The Placeholder Girlfriend

Thanks for sharing, the ending brought a big smile to my face. Excellent storytelling, thanks for bringing us along on your journey.<p>My favorite line: <i>&quot;Before it had bothered me that I was low on both Ambition and Chill (6.0). But now I was at 10 for both. I was going to humiliate my evil girlfriend. But I was chill about it because I knew it would happen.&quot;</i>

This is a great story. I think folks are misreading it as something to be taken literally or that we&#x27;re supposed the condone the narrator&#x27;s reaction.<p>I will say that I relate, because I once overreacted to a breakup going on a massive self-improvement binge. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I don&#x27;t think it came from a place of sound mental health and self-esteem. On the other, a lot of good did come out of it, and I eventually found intrinsic motivation, rather than evaluating myself by how I thought my ex would think about me.

&gt; Your girlfriend should think of you as a ten in everything.<p>This seems like a pretty damaging belief to have about relationships. Better to have a significant other who is accepting of your imperfections.

I know too many people that can&#x27;t or won&#x27;t listen to fair criticism. And even good listeners often fail to change even egregious interpersonal faults that affect them negatively. Very little of our society helps us become emotionally smarter - the most skilled I know seemed to learn everything almost in passing - perhaps some sort of emotional genius. We see glimpses of something similar on HN when a poor comment generates an honest critique yet the commenter keeps repeating the same fault (never learns). <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;danluu.com&#x2F;p95-skill&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;danluu.com&#x2F;p95-skill&#x2F;</a> seems relevant. Few people ever ask for criticism. Few people give honest criticism.<p>It always surprises me that we can sometimes recognize someone&#x27;s personality within 5 minutes of meeting them. We see faults they perhaps can&#x27;t see or maybe choose to live with (even faults that harm themselves or those near them). And I know a few superskilled that can immediately recognise well-hidden dangers of others.<p>I&#x27;m a middle aged analytical guy. So I&#x27;ve had decades of seeing how difficult it is for us all to acquire wisdom.<p>We want to be better, but we just don&#x27;t seem to know how to do it. There&#x27;s a self-harm industry around self-help books. Pop-psych. A whole dogma and industry around words like trauma, mindfulness. One of of the least insightful people I know is a psychologist. Some of the people I most admire have low-status jobs and little formal education.<p>I know people that try to make a list of all the attributes they require in a partner. I multiplied out the percentages for one friend, and their chances of finding someone that met all the easy requirements lead to a 1 in 10 billion chance of their perfect partner existing. Even after dropping many other constraints!<p>[edit] removed naive para where I took it as an article rather than a story. Great writing!

Only one here finding that story super awkward, weird and full of clichēs?

I liked this, but you could tell a guy wrote it, the tip off was when the women (briefly) contemplates killing her girlfriend for for embarrassing her.

I thought this story was going to be about an AI partner discovering the stats that defined them, and changing them to abruptly alter their personality.

Interesting how being rated lead her to become better in every way but she still hates it.

Thanks for sharing. Nice read, the ending warmed my heart, and put a small tear in my eye.

What really bothered me in this story is that the crazy used a 1-10 scale. Everybody knows the best scale is 1-5.

Really enjoyed reading this

maybe a 6.5 story

As someone whose college girlfriend made a (much shorter) numerical chart about me before later dumping me, and even referenced it when explaining why, this hits home in a strange way.

Since this is Hacker <i>News</i> and this text is written in first-person without introduction, it probably deserves a &quot;fiction&quot; warning in the title or something...

Reminds me of Moby’s Friendship-Acquaintance 6-Stage Theory:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maximumfun.org&#x2F;images&#x2F;mobytheory.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maximumfun.org&#x2F;images&#x2F;mobytheory.pdf</a><p>This was on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. It contains deep truths which are generally not ok to say out loud.

Cute but childish. Would fit well in “young adults” section for girls and I wish lots of boys also read it.

I&#x27;m very taken by the illustration. Is it computer-generated, or drawn? It is a very strange but also very nice room.

I think it&#x27;s acceptable to make a sheet like that. As long as is doesn&#x27;t end with &quot;temporary&quot;

This is tangential to the subject at hand, but I feel obliged to complain about how much Substacks now requires you install its app to read the content. Very similar to Reddit, in fact. I&#x27;ve watched the progression in pushiness over the year. On my phone, I did not install the app and there was apparently no other way to read the article.<p>I block Reddit at the router for similar dark patterns.

Fiction or not, the burgeoning anomie of modern Western society encourages the commodification of individuals, sociopathic social-sexual gamification patterns, and the absolute reduction of people to numeric grades and unflattering notations. Regardless of what people wish were the case, there is very little modern socio-economic penalty for being an asshole.

Great writing. With a satirical edge.<p>I can imagine this becoming a meme.<p>I&#x27;ll give it a solid 8.

This is not a story that the readership here is well-equipped to understand.

The bottom 80% of women are placeholder girlfriends&#x2F;concubines&#x2F;side chicks&#x2F;in chad&#x27;s harem and the bottom 80% of men are sexless cucks. Such is life western society.