A friend who brags about your wins when you’re not in the room is rare. Keep them close.

Praise behind your back is the only kind with no angle in it. When you are in the room, a compliment might be politeness or management or an attempt to be liked. When you are not, there is nothing in it for the speaker, which makes it the honest measure. Most people are too busy promoting themselves to spend a sentence on you.

You will rarely hear about it, so do it rather than look for it. Say something good about a friend to a third person this week, specifically, with a detail. It will get back to them, and that is a nice way for it to arrive.