Are My Long-Term Hard Rules Too Unrealistic?

[Big Daddy]

Hey gents,

Just wanted to make a quick check with you.

As I suspect most of you here have -- to prevent going through a whirlwind of emotional shit -- I have a set of hard rules that I don't even consider a girl apt to become a bigger part of my life (i.e., I would still fuck them over long periods of time) if she doesn't make the cut.

Some rules out of the top of my mind:

• Doesn't smoke cigarettes or pot
• Doesn't have a tattoo
• Isn't prone to have depression and/or develop chronic victim mentality
• Feminist, leftist or anything too opposing to my views and beliefs
• Goes to the gym

Thing is, even if I screen hard when I meet her, people can change (particularly women) over time and that means she could make a tattoo or start smoking pot at some point in the future as a decent amount of the girls I met/know have.

It's really bizarre, but I find myself shit testing them over time to be sure if they're still "strong", which I'd love not to.

It could be that I have unrealistic hard rules for longer-term relationships. It could be that they want to be with me so they fake their screen tests when we first meet and then get tired to it. It could be that I still need to hone my skills so I can have access to higher quality girls. It could be that this is an ineffective mindset to approaching this matter and I'd be better off not really caring and accepting that we will break up at some point and I'll just have to find another one.

I sincerely don't know.

What do you say and how do I solve this?

 

[Beast69]

Nothing wrong with having certain standards for girls to meet to work out long term wise, it's actually good as it puts you as a higher status male. Some guys without game end up settling without having a clue about how to enforce standards or even be aware of what they want in a girl so it's good you've already identified it, as chase put it in one of his articles it's like finding your niche kind of for the type of girl you like.

Women can change over time but if you have a strong frame and keep cool when women try to cause drama and test them (also being the best you can be yourself) then it's unlikely a girl will suddenly do a u-turn and start doing some of the things you listed such as smoking pot or becoming a feminist as an example. Of course if a girl did end up doing something you don't agree with or hid it very well you could put up an ultimatum to get them to drop it or you move on from them and find another one that ticks your boxes.

Hope this helps

-B

 

[Franco]

Big Daddy,

All of those seem perfectly fine to me. In fact, I know guys who have MUCH harsher lists -- not that I agree with them necessarily, but I think yours is logical, well-founded, and definitely feasible.

I'd say the only thing I'm more lenient on is tattoos; my current girlfriend has a couple, but they are rather small and very feminine, so I enjoy them.

- Franco

 

[Big Daddy]

@Franco

Hmm, good to know. But then what do I do when or how do I prevent the girl from "changing her mind" (way) after she passed my screening tests?

I thought it had something to do with expecting too much from a girl that would never exist, but apparently that is not the case.

The most recent example is: girl doesn't have tattoo and says she'd probably wouldn't do it when we met, then months after she gets one,even with me being clearly against it.

Now, she's not my gf (even though she'd like to be) and I felt like going way out of my way to say I definitely was against it was pathetic and ultimately useless as she'd do it anyways.

The thing is, it's not that I don't enjoy it (it has something to do with her mother), it's the fact that she "disobeyed" me and I don't want to set wrong precedents by not "punishing" her.

I mean, she's a cool girl until now, but she does a tattoo and violates a rule and... Did she change just because of that? I don't know, but the rule is there to prevent me from doing dumb shit and I feel I should be intolerant and cut her off because a) I might get to invested b) if she's done this now, what reason do I have to believe that this won't happen over and over?

I don't like to bend rules I stabilish for myself but then I ponder all these other things and I end up quite lost in this matter.

@B

Actually, I'm asking exactly because lots of girls did this and I get perplexed. Not necessarily girls that I'm sleeping, but female friends. I've had a friend go from nice girl to getting drinking and smoking pot from time to time. It could be that I'm 22 and girls are around that age too, but regardless, it's a pattern that I imagine happening well later in life as well.

I might be doing something wrong, but being adept of the belief that I can't change whatever people want to do once they decided to do something, especially without looking like I'm weak. So the only thing I can do is show some disprovall and punish her by paying less attention to her or something. But apart from that I feel I'm just being pathetic and just let them do it. I might get lucky on their first try, but over time I'd succumb.

I'm all ears gents.

 

[Franco]

BD,

In my opinion, it's never really a good idea to set rules that she has to obey that strictly have to do with her and nothing (or very little) to do with you. It comes across as controlling, and she's going to resent that.

