caused me some problems getting another job, as you can imagine.
Finally, in August, I did get another job. It started part time, moved to full time, then we lost the account and I went back to part time on other accounts while they struggled to find hours for me.
Wednesday night, I got a call about a job I’d applied for a while back. I interviewed with them Thursday and was given the usual “we’ll get back to you”. However, when I got home from the interview, I had a message on my machine telling me that the Supervisor I’d interviewed with had gone straight to the Director and told him that they needed to hire me. (1) I start Tuesday.
When I informed my current boss, he told me that they had called him to ask about me and had asked him to rate me 1-5 on a variety of things. He said he’d given me straight 5’s on everything. He said that he even stopped at one point and said “I hope you don’t think I’m just blowing smoke up your ass, because I’m not. I’m telling you how (Chimera) has performed for us”. (2)
I’ll still be working for that guy part time at night while I do the other job days.
Quick one: not necessarily the best compliment, but one that has stuck with me.
At work many years ago, I was taking over a program (I’m a SW engineer) that someone else wrote. After discussing the ins and outs of the program with him for a while, he said, “You know, I find your questions distressingly thorough…”
J.
The biggest compliment I have ever gotten (and still get, thank God), is when I’m carded for cigarettes. The min. age for tobacco purchase in most states is 18, with ID check for appearance of under 27. I seriously can’t believe they still check me, but man does it make my day. And it happens whether the checkout girl is old or young.
I’m a hell of a lot older than 18 or 27.
I’m not bragging, guys, just relieved.
Can I add two more? 
When I was in fifth grade, a classmate of mine said to the teacher in a tone of awe, “Pyper’s like the dictionary!” It’s funny I still remember that. Thanks, classmate!
And
I had a roommate who was an exchange student from Korea. She always used to tell me how beautiful I was and how I was, “Pretty like a princess!” On one hand, I found these comments sort of silly because I don’t think I am more than above average, but on the other hand I couldn’t help but be flattered. I’ve found that Korean people in particular seem to find my looks very exotic.
From my very tough professor who agreed to review my personal statement for graduate school. She agreed to look at it only with the understanding that she reads these all the time and she will be brutally honest about feedback:
This is such a high-stress, high-pressure process, I couldn’t imagine a more encouraging thing to hear at this moment in my life. She really made me believe I was worthy of the schools I am applying to.
Quite possibly the greatest compliment I ever received though, was almost entirely nonverbal.
My grandparents are two of the most selfless people I know, often to their own detriment. As we speak they are financially supporting 7 family members. My grandfather is spending his retirement taking care of his elderly mother, his schizophrenic son and his fatherless grandsons. People take advantage of his sense of familial responsibility all the time. He is very much like a father to me, always willing to provide for me when my parents weren’t able to. He is a very practical, rational person who wants nothing at all to do with feelings. He doesn’t understand why people get emotional. We’re talking about a man who didn’t even cry at his own son’s funeral.
When I got married my grandparents helped out a lot with the wedding planning and work. Since it was a sort of coming of age time, I wrote a letter to them sincerely thanking them for all the time and energy they had put into me and how greatly I appreciated it. I wrote about how, for many years, they were the only advocates I had. My husband-to-be wrote a letter, too. A few days before the wedding, I drove over and delivered them the letters while we sat in the kitchen I had known since infancy.
My grandfather, the notorious Mr. Emotionless Hunk of Granite, turned bright red at the kitchen table and began to sob, with his face buried in his hands. ‘‘Thank you…’’ he whispered. ‘‘Sometimes we wonder if anyone notices.’’
I will never forget that image of him bent over weeping, or how hard he hugged me as he wiped the tears from his eyes. It was one of the most important days of my life.
I’ve gotten ‘you’re a good person’ or ‘you’re a good artist’ or ‘you’re attractive’ compliments all of which I’ve taken cum granis salis but weren’t that unusual.
The one that stands out for me though is when I was a cashier at a bookstore, this couple told me I had a really soothing voice, and should record books on tape. I think I had been daydreaming and was just really mellow at that particular moment.
I’ve also gotten both compliments and teasing for the way I put stuff on my plate at the salad bar. Someone actually managed to find a joke greeting card to give to me whose punchline involved overly decorative salad procurement.
That’s awesome.
Tom Cruise told me once that I completed him. Admittedly I had just inserted his brain.
(I took it out later.)
Three little ones for me:
-
At uni a friend called up and said “a bunch of us are writing a seminar presentation but we’re not sure what the ‘diaspora’ is?” I told her the answer, and I heard her say to her mates “see, I told you he’d know”, then she said a quick “thanks” and rang off. I think the lack of suprise in her voice that I’d know was the biggest compliment
-
One of the lads at work is extremely garralous… the sort of chap who’ll walk into a room and make it his own instantly. He works in sales and has the gift of the gab, and could charm the pants off pretty much any woman out there. I found out he’d nominated me as one of his guests at the “if you could have anyone in history to dinner” game, as “he knows pretty much everything but explains it so you don’t feel bad you didn’t know”.
