.......................
...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.
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.
It can go the other way. Long before we got married, my wife hooked up with a guy to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Whatever. But years later she had a medical emergency and needed a ride to the hospital. One of the EMTs I think, or maybe a nurse idk, happened to be the guy. She was all kinds of fucked up on whatever they gave her and she's like, "I remember you. You have a small penis. So small and cute!"
His coworkers tried not to laugh but...
That poor man.
Did someone call an ambulance for him? Because she straight up annihilated him.
I will never forget being at a party in my twenties and overhearing a girl I had hooked up with telling two other girls about my dick. It's a shame I didn't have the confidence then that I have now.