The affectionate ghosts: the grandmother, the lively bachelor uncle at the Christmas party, the beloved nursemaid—those who enfolded your childhood years in comfort, mirth, security—if they returned, would it not be embarrassing? What would you say to them, or they to you, after the first ten minutes? You would find it difficult to treat them as strangers, but still more difficult to pretend that you were not strange to each other.

—T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party