How do you reconcile the person you imagined, and the person you then meet?

I have spent some years on the Net, sometimes frivolously, for fun and laughs, other times I have made “connections” with certain people. Emails can be swapped, chats, deep conversations, and resulting in soul sharing lasting friendships. I have also fallen in love. Mostly with their soul, as I cannot see them. So I “feel” them through the words they type.

A couple I have known years, before seeing them. This may be on web cam, or maybe in person for some. Often they look sort of how I imagined. Sometimes they are completely different to how I imagined. What if, you felt very much connected to a certain person, spent loads of time with them, shared and even felt loving towards them and they turned out to be vastly different than you imagined? How do you reconcile this in your mind? Does it matter?