Getting girls and bullshit tolerance
Tham, Simon and I had drinks last night. And when three single guys get liquored up, the conversation inevitably turns to women. The main thesis of the night was that in order to get a girl, our tolerance for bullshit has to be high. That no matter how nice the girl is, she will have her idiosyncrasies and most of them will be peculiar to the male brain.
Which is not to say that our wives and girlfriends don’t have to deal with our shit either. No one is perfect and so, bullshit tolerance is required from females too. Though here’s my thought on this: what if you don’t need someone to tolerate your bullshit? What if you don’t care enough about that to want to reduce the bullshit that you inflict on potential girlfriends? Or what if you don’t tolerate enough bullshit to withstand a relationship, such that you don’t expect someone to tolerate your bullshit in return, and so you subconsciously prevent a relationship from starting?
All of which describes how I have been in the past few years. I will get interested in a girl but the moment I spot a character flaw that I don’t want to put up with, I lose interest. So far in hindsight, I am glad that things have happened the way they did and how my sanity-preservation instincts had kicked in. How long I’d maintain this mindset I don’t know. Though maybe I should up my bullshit tolerance a bit more, just enough to get me laid perhaps. ‘Cos you know, it’s been a while. 
8 Responses to “Getting girls and bullshit tolerance”
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Yes, I think you should because everyone has flaws. I guess if you allow yourself to go one step further and fall in love, you’ll find yourself more tolerant of the person’s flaws.
Yes, push it up just a little bit – who knows, maybe that one flaw that turned you off, turns out to be not as bad as you thought? I do a lot of bullshit tolerating and I’m sure my boyfriend does too – I think it’s just part of a healthy relationship!
my professor once told me about the 80-20 rule..
You can tolerate about 80% of a person’s idiosyncrasies, and totally cannot stand the other 20%. On the other hand, 80% of you is usually quite relaxed (i.e. love chinese food but would eat thai or moroccon as well
) whilst 20% of you is as unmovable like a rock (i.e. being a vegetarian) .
The trick is to find someone’s 20% that fits into your 80% and vice versa. And for you personally, maybe check your 80/20 level to make sure that its not at 60/40
.
Okay so I just wrote a really long post which the computer deleted GRRRR!!!!!!!
Basically the jist of it was this: I think that to an extent you definitely have to put up with some bullshit in a relationship. Nobody is perfect, everyone has their crap, and when you are dating someone (especially if you move in with them), you do have to deal with another person’s issues to an extent.
BUT it’s one thing to put up with a person’s small idiosyncracies and quite another to deal with a person being totaly unreasonable and/or psycho! E.g. Maybe she tries to call you and talk to you on the phone while you’re working or maybe she has the TV up too loud when you’re trying to study…these things may be annoying, but you can put up with them and discuss them. However if she prevents you from seeing your friends, gets insanely jealous or tries to control your every move, this is quite another matter. Unfortunately, some people put this crazy behaviour down to ‘you just have to deal with another person’s faults in a relationship.’ A minor fault is quite different from a girl who is totally psycho!
Luckily you are sensible and would never put up with a girl behaving like this…but unfortunately a lot of people aren’t so sensible and they put up with too much shit for too long. I think you just gotta know the difference between putting up with minor faults and putting up with some seriously fucked up shit. I know one girl whose boyfriend hit her and she said ‘hey nobody is perfect.’ WTF?
Anyway…good luck with your future dating experiences and BTW I really like reading your dating posts from a single guy’s perspective!!
Can’t add much here that hasn’t already been said. The 80-20 formula described by Sourrain sounds pretty handy. The other tolerance matter I’ve encountered is where I might have thought “She seems okay I s’pose. Why not?” And then because I wasn’t all that keen, faults were magnified. And from the other side, I’m sure my faults were viewed as if through an electron microscope.
blur ting: true, love does make one blissfully ignorant at times.
Katie: oh I don’t doubt that bullshit tolerance is required from both people concerned, it’s just that at this stage I don’t know what my tolerance levels are. Hah!
sourrain: hmm makes sense – if her 20% doesn’t piss me off then we are more than half way there.
girlstar7: true – idiosyncrasies are WAY different to dysfunctional and psychotic behaviour. And thanks for continuing to read me!
Lad Litter: correct – if you really really like someone, their big faults may seem small but if you are kinda “meh” about the person, any excuse will do to make you lose interest.
When you find the right person.. all those what ifs and theories in your second paragraph will just go out of window. And seriously.. I think it only happens when you least expect it.
If it happens without you expecting it, that is the best. But I think that you still gotta go out there and put in the effort to socialise.
Anyways yeah, if it’s the right girl, the minor quibbles won’t matter. Then again, even if it’s the right girl at the time, the minor quibbles may break the relationship too. There’s no guarantees in life.