Whoever said that a rating is just a number needs to rethink that comment. A rating represents a player's ability in relation to other players. It's a clear indication of relative strength. Let's not kid ourselves. A 900 rated player is pretty awful, a 1200 player is weak and will almost certainly blunder several times in a game, a 1600 has almost certainly studied , knows some basic openings and traps, is familiar with the most common tactics, has a basic notion of strategy and so is on the path towards becoming decent. I would argue that 1800 is "respectable" given that you don't get there without studying and you already possess a basic understanding of chess principles while rarely blundering an entire piece firing a game. 2000 is definitely good, and anyone with that rating would be able to say with confidence that they are reasonably strong. Anything above that is obviously very strong, though I fully understand that there's a huge difference between 2200 and 2600.
My blitz 958 rating is the 75% percentile according to Chess.Com. That means I'm as good as or better than 75% of rated chess players in the world. Not sure if that really is "awful." Certainly not good as compared to the 5-10% end of the bell curve, but in the big picture, it isn't.
I remember the kids that moved their lips when they read in elementary school. Some poked fun at them. I didn't.
Well, if you think less than 1,000 on chess.com is "decent", I'm happy that you are contented with so little. My rating on the account that I'm using to post this comment is about 1500-1600 for bullet, which I consider pretty awful. Just goes to show that "decent" is subjective.
I think it's great that you have worked hard to achieve the rating level you are at. The ratings yardstick you are using to motivate yourself maybe shouldn't be used conversationally to judge others though.
What do you think is a respectable rating in blitz?
Any that you get without cheating