 This means that the appearance of the Other is a fact that always remains as it were at the back of our life, because on becoming aware for the first time that we are living, we already find ourselves, not only with others and among others, but accustomed to others. Which leads us to formulate this first social theorem: Man is a nativitate open to the other, to the alien being; or, in other words: before each one of us became aware of himself, he had already had the basic experience that there are others who are not “I”, the Others; that is to say, again, Man, on being a nativitate open to the other, to the alter who is not himself is a nativitate, like it or not…. Being open to the other, to others, is a permanent and constitutive state of Man, not a definite action in respect to them. … This state is not yet properly a “social relation”, because it is not yet defined in any concrete act. It is simple co-existence, matrix for all possible “social relations”. It is simple presence within the horizon of my life—a presence which is, above all, more compresence of the Other, singular or plural. (Obras, VII: 149–50)