Not everyone aopreciates simple honesty though. Recently I visited a friend for the first time in months... the hallway looked so clean and bright and beautirul... I said so and how well she looked too... then we went in the kitchen, and I was assailed by a bad smell... without thinking I said... 'Oh what's thats bad smell ?"

We went to the garden while my friend made coffee and by the time she brought the mugs out, her manner had changed, she was stone-faced and barely responding to anything i said.

I had no idea what was the matter and I asked her .. she answered, 'nothing'. but carried on barely responding to me. She rejected the chocolate and the magazine I'd brought her. I felt she was bristling with hostility so I put the coffee down, got up and left.

A week later she finally managed to tell me she thought I was angry with her mother, (I wasn't ) and that 's why I had said there was a bad smell in the kitchen.

What can you do with suspicions that are not true? It's like trying to deny you stole something. The accusaiton is itself insulting and you feel this person has lost touch with reality or at least, not able to see you for who you are!