Sartre believed that our encounters with other people constitute the primal circumstance of self-formation. Each of us is perpetually in the position of a voyeur who, while gazing upon the object of his lust, suddenly hears the sound of someone stepping up directly behind him. Again and again, we are thrust out of safety and seclusion of pure subjectivity by the knowledge that we have become objects in the world of others. We are conscious of others being conscious of us - a most fundamental state of mind and a fundamental building block of consciousness. I know nothing, but your name. I see nothing but your face.