You check your own profile when a stranger writes to you

I'll admit the habit. Someone new writes to me on Instagram or LinkedIn, and instead of answering, I open my own profile first. I look at the last three photos, reread the bio, check the cover picture. Five or six seconds. Then, yes, I reply.

At first I thought it was vanity. Then anxiety. Now I know it's something else: I want to see what the other person sees when they arrive. Psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Kenneth Savitsky called it the "spotlight effect" in 2000: we overestimate how much others pay attention to us, and that's why we want to inspect the stage before stepping onto it. It's a mirror reflex, not an ego.

I have caught three different friends doing it by asking to borrow their phone for a second. All of them tap into their own profile before opening the chat that just chimed. None remembers doing it.

Since I noticed, I run the experiment backwards: I reply first, then look at the profile. Two things change. My answer takes less time. And it tends to be more honest, because I haven't calibrated it against the front I was about to check.