realizations and devastations

"Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H. but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbour, but my neighbour. For don't we often make this mistake as regards to 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 wildly 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 we didn't know about.
My reason for assuming 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."

~from A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

I'd take that even further and say (or admit ashamedly) that once I've decided how a person is I will take those actions that depart wildly from what I know of them and twist them (in my mind) to fit into the character I've made for that person.
It's hard to take a person newly by each moment... almost impossible to see them as they are while saying their thoughts or views instead of seeing them for every other moment that you've shared...
and then it's not entirely accurate to see them for their past interactions because I remember the things that for some reason mean something to me. Then I build them into my perspective which is always and irrevocably skewed to my own experiences.
Something foreign will always be overlooked for something familiar so that I can understand... or at least feel like I understand.