Actually I can't say I really like Chopin - I feel all his pieces are the same at some level, either tristesse or revolutionary pathos, neither really resonates with me. But I came to respect him enormously as a pianist, and this happened when I tried to play his Etudes Op. 10 (I've gotten about halfway through the first, and learned all of the second one). When you study this text measure by measure you begin to see how much thought and depth is in how these pieces are constructed, how he understands what a human hand can and cannot do, how something that looks awkward at first glance turns out to be very natural. Unfortunately I abandoned this project but I will definitely return to it at some point.
And of course musically you can't avoid Chopin, his influence is so great and he definitely deserves to be part of every pianist's repertoire, especially for casual playing - he has so many short but brilliant pieces. I learned only two so far, the Nocturne in E flat major, Op. 9 #2, and the C sharp minor waltz Op. 64 #2. Both are very well known, relatively easy pieces, and the nocturne is very useful to me as an exercise for the left hand (it has to be very subtle here in order not to smother the melody).
Here's the nocturne:
For comparison:
Yundi LiValentina Lissitsa
And here is the waltz - it is a joy to play, here it must again be said that all these Chopenian tricks, first finger on black notes, fingers sliding from black to white note, etc do simplify life greatly, nobody else does that. Performance quality could be of course improved and I will work on that. While you are listening to this, consider if it is possible to actually dance to this music... I think not, and it's not because I play it badly: turns out that Robert Schumann used to joke that if you want to have a dance party with Chopin waltzes half the ladies have to be countesses...