imagine your mental model of a specific other as a paper doll
imagine that this paper doll has a magical function, activated only in the physical presence of the person it represents: when y'all are present together, you hold the paper doll up in front of you, so that its contours line up with the contours of the embodied other before you, and the respresentation *merges* with the object. the paper doll, in effect, vanishes.
when the physical other departs, the paper doll re-emerges evidentially to you, as if falling down off of the felt board of real life. it's changed, in your encounter: it is an updated paper doll, reflecting your updated mental model.
in the time y'all are apart, what questions do you ask of the paper doll? how do you examine it? how do you handle it? do you demand? do you enjoy? do you decorate? do you strip it bare? does it live in a frame, or your desk, or in your toolbox? do you tell stories with it? do you *advance* the story with it? do you ask it to tell stories to you, or to the people you know?
and do you treat your relationship with the other as transitively equal to your relationship with the paper doll? *they are not the same.* images lag on the retina: when the paper doll melts over and into the other, *how will they both experience the superposition and its collapse?*