Everyone wants a sanitized version of a person for friends - people who seemingly dont have troubles at all, no personal conflicts; people who, like the heros and heroines in novels, dont have embarrassing calls of nature, who have no need to bathe and no fear of smelling bad.
They like to think that their friends are brushed-up, shining examples of mankind, who emerge from their sleep exactly like how we see them everyday - any troubles they have would have been, if they were wise, self-consciously tucked away before facing the world; it is the selfish friend who imposes his troubles on the world by wearing it on his face.
But everyone has troubles, and everyone is merely tucking them beneath the surface, hiding their weary and dying interiors away from sight. Then when something like a cough racks your body, the skin deep appearances threaten to tear, and reveal just what a wretch you have been.
It feels especially vulnerable when you are sick, when you dont know you are coughing because of the throat, or because you are coughing to cover up the frantic, confused you lurking under that hand.
I am not okay - but if you ask me, I will tell you I am fine.
For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! — Nietzsche, The Gay Science
