Given as I'm usually at a restaurant specifically so someone else can do the cooking, I'm not sure how this maps to what we're talking about.
You're both. You're existing within and reacting to the world already created by someone else, and at the same time you're authoring something whenever you (in-character) force that world to react to you and what you do.
See below...look for the '***' mark...
Must be nice. The great majority of the contact I have with friends these days is through the games we play in or run. Even when we gather for a party, odds are someone will end up running a gonzo one-off D&D game.
This does explain some of your stances, to an extent.
Man, you'd hate my campaigns where there's almost always more than one party in the field at the same in-game time, meaning you have to have multiple characters if only because one character can't be in muptiple places at once.
*** That's just it: in the moment, for me it's (ideally) not pawn stance. I'd rather be as immersed in the character I'm playing as I can, while that character is alive and in play. It ain't always perfect, but good enough is good enough. And that's where the enjoyment comes from if there's to be any: that in-the-moment play of the character.
However, I'm also capable of very quickly - as in, almost immediately - pivoting out of that immersion in order to become immersed in another character if that's what's needed to keep me in the game, e.g. when my character's died and I need to roll up a replacement. I'm also capable of bouncing from character to character in the same scene and becoming at least somewhat immersed in each; this a skill learned through 40 years of DMing where one often has to characterize and roleplay numerous NPCs within a short time, and it comes in very handy when playing two characters in the same party (a common thing here).