Flattery or Insult? Perhaps a Bit of Both?

Below is an email I sent to my friends about an incident at the gym.
My friends thought it was funny so I am posting it here.  It's just a slice of life story - one of many that seem to occur in my life.  Enjoy.

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date    Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 8:25 PM
subject    I guess I should be flattered ...but...why do i feel so insulted?

As many of you know, I designed a t-shirt as a tribute to one of my greatest mixed martial arts heroes:  Fyodor (Fedor) Emilianenko.  The t-shirt design came out of frustration at the ugliness of the Affliction goth style t-shirts that - thank goodness - are now fast losing its popularity...possibly due to the introduction of my design?  Ho ho ho.

Anyhoo, so I've been getting seriously flattering reviews and friends have offered to pay for their own custom prints - of course at cost for my friends!  But as expected, Russians are taking notice since my tshirt has 'Cyrillic' on both the front and back.

I just got back from the gym after my fitness class. 

Here's what happened.  As the class ended, I picked up my mat and lethargically moseyed on over to drop off the mat against the pile on the wall.  In the background I heard "Excuse, me".  There were 30 people in the class so I didn't think I was being addressed.  The "Excuse me" became louder and more aggressive as I dragged my tired feet closer to the pile of mats.  Finally, an older Russian man in his 50s cut me off and stood in front of me very excited and almost frantic, as if he ran 10 miles to catch up with me. 

He looked at my shirt and asked: "Where can I buy this shirt?" [heavy Russian accent]

Me:  "I'm sorry.  You can't.  I designed this so there no where you can actually buy it."
To my reply he looked somewhat disappointed then asked me: "You watch his fights?"

Me:  "Of course!  I'm a huge fan.  I didn't like any of his t-shirt designs so I made this one as a tribute.  I've been watching him right from his days in Japan!"

The cold blue Russian eyes did a quick survey of my physique and I was expecting a compliment - something along the lines of, "I can tell you also train in marital arts, you have a good build"...or perhaps I was expecting "You look like you train in something too."

Instead, you know what I got?
"I can tell you train like him [Fyodor], look at your ears.  You have the ears."

WTF!?  For those of you who are ignorant about MMA, the catch/insult here is that training in jujitsu and/or wrestling messes up your ears.  Some of you may have heard the term "cauliflower ears" (do a google image search under this term for pics).  Quite literally, people with ears like this look like they suffered years of "ear" torture at the hands of pissed off North Koreans.

My inner monologue screamed:  "I was born like this, you ass!  Sheesh!"
I was tired and hungry...I managed a smile and walked away feeling both complimented/flattered (about the recognition my t-shirt received), but insulted about his comment on my ears.

Just thought I'd share this slice out of my life with you guys.  Nothing to do but smile about it, right?