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“Although your idea of what someone else thinks of you is only paranoic, unreal, and illusionary, it is part of your relationship with the person, as much a part of it as the actuality of the person’s real thoughts”

Jack Kerouac, journals 6/48

We go through our lives in these shells of contained thought looking through a little peep holes trying to figure out the lay of the land from limited amount of information much of which we produce ourselves. And yet if you ask a person what s/he thinks about you it either sounds needy or manipulative, in which case people will either lie to preserve your dignity or make a vague statement or joke that gives you as little information as possible. I have to know someone a long time to have any real idea how they are feeling about me.