it's never been like that, it's never been like that

Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor. For don't we often make this mistake as regards people who are still alive — who are with us in the same room? Talking and acting not to the man himself but to the picture — almost the precis — we've made of him in our own minds? And he has to depart from it pretty widely before we even notice the fact. In real life — that's one way it differs from novels — his words and acts are, if we observe closely, hardly ever quite "in character", that is, in what we call his character. There's always a card in his hand that we didn't know about...My reason for assuming that I do this to other people is the fact that so often I find them obviously doing it to me. We all think we've got one another taped. — A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis