I've been following the PUA community for a while now, mostly as a lurker, with the intention of getting more serious into it in the next year. But I've noticed something interesting, and I'm not sure if my perceptions are correct or not.

I get shit-tested all the time...what I mean is, shit-testing seems to be something that is not just restricted to game. People do it to each other more often than I realized. I have a female boss...we get along fairly well, but sometimes I get the impression she's watched too man y episodes of Sex and the City. She did something today that I felt was a bit of a shit-test, or at least, a little bit condescending.

At first I was a bit annoyed, but after a while, I started to think about it. When I was growing up, I used to get a lot of verbal abuse from my father...we was a low level NCO in the air force, and I think he used to get a lot of shit at work. And the only way he could deal with it was to bring it home and unload it on all of us. I had some serious self-esteem issues for a long time because of it. But reading about PUA and game has helped me to think differently about not just relationships with women, but relationships with people.

I thought about what my boss did, and I came to the conclusion that whether or not I would be bothered/offended by what she did was ultimately my decision. It was my choice as to whether I would let her behavior affect my self-image or not. I also got to thinking that being on the receiving end of a shit-test can be turned to your advantage. If you think about it, when person A shit tests or insults person b, and both parties realize it, person A is kind of putting person B at an advantage. Person A ends up waiting for person B's reaction. And maybe, the best thing for person B to do is, just step sideways out of the way of the shit, don't let it affect you, and take advantage of the 'opening' that person A has given you by trying to lay a shit test on you. Maybe handling shit tests well, works well for other relationships and situations in life, not just game.

Am I totally off base here?