Similarly the guy you are flying a few circuits, or to the next airport, knows that you are not going to let something bad happen. This is IMO is pretend PIC, it is not the kind of PIC you get when you are alone and there is no one to bail you out.
That is absoulutely right. There is, for example, nothing like being in cloud for the first time on your own. Which is
after you've got a qualification saying you're perfectly competent at flying in clouds ... which qualification you have earned via a training course which contains
exactly zero seconds of being in real cloud on your own.