I ran a poll on Twitter recently, just out of curiosity.
I asked: Wich is worse?
A model who shows her face but edits it to look 20 years younger.
A model who doesn’t show her face, but when you see her in real life, she’s not what you imagined.
The results were surprisingly close, but the first option came out just a little worse. And honestly, I get why. Both can leave you feeling a little thrown off, but the second one? That’s more about perception. She never told you she looked a certain way—you just built an image in your mind.
I say this because I’ve been in a situation where someone kept telling me to “just be myself.” Over and over. I even asked, “What do you mean?” but he didn’t really have an answer. Later, I realized—he must have imagined me differently, and when I didn’t match that, he got confused. It wasn’t deception. It wasn’t my fault. It was just expectation versus reality.
And that’s something to think about. The way a woman sees herself isn’t always the way you see her. When we look in the mirror, we tilt our heads just right, we find our best angle. But in real life? People see us from every possible angle, whether we like it or not. And when we take photos, we pick the best ones—because who wouldn’t?
When I was younger, I loved taking pictures, and I remember people telling me I didn’t look like that in real life. But the funny thing is—my pictures weren’t even edited. This was 2005—no filters, no FaceTune. I just knew how to work my angles. Now, in a world where editing apps are right at our fingertips, of course people tweak their photos. And can you blame them? Women still want to be seen, still want to feel beautiful, still want to be adored—even as we age, even as time does what time does. When we make a little adjustment here or there, we don’t always see it as a huge change. But for someone who has never met us, it might feel different.
At the end of the day, I think men sometimes forget how much of attraction starts in their own minds. If you build up an image of a woman before you’ve even met her, you’re not just setting yourself up for disappointment—you might be missing out on something real, something even better than what you imagined.
So, maybe the lesson here is simple: Don’t fall in love with an idea. See her for who she is, not just what you expect her to be.
What do you think? Ever caught yourself imagining someone a little too much before meeting them?
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