This process of meta-communication is based on reciprocity and on a hierarchy of levels. I look at you and you look at me. This is level 1: direct communication. When I try to understand "How do you look at me?" we are on a different step. It is the level 2. And if I try to understand how you look at the way I look at you, then we are on a even higher plane: level 3. This is a meta-meta-communication.

I prefer to take examples from the sphere of the erotic mode of relationships since there is no abstraction in this and each one of us can easily recollect the mood. So we talked about the level 3: let’s make examples of it. I am courting her. How do I perceive her reaction to the interest that I’m showing in her? This is a higher level. It is the real level on which we are playing. The rest of the conversation for us is just an occasion, an excuse. The third level is where we are confronting each other. The other levels were simply the levels of "information". Down there we exchange data. But the third level is the level where we decide what to do with our game. Here, we make the choice. From what happens at level 3, we will decide to go on with the relationship or to stop. Because what really counts is how I think that she thinks of the way I’m thinking about her; and vice-versa.