The best you can really do is be a good influence on her, and at the same time, she should be well aware of what you like and don't like in a girl. If she's really into you, and she knows you hate tattoos (because maybe you brought it up casually in conversation one time -- maybe you saw a girl who was really tatted up and mentioned to her how it looked 'unattractive'), then she's going to be VERY conscious about getting one, and likely won't do it as long as she's with you. I mean, if you're the best man in her life, why would she screw that up by doing something as stupid as getting a tattoo (which you hate), right?

With your female friends, they obviously weren't head-over-heels for a guy who didn't like tattoos or didn't like smoking pot, so there were other influences that had greater power over them at the time to make them get into that. But, as the lover in a girl's life, you can have a LOT of influence over what she wants to do and doesn't want to do, and you don't necessarily have to explicitly make rules to accentuate that either.

If a girl starts bending rules in the middle of your relationship with her and doing things she clearly knows you don't like, then it means that girl probably isn't for you, OR you are failing to manage the relationship well. Rather than trying to change her (or her desires), it's best just to find another girl who either avoids doing things you don't like (good) or just has views that align with your own (best).

- Franco

 

[Bboy100]

Just my opinion, but I feel like those rules except for the one about depression are irrelevant. I certainly agree that making a habit of breaking those rules is a bad thing- i.e. I agree that smoking is bad, not going to the gym is being lazy, feminism is a stupid cause and most girls who support it are crazy etc.

However, I don't think any of those screen well for who the person is at their core. Some of them might have strong correlations with certain personality types (e.g. tattoos correlate strongly with promiscuity, those who don't go to the gym regularly are more prone to living unhappy lives etc.), but those are just generalizations. And those correlations don't matter since it sounds like you're still willing to have fwb relationships with girls like these, ergo you will necessarily get to know them well enough to form your own (and probably more accurate) judgement of her personality.

I've never made a list like this one, but tbh, I wouldn't screen so much for exterior behaviors/beliefs as internal qualities.

Ex.
- She has good mental health (this one will probably solve 90% of problems you might have)
- She takes responsibility for her actions and for the things that happen in her life
- She's intelligent (makes good decisions)
- She's kind (won't throw you or those close to you under the bus for personal gain)
- She handles conflict well (She's willing to work through problems in the relationship in a constructive way)
...and so fourth.

You don't have to agree with those specific examples, but the point is, they're qualities she has as a person. They aren't exterior behaviors.

This will also solve the "what if she changes her mind" issue you brought up. ...If she qualitatively changes as a person in a way which you don't like, and you find she's no longer compatible with you, it would make sense to reevaluate the relationship as a whole.

Edit: The exception to this is if breaking those rules literally kills your attraction for her. For example, if you're unwilling to kiss a smoker, or tattoos are literally a sexual turnoff for you, it would be understandable why you keep those rules.

 

[Big Daddy]

Hey gents,

Sorry for the late reply.

@ Franco:

The best you can really do is be a good influence on her, and at the same time, she should be well aware of what you like and don't like in a girl. If she's really into you, and she knows you hate tattoos (because maybe you brought it up casually in conversation one time -- maybe you saw a girl who was really tatted up and mentioned to her how it looked 'unattractive'), then she's going to be VERY conscious about getting one, and likely won't do it as long as she's with you.

This is what I generally do. In this case in particular, she asked me what I thought of tattoos and I said I don't like them and gave my reasons, and then she mentions she's going to get one. I say "well, okay, but my opinion will not change because of that" and she bitched a little bit about it. Probably because my opinion meant a lot to her, but read below...

I mean, if you're the best man in her life, why would she screw that up by doing something as stupid as getting a tattoo (which you hate), right?

Exactly! This is exactly the underlying thing that I wanted to communicate with this whole tattoo thing. It doesn't really matter which rule she might break, as irrelevant for her they might be, but I'd expect she wouldn't do it for this reason alone.

Clearly, then, at least of of these is true:

• 
  1. I'm not a good enough lover/man yet, and she doesn't respect me or my opinion to the extent I'd expert her to. To be honest, this might be the reason as I still have lots and lots and lots of things to learn if it wasn't for her wanting to be with me, going visibly out of her way (practically humiliating herself) to convince me to still be with her some time ago when I started losing interest in her. And now she does things like this. Go figure...
  
  2. She's just fucked up and not a girl I'd like to be very close long-term

I suspect that both are true to an extent, with #2 being more prevalent.

