Remember that random stranger who you thought you knew so well? The one who remembered the smallest details about you, had the perfect charm, the right tone, and a way of communicating that made you feel heard. Sometimes, the way people present themselves and the first impressions they leave behind end up being the only things we know about them. Yet, somehow, we manage to build an entire picture of who they are. A more glorified, optimistic and romanticised version. The more we get to know them, the more we realise how different they are from the person we thought they were.
Our minds work in interesting ways when we meet someone for the first time. There is always that joy, that first impression, that surge of dopamine with a hope of creating a meaningful connection. The strangers you meet at a party and end up oversharing your lives with the stranger who helps you out in an emergency, and you end up wondering when you will see them next. We often fail to see people for who they really are. Instead, we take the little things we know about them and fill in the blanks ourselves. A kind gesture becomes a sign of a kind heart, a good conversation makes us believe we have found someone who understands us, and a shared interest makes us feel like we have known someone for years. Before we know it, we have created a version of someone in our heads.
Psychologists sometimes describe this through the idea of idealisation, where we see someone in a more positive light than reality might show. When we know very little about a person, there is plenty of room for our imagination to take over. We begin to attach qualities we like or wish someone had. Imagine it as colouring on a blank page, where you mix it with your favourite qualities and colours, but the end result is not even something you had pictured.
When we do not know everything about someone, we remain curious, and to fill that curiosity, we create a version of them in our minds. We replay conversations, analyse small gestures and look for meaning in the little information we have. It is almost like trying to solve a maths problem when you know the formula but not the correct steps to arrive at the answer. Sometimes, it is not even the person we are attached to, but the possibility of who they could be, where we believe in the idea of them before actually knowing them.
People can have different dimensions and depths, and not everyone is the same. Ten people can have different reactions to the same situation. Someone can be incredibly charming and still be inconsiderate. They can remember the smallest details about you and still struggle to actually understand your feelings. They can make you feel special one day and leave you questioning yourself the next. Discovering these sides does not necessarily mean that their good sides were not real. It just means that there is more to a person than what we see at first.
I think this is where our expectations can sometimes hurt us. We become so attached to the version of someone we have created that, when they act differently, we feel disappointed. But were they ever really the person we thought they were, or had we filled in the gaps ourselves?
Maybe the solution is not to stop being hopeful about people, but to give ourselves time and space to actually get to know them. First impressions matter, but they are not the whole story. An ocean may look beautiful and calm from afar, but up close, the tides and waves can be deep.
Not everyone will turn out to be who we imagined, and that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, we discover someone better than the person we had in mind. Other times, we realise that the person we were so drawn to is not someone we truly understand or connect with. Both are a part of the process of getting to know someone.
Perhaps we do not need to expect less from people, but to assume less about them. Let them show us who they really are, one conversation and one experience at a time. Because while our minds are good at creating beautiful versions of people, real connections begin when we make room for the truth, even if it is bitter, even when it looks nothing like the picture we first imagined.