Distance can make almost anyone look flawless.
A celebrity glowing through a polished camera lens.
An influencer whose captions sound wise.
A stranger whose Instagram feed feels stitched together with depth and aesthetic calm.
From far away, personalities look clear, consistent, even admirable.
Screens make humans appear simpler than they actually are.
Closeness, on the other hand, has a way of stripping away magic.
The moment you step nearer, the edges begin to show.
Not because someone is bad, but because the gaps between their online self and real self finally become visible.
Curated moments dissolve.
Unfiltered traits rise.
Reality replaces the story you created in your mind.
Something like this happened to me.
There was a girl I had followed on Instagram for months.
Her posts looked thoughtful.
Her stories carried this calm energy that made her seem emotionally grounded.
Her captions felt deep enough to make me believe she lived with some rare clarity.
Naturally, I built an image of her without realizing it.
Eventually, I sent her a message.
The chat started normally, then drifted into awkward pauses.
Still, I convinced myself she might simply be shy.
A week later, we met.
Within minutes, the illusion cracked.
Her real personality had none of the softness from her online presence.
Conversations felt shallow and rushed.
She barely made eye contact.
Every few seconds she checked her phone, almost as if she had somewhere more interesting to be.
The maturity I saw in her captions did not appear in her voice, her behavior, or her attention.
Nothing about her was bad.
She just wasn’t the person I had imagined.
In truth, she never claimed to be.
That entire picture existed only in my head.
A line from Epictetus came to me later:
“Appearances are not things themselves, but only their shadows.”
Social media is the perfect example of this.
Everyone shows a shadow.
A highlight.
A slice of themselves that photographs well.
Almost nobody reveals the full shape of their life.
Another experience brought the same lesson from a different angle.
A creator I admired for years finally visited my city.
Their online persona radiated warmth.
Their words suggested wisdom.
In person, the interaction felt cold and distant.
Not rude.
Just indifferent.
It became clear that the version they presented online was a performance, not a lie, but a controlled part of themselves curated for an audience.
The more I paid attention, the more I noticed this pattern everywhere.
People who look endlessly confident online turn out anxious in real life.
People who preach kindness speak harshly when the camera is off.
People who appear disciplined on their feeds struggle with the same chaos they claim to have conquered.
People who post about healing carry wounds they haven’t touched.
None of this makes them fake.
It simply makes them human.
The real issue lies in our expectations.
We fill the gaps in someone’s online presence with qualities we hope they have.
We imagine depth where there is only aesthetic.
We mistake mood boards for personality.
We confuse curated thoughts with lived wisdom.
Closeness dismantles those fantasies.
Suddenly you see the contradictions.
The insecurities.
The impatience.
The ordinary flaws that screens conveniently hide.
Understanding this has made me more careful.
Admiration still exists, but idealization does not.
If someone seems perfect from far away, I stay aware that distance is doing most of the work.
If someone appears incredibly deep online, I remember that captions can be rehearsed.
If someone radiates positivity, I keep in mind that even the brightest profiles come with shadows.
Real people are complicated.
Their online versions are not.
And the more we forget this, the more disappointed we become when reality shows up unfiltered.
Now, whenever someone looks flawless from far away, I remind myself of what experience and the Stoics have already taught me.
Some individuals shine only with distance.
Move closer, and the shine becomes human again.
