Imagine walking around every day wearing a pair of sunglasses you forgot you put on. You look at the people around you and assume you’re seeing them clearly, never realizing that the hue of every expression, gesture, and silence is being filtered by your own lens. We bring those same glasses into our connections. Without realizing it, we project a tint onto people before they even open their mouths.
Every interaction you have with another person passes through a lens shaped by your past. Your memories, old betrayals, past relationships, and childhood lessons color that lens. You rarely see someone in raw, unfiltered light. You see them through tinted glasses, and those tints dictate how you treat them, how much room you give them, and how close you let them get.
The catch is that people tend to mirror the posture you bring to them. If your glasses are tinted with caution, your behavior shifts: you hold back, speak carefully, or keep your distance. The other person feels that distance and adjusts to it, becoming quieter or more reserved themselves. It’s easy to misinterpret their reaction as their true personality, when in reality, they’re just reflecting the tone set by your lens.
You created the precise dynamic you expected, but not because you were right but because you prompted it. In a different situation, with someone whose lens is different, that same person might be warm, generous, and completely open.
Consider how this plays out in ordinary moments. You meet a new coworker, but your lens is shaped by a past job where people took credit for your ideas. You aren’t trying to be cold; you’re just wearing the glasses you’ve always worn. When this new coworker asks for your thoughts on a project, you give a brief, noncommittal answer to protect yourself. Sensing your hesitation, the coworker assumes you prefer to work independently, so they stop checking in. You walk away thinking, “They aren’t very collaborative,” while they walk away thinking, “They like their space.”
Neither of you saw the other clearly. You both just adapted to the tint on your own glasses.
When we hold people at arm’s length, we force them to occupy the space we leave for them. Most people won’t fight through a wall you’ve put up; they will simply step back and respect the boundary. Their retreat looks like disinterest or aloofness, but it’s often just a polite response to your posture. We end up writing off entire relationships before they even start, mistaking an echo of our own history for someone else’s character.
To actually see people as they are, we have to start paying attention to the frames we’re wearing. The next time you feel friction, distance, or caution with someone, pause and ask yourself a few questions:
What story did I bring into this room? Identify whether a memory or an old habit is shaping how you view this specific moment.
How might my posture be shaping their response? Look honestly at whether your tone, body language, or hesitation is giving them a reason to hold back.
Who would they be if I took these glasses off? Give them the space to show you who they are when they aren’t just reacting to your filter.
We can’t control the lenses other people wear, nor can we wipe our past clean overnight. But becoming aware of our own tint changes the game. When you choose to take off your glasses, even for a moment, you give the person in front of you permission to show up as themselves, unfiltered.