Short:

Plate keeps texting me while I'm busy studying. I ignore her and she gives me general shit. I dish a little shit back, with a grin and like I'm dealing with a kid. Even with a small amount of effort, passing shit tests can be easy, funny, entertaining, and effective.

Long:

Last Friday, I had two exams back to back for two difficult classes, and so I spent most of the week and a half leading up to them studying my ass off. My neighbor-turned-plate texts me all day while I'm in the library studying, complaining about her roommate, who she's had trouble with and been complaining about since beginning of the school year. I've given her all the advice I have to give about her roommate, and frankly I didn't have the time for it that day.

So, I simply turned off my phone. Kept her and the rest of my phone from distracting me, and did me a lot of good as far as studying goes. The next evening after class, I invite her to hang out at my place. We hang out for a little while, I point out that my roommates aren't home and we should make the best of that.

She says, "No, we're not gonna do that today." 'Why not?' "This is for not texting me back yesterday! You're so bad at texting, you really need to get better at that." Like hell I do. Obvious shit test, and my schoolwork is a tad more important than hanging out with her every day and being her eternal venting partner for her roommate.

At this point we were sitting down on the couch. I say 'OK, fair,' and then after a minute or two simply get up and go to my desk. I start playing a game of chess online. She has her laptop with her and said she had reading to get done, but me ignoring her for a game proved too distracting.

"Why did you move to your desk? Come sit on the couch with me." 'No, I'm good here.' "Why not?" 'This is for your 'this is for'. I'm returning it. I have the receipt and everything.' All said with a smile, I'm just teasing her and giving her shit. She drops her jaw to feign shock. "But you didn't text me back!" 'And I told you I was busy studying yesterday. You know I have two exams later this week. Plus this desk chair is reeeeally comfy.'

She stares me down for a bit, kind of grinning and kind of eyes-down shameful, but just says "OK" and goes back to her reading. I can tell she's flustered by this, and she keeps looking up at me from her laptop to see if I'm noticing her. My chess game finished and I'm browsing reddit/YouTube. Seeing this, she closes her laptop, comes up behind me, and says "Why don't we go to your room? Your roommates aren't home and I can't focus on my work anyways." Complete reversal from 10 minutes prior. All it cost me was those 10 minutes and a little bit of exercise of my wit. When we made out, she was way handsier than usual, which I couldn't help but chuckle at. "What, why are you laughing?" 'You seemed so hell-bent on not fucking me tonight, and now look at you. You're hilarious.' She just grabs me and kisses me to shut me up, but she's smiling the whole time.

Lessons/Analysis:

Passing shit tests is easy enough, and they can be fun too.

Shit tests often (but don't necessarily) involve her expressing some kind of expectation with a certain degree of urgency. When her expectations and urgency both match the reality of the situation, she's trying to reason with you and this is not a shit test, and you should not proceed as follows. The difference is when the expectation is too ridiculous to be met, or her urgency wildly mismatches the magnitude of the problem. Now her problem is either cute, a joke, or just flat out unreasonable, and should be treated as such. Identifying this difference should be easy peasy, common sense.

"You should really get a nicer car" is an example of ridiculous expectations; "You're right, come with me to the dealership and buy me one" is a good response. My example above with my plate is misplaced urgency; we live next door to each other, it's not like it'll kill her if I spend one or two evenings studying and not talking to her.

This is how a child acts, so you use the same tone you would with a child. Kids are just as good at throwing up shit tests to different adults, to see what they can get away with and where the boundaries are. Let me mirror the above examples with ones from a 3 year old I used to babysit:

  • Expectations: "I wanna go buy 1000 HotWheels cars!" 'No, look at all the HotWheels you have! You might slip and fall if we had 1000 of em! We might pick out a few next time at the toy store.' His imagination/innocence is cute/funny, but you have to put his expectations in check and replace them with something realistic yet still appealing.

  • Urgency: "I need milk now. I need it!" 'Oh really? Is the world gonna end, you need milk so badly?' "YEAH!" Of course this kid is cute as fuck, so it's hilarious. The urgency and the way he goes about trying to meet his expectations are ridiculous. So I tease him and that frustrates him for a bit, but I have no problem getting him some milk once he asks nicely.

It's a lot easier and more effective to dish out a little frustration or disappointment wrapped in humor, than it is to directly reason with them. You're calling her out on her expectations or urgency, with just the right quantities of humor and seriousness to make her feel like a child (which she should, since she's acting like one). In general, she'll be more persuaded by her feelings than direct reason. If you call her a child, that's an insult. But make her feel like a child, suddenly she gets the message and the shit test is over.

Side note: the kind of humor you use should be the kind of humor you like. Not only does this make it easier to come up with something witty, but she's not necessarily going to laugh, and you're not necessarily trying to make her. Just like a kid doesn't get grown-up jokes. The humor is not intended for them. If it's entertaining for you to make fun of their (already-established-as-ridiculous) problem, it makes passing their shit test that much easier.