Heightened awareness when starting new relationships

[Richful]

Has anyone noticed themselves emphasizing their better traits when meeting someone new? I've been making a new friend via email recently and caught myself trimming off my more negative traits. I consider honesty a virtue and was a bit ashamed to discover this going on.

What it did highlight for me was how sharing your own perspective on yourself with someone else can heighten your self-awareness. I found the sharing process caused me to re-examine my values and realise what they actually meant to me. It's like introducing a new person with different tastes, values and thoughts into my life caused me to re-orient my perspective.

I think the desire to like and be liked by said friend put my reactive/judemental mind on hold while learning about their life and sharing mine. Have any of you noticed this phenomena in action?