Great Compliments

[St. Louis]

Last night I received the most wonderful compliment from an 11-year old friend of mine. it made me so happy I thought I'd ask you all for your favorite compliments.

I was talking with her parents about the fact that I don't have and don't want a smart phone. I told them that my life is just so uninteresting that I simply don't need drag a little computer with me everywhere. I wasn't sure what this said about me. The little lady got up from her seat, placed her arm very gently around my shoulders and said, "St. Louis, you have a mind."

I can't tell you how thrilled I was with this compliment. Made my day -- my week -- my life. So wonderful. Really put me at ease about my lack of technological up-to-dateness.

What's your favorite compliment?

 

[GHT]

Sorry that this is duplicated, I think I might have posted it in the things that make you smile thread.
Back in the hot summer my wife and I were in our old MG driving to a classic car show. The route took us along a duel carriageway and on this particular day the volume of traffic was causing both lanes to stop/start and regularly slow to a crawl.
"Mister!" I heard, looking to the adjacent lane, little Miss Ten-year-old was leaning out of her Dad's big Audi. She treated me to a toothy grin and said: "Mister, your car is so cool!" With that her Dad's car moved forward and although it was an expensive car, that meant nothing, the coolest car was mine. I just had time to sound the horn and give her a cheery wave. She made my day.

 

[Tiki Tom]

A long time ago —and when I was still single— a single mother once asked me if I’d consider being a male role model for her young son. I was blown away... but after consideration had to decline. But still, what a compliment.

Makes me wonder at what a different person I must have been back then.

 

[scottyrocks]

Going back about 10 years or so when my daughter was in high school and then college, and I used to attend her events on a motorcycle, or in my MINI, clad in leather, and a fedora (when not on the bike), she used to tell me all the time that her friends told her that her dad was so cool.

 

[GHT]

This is another compliment, actually, make that insult come compliment. I have either posted sometime in the past, or, posted a link to. Memory loss, old man syndrome. Ten years ago, following the death of my father-in-law, I took my bereaved wife to Scotland for a few days. On a visit to Glasgow we saw advertised, a Vegas style burlesque show, show girls, contortionists, comic singers and a brilliant compere. It had sold out, but as we were enquiring a cancellation came through. We were in. I forgot to mention that the first three hours was showtime, then there was dancing until the early hours. Being a couple of dancers that was for us. Some weeks later I had a link to this blog. http://remotecards.blogspot.com/2009/07/old-folk-dancing-like-they-were-young.html This is the blog, cut & pasted, with spelling and grammatical errors left uncorrected:

Monday, 6 July 2009

Old Folk Dancing Like They Were Young Again
High Tease & Vegas 4th of July special, a mix of big band and burlesque and the crowd is mixed. Dress is not strictly enforced, but a lot of people have made the effort. Once the show part of the evening has finished the back of 10, the DJs start playing music, while a couple of showgirls take turns dancing on stage with their feathers and sequins. The audience is very mixed, covering the age spectrum, but there is this one couple, this old couple, who look like they were probably dancing like this when it was first invented and are still dancing like that. There are young couples standing with their jaws dropping, at various stages of the night there are girls lining up with the old woman carefully trying to follow every step that she makes, while boyfriends cheer them on. She is in a vintage dress, looks like it was new in the 40’s, he is wearing a suit of similar kind of style, baggy, long at the back, his shows black, with the white spats. They swing and they turn, touching the floor, spinning round, twisting, the works. The audience applaud, though at the point he lifts her, practically to head height, and swings her full circle, before returning her to the ground, gets the biggest response. The crowd watch, expecting the worst, these are two people who are getting on, some of us will feel sore in the morning, so god knows how they will feel, but they do it, and they put us all to shame with their vigour.

 

[scottyrocks]

Ah yes, the internet - allowing anyone and everyone to 'publish' without the aid of an editor.

 

[Zombie_61]

A long time ago —and when I was still single— a single mother once asked me if I’d consider being a male role model for her young son. I was blown away... but after consideration had to decline. But still, what a compliment.

Makes me wonder at what a different person I must have been back then.

I apologize in advance, but a similar situation I'm in involves some explaining.

Back in the mid-1990s my wife changed jobs and soon after made friends with one of her new co-workers; a divorced mother with a daughter and two sons. We quickly became very close friends and we all spent a good deal of time together, and one day her youngest son, who was nine years old at the time, asked me if he could call me "dad". Fortunately his mother had given me a little advance notice that this might happen because he had asked her about it first, so my wife and I had time to discuss it and attempt to anticipate the "pros and cons" because a) she would be involved too, and b) we never had children of our own so this would be our first foray into parenting. So he asked and I accepted, and when his older brother (who was 12 years old at the time) found out he wanted in on the deal too. That was a little surprising, but I immediately sat down with them and explained that if I was going to be "dad" I was going to be dad, i.e. that I would be there for them when they needed me but that from that day forward their mother and I would determine any necessary discipline when they misbehaved. They agreed, and for all intents and purposes (legal rights and limitations aside) I've been their dad ever since. They each tested me on the "discipline" front a few times and found I was serious about that, but they also realized I was serious about supporting them when I did things like attend school meetings and arrived at the E.R. when the younger son dislocated his knee at school one day. They knew I was looking out for their best interests, and I think they responded so favorably because I didn't "talk down" to them the way a lot of adults do with children; I treated them as people, not as "kids". And this unusual relationship has been rewarding in ways I couldn't have previously imagined.

I'm not sure this qualifies as a "compliment", but it's certainly one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me.