I am beautiful, warm hearted and intelligent.

A reference letter written by someone who likes you reads nothing like the way you would describe yourself. It says warm. It says quick. It mentions the evening you stayed late without being asked.

Self-description tends to run to the checkable — job title, height, the year you graduated. Warmth doesn't fit that format, so it goes unrecorded even by people who have a great deal of it.

Someone who has known you fifteen years keeps a different file. Theirs has more evidence in it than yours does, and it is the one that turns out to be accurate.