I spent much of my life as a scientist measuring things. To quantify stuff within a mix of other stuff, you measure the [stuff]unknown against a standard curve of [stuff]known – I’d put the “unknown’ and “known” in subscript if I knew how to. The measurements were quality controlled within and between assays using other samples of [stuff]known and the whole thing would be ditched if it fell short of expected minimal standards for precision and accuracy.

Standards are great: without much thought, we assess each other and things against our own standard curves, but those things or people that fail the assay can simply be rejected rather than promoting further investigation to gain further insight into why they don’t fit within the acceptable normal ranges for “stuff”. Life isn’t a scientific study, thank goodness.

In many aspects of my life, I’m difficult to please, so I like to surround myself with things and people that fit within my own narrow normal tolerances for stuff. Maybe I don’t have narrow normal ranges, but I do have high thresholds. No, that’s incorrect. I have high thresholds and low tolerances.

When I consider the things in my life, they have to meet certain minimum criteria. Foodstuff aside, these are:

You can apply these standards to any range of things, from gadgets, to houses, cars, even girlfriends.

Certain things in life can be compromised on. So for example when it comes to my car, it’s useful, affordable, it does what I want and it’s reliable. It also sort of makes me happy because it means I have freedom of movement whenever I like, but ideally I would prefer it if it had four doors, that it was black, had a bigger engine, was newer and that it had height-adjustable seatbelts.

My house is another good example, and this ticks nearly if not all the boxes.

When it comes to romantic partners, who knows? As I get older, and carry deeper emotional scarring from previous encounters with evil bitches from hell women, I think I’m just not willing to compromise at all. Should I ever find myself in a relationship again, and at this point in time it’s looking unlikely, I’m not going to settle for somebody who doesn’t meet my expectations. Why should I? Why should anybody? Anybody apart from any future girlfriend of mine of course. She will have to meet the following criteria:

In addition to these though, she’ll need the patience of a saint, the ability to deal with my strange obsessive habits and have no personality disorders of her own.

I’m expecting a long wait.