Strangers

UNIDENTIFIED GUEST

Ah, but we die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed
since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

T.S. Eliot, _The Cocktail Party_, Act one, scene 3, Faber editions, p74.