-
I was stuggling with my masters thesis a few years back… just couldn’t get it sorted and worked myself so hard I had to take a break at home with exhaustion. My folks are both clever - Mum’s a maths teacher and Dad did his PhD in low temp physics at Cambridge Uni - as are my brothers (all 3 post-graduate level scientists). I studied European Lit. which meant none of them could really offer much advice on how to procede, but my Mum just said one day “oh you’ll be fine, you’re the clever one”, which while in no way true was the sort of confidence boost I needed at the time.
Oh and one of my friends, unable to escape my clutches, declared me to be “freakishly strong”.
I was being led up a mountain in Jamaica by a barefoot woman who was balancing a basket of stuff she bought at the market. We trudged in the dark through small creeks, over logs, and up steep trails. After an hour of walking in silence she turned to me and said “You walk good for a white man”.
I’ve got two.
One shallow:
“You’re as cute as any other girls.” - Said by a friend after I told him how hard it was for me to be open with people. What he was basically saying was, I think, was not to sell myself short, because I was just as good as anyone else.
One less shallow:
On a recommendation letter from my high school psych professor (who I love to death and think is one of the coolest people on the planet) that: “Anything she chooses to do, she will do well.”
My parents telling me and my wife what great parents we are - more than once. My grandmother also - I have a letter from her where she says we are doing a wonderful job with our kids despite their issues, an she is very proud of us. My family therapist as well. All people I admire and respect greatly, particularly as parents/care givers. This is huge.
My Dad telling me he thought something I wrote was great. My sister saying that the same piece was wonderful, but she was not surprised - she expected nothing less from me. 
My old boss. A little while after he hired me he wanted me to find more former physicists to employ. He wanted “[my real name] clones”.
A friend of mine told me right before his second marriage that he considered me more like a brother than a friend. I hung out with him a few times during and after his divorce. I didn’t consider it that big a deal - supporting each other is what people do, right? Well, not always. And I learned that I don’t always get to decide what is and is not important to someone.
A co-worker of mine was getting divorced from the most manipulative jerk I have ever heard of in real life, and Mama Zappa and I offered her what support we would. The Ex really was a bastard, and I just could not stand by and let that kind of bastardry go by in the world. It was just so, so WRONG. And kids were involved. :smack: A couple of years later she (the now divorced co-worker) asked me to give her away at her second wedding. She said she wanted to be given away by someone she respected. (She barley knew her Dad, and didn’t care for what she did know.) I was blown away!
Friends of mine, thanking me for supporting them through the loss of their son. I still feel like I threw a pebble against a tsunami of wrongness, but I don’t get to decide what other people think is meaningful.
A co-worker of mine - his wife was sick, a really sad situation. So, being a geeky dork but a caring guy, I made it a point of asking him how his wife was when I saw him. I’d listen to him talk about it if he wanted - he usually just said “She’s OK, thanks” and we’d go back to our jobs. I thought of it as a small terminate and stay resident program I made for my brain: IF (see[GuyWithSickWife]) THEN say(“How is $Wife”); LISTEN to him; ENDIF. No big deal - it’s what anyone would do for their fellow human being. At the next company Christmas party, his wife was well enough to be there. He introduced me to her (we’d met before), and he said “[Wife’s name], this is Typo. He asked after you Every. Single. Day!” OK, maybe not what anyone would do for their fellow human being.
A friend of ours had an unexpected personal train wreck, and ended up essentially without resources many states away from her family. We helped as much as we could. With a lot of help from others (including her church), and a bit of good luck she’s back on her feet again. A couple of years later we saw her in person. I told her how proud we all were for how she got her life back together. She thanked us for our help. I said whatever little things we did felt inadequate against the wrongness of what happened to her. She said it was adequate. One of the best things I’ve heard in my life.
Mama Zappa (my wife), too many times to count.
Y’all are lucky that I specialize in low self-esteem, or I’d be a raging egomaniac and utterly insufferable.
I was asked to provide an article for what was the most prestigious trade magazine in my old business. I got a lot of good compliments on that article.
Mine is similar but from a different perspective: A very simple, “Good job” from a TKD instructor when I was 13. The circumstances that truly made it a big deal to me are a pretty long story, but to sum up, I was the youngest, smallest, lowest-ranking student in this particular class and the only female. I was also the only person to get publicly complimented by this instructor, and it was a tremendous boost to me.
A friend of ours, a past president of the American Humanist Association, once told my wife and me that we had raised our kids more consistently with Humanist values that anyone else he had known.
Another friend told us that we were more deliberate in our parenting than anyone he had known. Said we should not second guess parenting decisions we had made because we could be sure that we had made rational, well-intentioned choices based on the best info available to us at the time.