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Comment by freetime2 | Hacker News Reader

> Your girlfriend should think of you as a ten in everything.

This seems like a pretty damaging belief to have about relationships. Better to have a significant other who is accepting of your imperfections.

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The whole point of this story is that the rating system is silly. The point above is immediately followed by "No. You aren’t even supposed to think these things." It's someone's confused thoughts in the middle of finding out their partner is rating them out of ten on everything, not an approval of that specific thought.

If anything that list was the best thing that could happen to her, or at least the most introspective.

Brother, the story is made up! Real people don't behave this way.

Maybe not this way exactly, but I have known people who have dramatically improved themselves after experiencing rejection.

you mean listing attributes about an undergrad, turning them into your assistant and leaving your computer open with your actively managed character stats sheet for them to find and spiral about, while pretending not to know?

or do you mean the undergrad spiraling?

I thought the narrator was also a grad student.

It's the rating part that is problematic. There's understanding your partners strengths and weaknesses, and straight up comparing them to other people.

I expect that my spouse of many years still compares me with other people. Humans are social creatures and are frequently comparing ourselves and our families to others. While too much can certainly be a recipe for unhappiness, I think that’s one of the primary ways that we learn and grow.

A spreadsheet may feel very shallow and icky, but we also are not privy to the girlfriend’s thoughts and motives in this story. It could just be a tool to help her process her feelings. We don’t know how much weight she assigns to a 2 in Wit. And most relationships start off as “temporary” status.

My spouse has kept a journal off and on over the years. While it may be a shock initially to read something unflattering about myself in there, it also wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me. And not that far removed from a spreadsheet in my opinion.

The things written and said in private are often more real than how that person acts to your face. If I found the same things, it'd call the entire relationship into question.

Maybe you're okay being led on or talked about but that's not universal. Plenty of human behavior is destructive, our social behavior is no exception.

Measuring people against one another or comparing oneself to others is a large source of human suffering.

"Accepting imperfections": depends on what it is and if it's an intrinsic attribute or a habit. A good partner helps the other become better where possible.

I think you misunderstand the intent of that statement then. That statement is a way to say your significant other should curve the scale so you're their 10, if they accept you as you are.

I think this is also unrealistic and potentially damaging to the relationship. I have some really bad behavior, I try to be better every day, but yeah I'm bad in some ways. My girlfriend knows this and she accepts but it'd be a lie to say my bad behavior doesn't bother her. And same for vice versa. No one is perfect, especially if you live with them every day in the same house.

That's more or less how I understood it, and I don't think it is a healthy thing to require of your partner. For one I don't think it is possible for someone to just override their feelings like that.

And anyway I want my partner to understand my strengths and weaknesses. And to help me improve myself where possible with encouragement and constructive criticism, or to offset my weaknesses with their strengths. And vice versa.

That’s silly. My partner is a better cook than I am and a better driver. Any scale where I rate a 10 for either of those is dangerously disconnected from reality.

That's idealizing and it's not healthy for a long-term relationship. Sooner or later (probably sooner) one has to be faced with the fact that the human you are bonding with is, well, human. And as such - flawed in so many ways, as all humans are. If you can admit that, really be honest about it, and still value the relationship and your partner, because there are so many things beyond the flaws that make it work - then it has a future. If it's just blind infatuation that ignores the reality - it's a fling, and the reality will assert itself soon. Nothing wrong with an occasional fling on certain stage of one's life, but it is good to make the distinction between the two.

Did you read past the first 15%?

I did. If my comment makes you think that I missed something important in the story, I would appreciate it if you could elaborate further.

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