Well put! Gotta remember this. Can relate to this phenomenon.

Melan.cholia, violetgreen's post hits the mark, so I won't repeat, but the above sentence brought to mind something that T said that I didn't understand at the time. It was, "...or are you in love with the idea of him?". I think she was getting at this filter thing violetgreen mentions. How we can have this ideal in our mind and they are there, and we "see" them doing those things (all the more so for the once-upon-a-time sweetness), but then there is them as they actually ARE.

Not just the good stuff sometimes, or when it suits them. Is it who they are or who we wish they were?

If we're having to "if they" a bunch, it pretty much amounts to "if they were a different person".

Sorry to say. Because the last part of violetgreen's statement tells the tale-- "... but that's a lousy place to live." So true. Because we keep throwing ourselves into the wall of reality trying to make it fit.

Good luck. I very much get where you're coming from.