in my job I work a lot with cross site teams together on big projects. In this setting it happens at times that you collaborate with some people at the East or West coast that you’ve never met in person. Over the weeks, months, and sometimes years, a mental image of that person emerges in your head from all the interactions that you’re having on a daily basis: Emails, phone conferences, presentations contribute to the mental image you’re building. Then eventually you get to know that person face to face and so far every single time I’ve gotten a big surprise, because the mental image you’ve build never matches the looks of the actual person. Only if you force yourself to not look at that person, the voice is familiar. In some strange way the person that you had in your head gets replaced with its real person. The first couple of days it still conflicts with the mental image you had before, until it slowly fades away. This is a very strange experience every time it happens.