Terminalcoffee discussion

What is the best compliment you ever received?

The most memorable?

The strangest?

Share them here. :)

The best compliment came from my favourite teacher/grad student. He said, "No, that's an example of your thinking. I can't teach you thinking. I can teach you where to put things in papers, how to write topic sentences, but I don't need teach you how to form ideas. You already have that, and you're smart. Very smart, but you just need to believe in yourself." I think that's the most memorable as well.

The strangest? "You should be a phone sex operator."

Oh, and I was at the mall one day, and a girl randomly looked at me and said, "Oh, you DO have pretty hair!"

Okay, I'll start -

I was out with friends at an Irish Pub in NYC. It was late in the night/early in the morning, and I was hours away from getting on the plane home from a magical, memorable trip. Anyway, just out of the blue, said guy friend told me that I am Miranda from the Tempest. He was very insistent on this. "Heidi, you are Miranda from The Tempest." I remembered her as being mousy and sheltered from a high school production I'd seen, and my immediate reaction was "WTH?!" He was quick to point out that it's meant to be a compliment, and explained the terms of his comparison to this major Shakespearean character - she was sheltered, true to conviction, honest, strong-minded, kind, fair, concerned about the world. I was very flattered, esp. considering that it came from him (yes, Gus, you know him).

A memorable compliment - a stranger was sitting next to me at a pizza place while I was waiting for my to-go order. I was about 18 at the time. He seemed like a kind family man. After I noticed he'd been looking at me for a while, he finally broke the silence with, "I swear I'm a family man and I'm faithful to my wife, so please don't misunderstand me when I say I'm not flirting with you, but you have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen." I had to look at him twice to feel out the sincerity in his compliment. He meant it. I know he did. And I was so flattered because at the time I was completely NOT self-aware, having just woken up from a nap, no make up, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, no nothing to make me feel that I should've looked special that day...

iBritt wrote: "The best compliment came from my favourite teacher/grad student. He said, "No, that's an example of your thinking. I can't teach you thinking. I can teach you where to put things in papers, how to ..."


Compliments from a teacher are the best kind, IMO. :)

Britt's complement reminds me of the prologue to this book I've been reading for months: The Global Achievement Gap. The authors say what is wrong with America's education system is that kids aren't learning how to think for themselves, just to take tests and "find" the right answers.

When I was in 7th grade I had just transferred from public to private school and my classmates were varying degrees of rich, privileged, entitled, and smart. When my first term paper was returned to me the teacher had written, "This is by FAR the best paper in the class."

It was all down hill from there, really.

Best: A prof in college asked if he could keep one of my papers because he enjoyed it so much. Oh. Maybe he thought it was funny? Nevertheless, I took it as a compliment.

Oddest: A close male friend of mine was having some mental health issues. After many weeks of agonizing he told me that he was confused. He might be in love with me or gay. He wasn't sure.

When I spent a night in jail in Daytona Beach during Spring Break 1978, one of my cellmates told me I had purdy lips.

I don't remember compliments. I do remember in a Humanities course our prof offered an A+ to the paper with the best opening paragraph. He picked what he considered the top five. The class voted. Mine won. That was quite a compliment.

I can't take a compliment well. They make me suspicious. I always immediately think, "What do you want from me?"

Once someone said I was the salt of the earth. I had to ask a lot of people what that meant before I understood it was a compliment.

My penultimate boss gave me a Christmas bonus check, my first ever. I wasn't expecting it, since I'd only been there two months. "You're the first employee to ever get a bonus who's been here less than a year. I NEVER give new comployees bonuses. EVER. Ask anybody!" I was sort of flattered but I took it with a grain of salt, since by then I figured out he was doing drugs and I was already sending my resume out.

Phil wrote: "I don't remember compliments. I do remember in a Humanities course our prof offered an A+ to the paper with the best opening paragraph. He picked what he considered the top five. The class voted..."

Me neither. It's a failing of mine, I suppose. But I do remember my dad noting that I had the brains to be a criminal mastermind, and I felt really pleased.

I don't do well with "best" because I have to come up with "THE best". So I'll just select some compliments to fit the category.

One of my clients told me that her accountant said that he thinks I'm one of the best bookkeepers in the city. That would have to fall under best and most memorable.

I'm not sure if this falls under strange or not. Certainly, it was unexpected. My aunt was my piano teacher for many years, and we often crossed horns. I quit playing piano when I moved away from home mainly because I didn't have access to one. When we moved up north, I bought a piano and decided to take my Grade Six Royal Conservatory of Music exam which I failed so horribly under my aunt's tutelage. After that, I took up to the equivalent of grade 10. One summer we had a family rebellion (aka reunion) at a Bible college that has been attended by many members of the family. My uncle was president of the college at the time. I was asked to play during the church service at the tabernacle. My husband asked my aunt if she was proud of her former student. She said in high praise, "I can't take the credit. It wasn't me who taught her to play like that!"

i think the best compliment i received was from my cheer coach when she said she was proud of me for staying with the team even after i broke my leg. coming from her, because all she does is yell and insult us, that was like gold.
the wierdest one was from one of my girl friends who said that i had really nice lips on teh first day of school, before we even knew each other.