Divergence between the real person and our mental image of him/her

[sunmat]

This is a somewhat philosophical/psychological question.

I am aware of the potentially big difference between who a person is and who we think he/she is. I tend to not really believe people who say they fell in love with someone they have only chatted with, without having seen or talked with that person, because there is so little this "love" can be based on that I think they have completed a mental image that corresponds to their ideal partner. This is something Marcel Proust (one of my favorite French writers) calls a "crystallization" process (read "Swann's way" in particular): a little something that we like about a person, along with a lot of unknown and the feeling to be interesting in the eyes of the other person, leads to the imagination building a mental image of the other that does not correspond to reality.

My SO and I had been coworkers for 6 months (physically meeting every day), then we left both to different countries and started chatting on WhatsApp occasionally, then more and more. I developed feelings for her, but when we decided to meet again, I realized how far she was from what I had pictured. In a good way, fortunately. We started a LDR, and as I got back home, one of the biggest problems I had was to remove from my mind the old mental picture, and replace it with my experience of her. This wasn't easy, and I thought I managed to do it. I developed more and more feelings for who I thought was "the real her", not a mental image.

This week (three months after our first week together) I flew to Romania to see her again. I had a shock: again I realized a big difference between her and the mental picture I had of her. Again, she was better than my mental picture, but since we were already in a relationship, it felt really strange being with her during the first day. I felt that my feelings were directed towards someone who somehow existed but was not her. Even stranger, when she left me at my hotel and got back home, she then contacted me on Skype, and I had the impression to talk with the person I had been talking to for the past 3 months, but not the person I had physically spent the day with. It took me a full day for this weird feeling to fade and for me to fully appreciate the fact that I was finally with my SO.

I guess this is part of the issues when being in an LDR, having to get used to being physically with the other person again after a long period of time. But I would be curious to hear other people's experience about this.

Also if anyone has advice on how not to build a too false mental picture of SO while being away, I'm all listening.

EDIT: when I say "mental picture", I don't mean the souvenir of the physical appearance of the person, but the full picture of who the person is (habits, mood, ideas, opinions, etc.)

[spanglishjoe]

I think it's important to stay grounded and recognize your SO isn't a figment of your imagination when you're apart - she's far away, but going about her everyday life just like you are. While initially it's possible to build somebody up in your mind, if you put in the time to get to know her (video chats, visits, texts, whatever it might be), in my opinion you will find out "who a person is." There's nothing wrong with a little infatuation or romanticism in the early days, it's natural.

I remember that it was pretty surreal for the first day that I met my SO in person (we began as an online relationship), it was amazing tracing her tattoos in person, holding her, going on dates, etc. Everybody's entitled to their opinion, but in my case, I know that I fell in love with her long before meeting in person. Real moods, ideas, values, and opinions can definitely be learned from LDR relationships. Habits like does she clean up her hair in the sink, on the other hand, need the in-person connection. But do I care about little things like that? Yes, but no. Everything that we have learned and continue to learn about communication in the LDR is what helps us overcome our differences, both distant and in person. Of course we needed to meet, but for us, stepping from screen to in-person visits is a natural act. I don't overthink it, I just know she's my person and I love her for who she is. For us, daily conversation has been key to sharing/showing the lives we live, even distant, and learning to understand who we are and what we can do for one another.

[differentcountries]

I found these things to be an issue mostly in the beginning, when we didn't know each other that well and also had not had many visits. We have spent a whole month together on 3 occations, this too has helped us to solidify our relationship and give me a sense of groundedness in the relationship, because I got under his skin more on the longer visits. In the beginning, even things like his height and the shape of his body felt "new" when we switched from screen to real life - but after a while we just started to joke about it: "look, the screen is back. What a bummer", "I am still trying to invent the maschine where I can visit you directly" and so on. We are creative with pictures and Skype, we use our smart phones a lot to connect. I feel I know him very well by now.

But after 2,5 years, I am still learning how he is as a person - altso, he is changing as a person; because he changed his job, because his body aged, because he got used to dating me and so on.

It still annoys me that he likes to smoke in the bedroom and in the toilet, but I probably have some annoying habits too. He is spontanious, I am a planner, usually I am in charge of the bigger picture and I leave the details to him.

[Chris516]

The difference between the real, and the imagined is a tough one for any person.

[Cup]

This is the reason why a lot of people (including me) get into and stay into bad relationships. Your experience is working the opposite way so you are lucky! I'll explain.

Most of us have a specific idea of how we would like the person we date to be. This is built by our parents, our siblings, our friends, movies etc etc.. So even unconsciously we have some standards. Most of us have been taught that love has no reason, love can not be explained etc only to enhance the romantic part of love, cause i dunno, it sells? I really think movies do true damage to someone if they are not careful or have the needed guidance. We have been taught that "love hurts"...HECK NO it doesn't!! Just always remember, you can never make a movie worth watching if everything was going great!

So i have noticed this happening a lot. I use to do it too, I stopped doing it before i met my previous bf. I did not build him up in my head, i did not assume. I took in and believed only what he gave me. Was he kind to me but not the waitress? Noted. Did he say he will do something and didn't? Noted. No forgiveness or "oh well, it must've been a one time thing". Nope. All were noted. I also weighed out frequently the good and bad about staying with him and why i am, in a good way at first.

All of this because i am a firm believer that you must ALWAYS be able to answer the question "Why do you love your SO?" and not say "I don't know". I hate it when people do that. If you don't know, you are with them most likely either because you are horny or because you can't be single.

Your case now is the opposite, so be glad! You do though have to stop maintaining the "false" mental image even if it is worse. So try to keep it real, don't assume stuff about her character and how she reacts unless you witness it.

I did this easily with my ex, i do find it harder to do in my now LDR cause actually being there helps a lot. You get to see your SO and how they interact with other people and in other environments. I went shopping with my ex , first week in, he did something that was soooo cheap, like cutting off the carrot tops so we can pay less. I noted the hell out of that! You can't see that long distance. Turned out he wasn't as cheap as that, i think for some reason he thought that would impress me and make me think he was a responsible adult.

[oinkpig329]

Yes. All of what you said OP. I don't know about the philosophy of it all, but I have been in a LDR for 1.5 years and have found this to be quite true. I frequently cope with the long distance by dreaming about him, our future and all of that, and you consistently only see the parts that transfer over virtual communication. You miss the little things in between that significantly make the person who they are, especially via text/email. For the first 6 months of our long distance, I would visit him once a month and the first day of the visit I could almost guarantee that I would get upset about something. I had too high expectations of what our reunion would be, how he would act, what it would be like to be together, and it did take a little time to readjust to being together in person (but after the adjustment we were always still happy together). The more we were together and after I realized this I was able to tone that down, have realistic and not highly romanticized expectations, and just enjoy him for who he is. For me, this is caused a lot by daydreaming, and coping with the distance by idealizing him. It's very real, and I think part of what makes it difficult for me to discern marriage in a long distance relationship, even though I can't imagine we won't get married. You don't think about those little daily things that annoy you/make them who they are when you're far apart. Only when you come back together and you see those can you work them into your mental idea of who that person is. Just like any relationship it's a continual getting to know the person, with some extra road blocks in the way.

[snow]

Happened to me too. The online "charley" was different to the real-life "steve", but it usually didn't take me more than a couple minutes to adjust.

[Harlequin]

Happened to me too. The online "charley" was different to the real-life "steve", but it usually didn't take me more than a couple minutes to adjust.

Unrelated, but my dog is named Charley. I'm sure my mental image of him is very biased from how he actually is, because he is my baby boy and he is flawless and no one can change my mind.