“Hey, you managed to fuck up less than usual!”
At the height of Covid, when I worked in a vaccination center, I spent a very long time with a teenage girl with extreme needle phobia. When her family came back for their second shots, and each was deciding which booth to go to, I heard her tell her sister . . .
“You go to the lady. I want him!”
Maybe not the nicest, but certainly the most memorable:
When I was still in school, I played the flute and took weekly lessons.
One spring in either my junior or senior year of high school, it was warm and the windows of the room I took lessons in were open. My flute teacher also played the piano and she suggested we work on a duet that day so she gave me the sheet music and off we went.
My mom had got there early to pick me up and when I got to the car, she pointed at the windows of the room where we were playing and asked me who was in there - she said whoever that was, they were really good! I told her I guess that meant all those years of lessons weren’t in vain??
Necrotic?
“You look like a zombie” is the nicest compliment you’ve received? You need to meet some nicer people!
Well, I have gotten some interesting compliments. The best one was from a co-worker who said I reminded her of this illustration from a book she had as a child. I don’t see the resemblance but that was nice.
Another time, I was singing along with the car radio and my daughter said, “I don’t know why Madonna’s so famous, you sing just as well as she does.” I realize there are two ways to take these words, but I choose to hear them as, “Your voice is of the same caliber as that of an international superstar.”
Last and least: I was talking to a friend about a small thing that l felt disproportionately guilty about. He said, “You’d have made a wonderful Catholic.” 
Omar tries really hard.
Back when I went out dancing a lot, “You’re a really good dancer” was always nice to hear.
But the nicest thing I ever heard anyone say was way back in college. I had a core group of friends in my fraternity, and like young men will do, we had long running standing jokes amongst us about varoius vulgar topics. One day we were playing around as usual and a guy was on the fringe of the group said “you guys laugh more in a day than I do in a month”.
Not sure if this qualifies as a compliment but I took it that way. I worked for a large coffee company in charge of fleet maintenance. I would very often get involved in the manufacturing plant issues. The plant manager called me into his office one day and said that Mr. Farmer (Owner) told them I was going to straighten out the plant and to give me anything I needed.
I was travelling in the south of France, staying with a friend of my sister’s who I’d met back in the States. For my final night I asked him to take me where he’d go to eat, my treat. After a lovely evening visiting a few bars and restaurants and having an amazing culinary adventure Giles looked at me and said “You don’t eat like an American.” I wore that as a badge of honor.
Never having been popular, I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in the library, reading like mad. I was later a trivial pursuit champ and even today, I am known for my awesome deep well of knowledge about dozens of obscure odd things. ‘Ask Salinqmind’ was the lifelong cry. Now there is the internet but I still get asked questions out of nowhere.
My wife and I went to a murder mystery weekend at a resort in NY. The guests were supposed to write up and present a solution at the final party. My wife and I wrote up one making fun of the cast (in character.) Only three people did the presentation, but we killed it. It made me understand why standup comics do it.
The compliment? At the party afterwards someone asked me if I wrote for Off Broadway. That was cool.
The troupe, by the way, asked for our script, though I don’t know if they ever used it.
I was a contractor on an IT project. At a meeting the client manager of the project was talking about getting more people and said “We need another rowrrbazzle.” I’m not some super-programmer or even close, but I was a standard for what they wanted.
Thought of another “interesting” one:
We were skiing in Colorado. I had on the loveliest fluffy hat and matching scarf. As I flew gracefully down the bunny slope, something went wrong, causing me to do some cartwheels and land hard on my ass. A nice elderly couple came to my aid, having collected my hat and poles. The man said, “That was a real doozy!” and the woman added kindly, “But you looked very pretty doing it.”
One I enjoyed greatly years back was a small boy telling his mother “That man has bigger arms than Hulk Hogan!”. I didn’t, but combined with his look of awe it felt pretty good.
My daughter was writing her resume as part of a life-skills class at school. She said she realized how well her parents were preparing her when she compared her resume to others in the class. She could easily list her interests and activities and accomplishments and goals, while others struggled to put down anything. Simply the fact that she’s self-aware enough to understand her privilege is a great compliment.
I’m interested and wonder why others could not at least list their interests, even if they hadn’t thought about goals or even had any accomplishments.
yes, certainly it’s a compliment to your parenting.
I have a two-way tie, both related to music:
“I’d forgotten how pretty that song is!” After I sang “Someone to Watch Over Me” during one of my first jazz gigs. I think the person who said it was actually complimenting the Gershwins, so my response was something like “Right??” but I also took it as a pretty big compliment on my performance.
“I actually started to cry…” After I sang “Pure Imagination” during another gig.
Apparently “Taylor Swift” and “Boys” were not considered good resume material.
About 20 years ago on an internet discussion forum I used to frequent one of the established prolific posters said to me that I was “a psych by formation but not profession”. I remember it still. I guess that was a compliment?
I overheard one of my coworkers say to someone else that I had a sense of humor dryer than the best martini he’s ever had.
Hey Dad? Thanks for teaching me how to give my son a bath.
Son was not quite newborn. MY son was……23.
Nothing compares.