…ideally one that was both genuine and that you had the confidence and self awareness to interpret as kind. And for bonus points, what’s one you’ve given?

I’m thinking back to the guy in group therapy years ago who told me he always thought of people who swore as not knowing any better words, but that I obviously knew better words and just also swore and even used them artistically and that’s just really stuck with me. Sometimes I wonder how much of my self esteem has suffered not just because I’ve been told not to brag, but also because I’m extremely weird so the compliments I do receive often reflect that.

My bonus one (and I’m not sure how well he was able to take it) was that one of my fellow psych nurses was frequently and obviously terrified any time shit hit the fan, but that somehow still he’d never once failed to have my back. He’d be stuttering the whole way through an incident but I’d walk out of the med room with both halves of a B52 and he’d take one of the syringes without a second thought. He was literally the epitome of “courage isn’t not being scared, it’s being willing to face it.” I should find a nice presentation of that quote somewhere to send him because I’m not sure I phrased it well at the time.

  • Vanth@reddthat.comEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    A neighbor saw me walking barefoot to my mailbox and complimented me on my healthy feet.

    Hackles went up thinking he was some foot fetishist who was going to get weird on me. Nope, just a medical person of some sort that works with feet a lot and I genuinely have healthy arches and mobile toes. At least I choose to believe that explanation he gave. Otherwise, I have to assume my neighbor is jerking it every time I walk outside.

  • neidu2@feddit.nl
    0·
    1 month ago

    A friend of mine said I had a very good hugging-body. I always pictured huggable dudes as big, but I was really lean back then. She said it was because my lanky body somehow automatically fit the shape of her hugs.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Coworker told me I look like Linus Torvalds. I really don’t, not even a little (other than being a white guy with glasses). But it was oddly flattering.

  • toomanypancakes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    I’m pretty sure it was intended as a compliment, but a little after I came out as trans I had a coworker tell me about a conversation she had with another coworker where she said about me, “They always dress better than us.”

  • FlashZordon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    “You’re very handsome for an Asian man.” - My girlfriend’s mom

    Just one of those that confirms someone’s biases.

  • geekwithsoul@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    I was in my early 20s and was visiting a friend’s house. His wife had a friend visiting that I’d never met. We were introduced and the first words she said to me were “Do you know your features are wasted on a guy?” and then went on to provide specific details.

    We were married a year later. And that was 30 years ago.

  • RaoulDook@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    A random black man at the pool yelled at me that I look exactly like Emilio Estevez. I didn’t know what to say

  • Squeezer@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    A girl sidled up to me at college when I was About 18 and just said “you have beautiful veins”

  • Aremel@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    “Courage means being scared but doing it anyway” seems like a pretty succinct way of putting it I think.

    My wierd compliment (if it can be called that) was when I was in high school English class. My teacher noticed how competent I was and how I was the only one to consistently raise my hand when he asked a question. He gave us a research paper to do and I got an F on it, exclusively because I fucked up the citations. He said the content was good, but he had to mark me way down due to improper citing. He said “I know you can do better than this.”

    Is that a complement? Either way, I think about that interaction and scenario a lot even though I haven’t been in high school for well over a decade.

  • JesusSon@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    I got my leg fucked up in a hot sandy land far away. While I was doing rehab I used a cane and walked with a limp. One day I was walking out of an HEB in Houston when a dude dressed like Huggy Bear told me he liked my strut and then told me to “keep on pimpen playa.”

    In retrospect, it sort of makes sense as my limp with the cane looked like I was doing that stereotypical pimp walk but at the time I was very confused lol

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    I hooked up with someone at a party and they told my sister I have a big dick, loudly, in a room full of people that know me.

  • Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml
    0·
    1 month ago

    I know there have to have been even weirder ones I got over the years, but what stuck with me is when a nurse in a psych ward psychiatric clinic called me (a patient) being like a “weird, confused professor” as a genuine compliment.

  • QProphecy@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    This guy once told me “Your hair looks small” as a compliment… I still dont’t know what to make of it.