Disclaimer: I am not trying to prove anything or claim anything. I have seen more men making mistake A and more women making mistake B, but I am not saying that it's universally true. I want to hear your opinions and I want to know if you have seen these mistakes in action

I really struggled with finding a title because I lack vocabulary. It's embarassing.

It's about mistakes I have seen men and women make when they rate a (potential) partner. In particular how they over-rate them. And how they have a wrong picture of them in general.

Mistake A:

Some kind of Halo-effect. He gets to know her and has a very good first impression. For some reason he doesn't adjust his view of her over time even when she changes her behavior, slacks off or does stuff that hurts him. (whatever stuff)

--> He stupidly always sees her as the person she was in the beginning.

Mistake B:

More difficult to explain. She gets to know him and rates him. This sets a "baseline" in her mind. (subconsciously). For example she sees him as a jerk with a "value" of 4/10. (Not talking about looks, but behavior and "niceness". Bear with me here).

From then on, everything he does is compared to this baseline, but for some reason she only registers the relative values compared to this baseline.

So he does something he normally wouldn't do. As a cheesy example we'll choose buying her flowers. To her this has a value of 7/10. Compared to the baseline she registers it as +3.

With another guy she sets the baseline at 6. If this guy bought her flowers, it would only register as +1.

Normally your picture of someone would be the baseline. But her picture of him consists of the various, irregular and probably rare (+) instances. His baseline is already low so there won't be much (-).

--> She totally over-rates him. He does some good stuff from time to time and it's enough to make her think highly of him.

Example for mistake A:

A guy marries a woman and the marriage declines, because she changes, but she still sees her as the princess she was at the wedding. And he desperately wants to save a marriage that is already doomed and unsatisfying.

There's a thousand explanations for the friend-zone. This could be one of them. She might be flirty and fun and nice in the beginning. He doesn't let go of this image even when it should become evident to him that she is not interested. She might be annoyed by him and hanging out with her will be much less fun. She might outright tell him that she is not interested, but he will still see her as the flirty and fun and nice girl, because he clings to his first impression.

--> After a breakup (leaving the friendzone or ending the relationship) mistake A usually manifests as a feeling of "She deceived me!" When in reality he had been deceiving himself.

Example for mistake B:

Not much to say. She stays with a guy that everybody says is an asshole, but she "sees something in him that others don't see." Again, there are a lot of explanations for the alleged "women fall for assholes/bad boys" phenomenon. This could be another one.

--> After a breakup this usually manifests as "I can't believe that I put up with this asshole for so long!" In retrospect, she sees the baseline. Conversely the guy could have been great, but the effort he put in didn't register because his baseline was already high. This usually manifests as "I can't believe that I let him go" some time after the breakup.

So. What is your experience? Have you see these two in action? And would you say men are more prone to one while women are more prone to the other?