I have many friends but only few who are not afraid to tell me not so pleasant things. One of them works with me. We went for a coffee together and he said “Michaela, you smell and it is not pleasant”.

At first I swallowed hard. That took only a few seconds but I needed those seconds in order to pull myself together again.

Then I quietly said “Thank you, I am very grateful for you telling me.”

That was not exactly true in the first moment because I was shocked and negatively surprised, but in the second moment I was endlessly thankful because I had not realised it myself.

What courage does it require in order to tell someone “You stink!”, even if one puts it in less shocking words? One does not receive such information a second time, if you don’t show thankfulness and that also requires strength.

Without him I would not have been aware of my smelly perspiration and would hardly have been able to remedy it successfully. Thank God that he was courageous enough to tell me.

It is great to hear beautiful and nice things (also that happens much too little in our society), but true friendship can be recognised by the fact that one can also tell negative things.

I am endlessly grateful to my true friends for their honesty and their courage.