If a girl starts bending rules in the middle of your relationship with her and doing things she clearly knows you don't like, then it means that girl probably isn't for you, OR you are failing to manage the relationship well. Rather than trying to change her (or her desires), it's best just to find another girl who either avoids doing things you don't like (good) or just has views that align with your own (best).

I'd say she's probably not for me AND I'm probably not managing the relationship well. Still having trouble with communication with everything that might be somewhat longer-term.

Yep, my default behavior these days is start looking for a better girl. Thankfully I attained a level of abundance that (paired with some rules) allows me to cut girls more easily. I was just asking myself whether the girls or me that was broken and I might be looking for said girl and would never find her. But I still have a lot to master, so I still have plenty of room to find untapped higher-caliber girls.

@ BBoy

Hey man, it was your opinion that I was asking about! Thanks for sharing.

You gave me a hell of a insight here. Indeed, you are correct about screening for internal qualities. But screening for objetive things like this gives me a quick scan and the clear indication that she stepped out of bounds. For instance, what is "good mental health" or "making good decisions"? What would you consider good decisions? I find that being a little bit more specific gives me something to grasp on.

Loose rules have their place, but so does more strict rules (IMO). For example, I can't understand people that can't "commit" going to the gym 3x without someone else pushing them to do so because for me that's easy. I certainly wouldn't want to be sucked by trying to make a gf go to the gym. Or make her stop bitching about her career. Or just being lazy in general.

 

[Bboy100]

For instance, what is "good mental health" or "making good decisions"? What would you consider good decisions? I find that being a little bit more specific gives me something to grasp on.

Obviously, a lot of this is subjective. My "good decisions" might be pretty bad ones to you. But I think that in general, its pretty easy to tell what someone is like over a period of time. Remember...you have 3+ months before she's gonna force you to commit to anything. That's plenty of time to figure out a lot of this stuff. There's no reason why you need to make a "snap decision" early on.

Ex.
On mental health- Is she of high self-esteem (i.e. does she doubt/critisize/dislike herself?)
Does she have a victim mentality?
Is she narcissistic?
Is she prone to depression and anxiety?
etc.

You could figure out and ask yourself the same type of questions for all internal qualities you might look for.

Also, as I said before...in general, this is pretty intuitive stuff. Although I can't say I have any sources for this, I believe evolution has wired us to do a pretty good job of figuring this stuff out about a mate.

For example ...you might say about someone you know "that guy is really stupid!" or "that guy is lazy as hell!". How do you know these things? It's usually not because he skipped going to the gym one time. Or because he decided to skip class to go pary one time. No, it's more of a string of behaviors and undesirable actions which lead you to that conclusion. And its also usually fairly intuitive (i.e. you never stopped to think about whether or not he's intelligent or hard working...you just kind of automatically came to that conclusion). I would apply the same type of process to a potential GF.

...Also, there are quite a few articles on this site related to recognizing and screening out mentally unhealthy women. I would take a look at those as well.

 

[Big Daddy]

Yeah, yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you. I asked that question just to put things in perspective -- that to determine what "good decisions" is to you, you also have a bunch of rational check-marks that you go over subconsciously most of the time; but after reading your post I realized that you are correct, it might be beneficial in some scenarios to apply looser rules.

I can't really point any right now, but I feel what you're trying to say. And while you're correct about these being generalizations, well, I can't deny that... but they're abysmally correct most of the time.

And it's so easy to spot black sheep because of that -- I have another female friend that would never, for the love of god, cheat on her bf or do one night stands, yet will probably get a tat very soon. So if I was her bf, I'd be 100% cool with it. This is not the case with the girl from this thread: while being hot, sexy, and an incredible person overall, she's frequently doing dubious shit that leaves me sitting on the fence on whether she is "gf material" (not considering making her my gf) or not. Having specific hard rules like that enables me to draw a boundary that prevents me from investing further on what I deemed an unworthy investment beyond that point even before I committed in the first place.

(If you're into economics: let's say you buy some stock at $10 each. You don't know how it will perform, so you determine that if it ever reaches $5 per stock, you're going to sell it to prevent further loss. The stock then starts to fluctuate around $6 and you're not sure whether it will explode back up or it will go into a downward spiral to hell, but for now you're willing to bet. But then as soon it reaches $5, you sell and cut your losses before you get to emotionally committed and lose even more money trying to win back what you already lost.)

I'll check those articles, though