What is a shit test?

Female attractiveness is clearly obvious to even the most casual of observers. Beauty, femininity, and approachability, the three pillars of female SMV, are all on display in any girl you can see, hear, and speak with.

Male attractiveness, being basically a rubric for "how useful would this guy be during a riot or zombie apocalypse?", is less evident from casual interaction. While muscularity can be seen, wits, nerve, resourcefulness, persistence, and other behavioural qualities cannot.

Men can passively observe attractiveness, but girls must actively probe for it.

Enter the shit test, wherein a girl gives a man a hard time ("some shit") to see how well he copes with it. This takes a number of different forms, and can be at pretty much any level of intensity, but if a girl suddenly does something that seems intended to bother you, and is totally unprovoked, you can be pretty sure you're being shit-tested.

This is generally an indicator of interest (IOI). If a girl cares how attractive you are, it's usually because she is considering mating with you, consciously or not. Successfully pass a shit test, and she will feel more attracted to you. Fail it, and she'll feel less.

How to pass a shit test.

While there are many categories of technique, such as "agree and amplify", "disagree with amused mastery", "pressure flip", and so on, what you really need to understand is that the pass condition for a shit test boils down to one single thing:

A shit test can be passed by literally any response which shows that you are not rattled.

Do not let more detailed discussions of technique make you lose sight of that simple fact. You're not always going to have a witty comeback, not only because no one is that quick on the draw, but because some shit tests are non-verbal, or just so dumb and uncomplicated and boring that there's nothing witty to be said.

All you really have to do is not lose your head, be defensive, or otherwise look like she has hurt you.

When to expect a shit test.

A shit test, being a test of your attractiveness, happens when two things coincide: attraction and anxiety. This combined state of attraction anxiety is the condition where she is attracted to you, but anxious about whether or not this is a good choice… are you really attractive? Are you attractive enough?

Attraction anxiety can be increased by a sudden increase either in attraction, or in anxiety. When it crosses some internal threshold, the discomfort becomes too acute to bear, and a girl will perform a shit test.

A shit test nearly always reduces attraction anxiety, either by reducing anxiety if you pass, or attraction if you fail.Thus, it is a coping mechanism.

Shit test techniques.

Agree and amplify.

The most well-known technique, and one of the simplest to perform, this is used for overt or implied aspersions upon your worthiness or masculinity. Simply agree, in a jesting manner, with an amplified version of whatever was implied. This shows that you are not bothered by the aspersion.

Example: If she calls you “cute” (feminizing), mock-angrily insist that you are not just cute, you are fucking adorable.

Disagree with amused mastery.

This requires fine control over tone and presentation, but is useful when you can’t agree and amplify. Disagreement with an aspersion is usually defensive, so you need to control your tone to create a different impression.

Example: If she says that are “such a nice, considerate boy” (infantilizing), laugh and say “Nah, I’m an asshole. But keep telling yourself that. Makes you easy to exploit.”

Pressure flip.

This is the territory of the witty response. Make a counterpoint which which reverses the social pressure unto her instead of you. Most of these involve questioning her motives for whatever she said, but other possibilities exist.

Example: If she asks if you “use that line on all the girls”, ask her if needs a handcrafted pickup line to feel special.

Brazen agree.

Simply agree, and leave any negative connotation unacknowledged. Good for accusations of villainy, promiscuity, and other things that girls think they hate but secretly don’t.

Example: “You’re an asshole.” “Yep.”

Slapdown.

Simply wave off her statement with an eyeroll, sneer, or verbal dismissal. Requires tungsten steel self-assurance, but brutally effective if you can sell it. Works best with an audience.

Example: “Well, that was lame.”

Pointed ignore.

Ignoring a statement is a normal protocol for socially punishing inappropriate and awkward statements in conversation. By doing this properly, you can make her feel that she just said something awkward. Helps if you are already holding forth on something you can launch right back into. An audience is also helpful.

Study these techniques, but never forget that a shit test can be passed by literally any response which shows that you are not rattled.

When NOT to pass a shit test.

Since shit tests are designed by their very nature to bother you, some of them will. Even if you are confident, and therefore become angry rather than insecure when disrespected enough, you will still encounter shit tests that are no fun at all.

It is very easy to take these lessons too far and become a shit test robot, allowing girls to say anything to you and always coming back with a smile. While this might make you look unflappable, it also makes you tolerant of some really crazy, outrageous, disrespectful shit, where anger would be appropriate.

There is a time to treat a shit test as an attack, rather than a test. You do not want to be making yourself attractive to someone who is actively obnoxious to be around, because then she will just hang around and be obnoxious some more.

The time to punish a shit test rather than pass it is the point where it ceases to simply test your attractiveness to her, and begins to diminish her attractiveness to you.

If a girl cannot be told when she has gone too far, and apologize or accept some form of social punishment, then dissociate yourself, and choose a different girl. You are the prize. Don’t pursue sex with obnoxious caustic bitches.

A Case Study

To see how this all fits together, we will use “FanGirl” as our example today, taking a look at her circumstances, and when, why, and how these lead to the shit tests she throws my way.

FanGirl, after having been a hookup some time back, then reconnecting, has become somewhat infatuated. She’s certainly aware that FunSize has first claim on my attention, and has shown willing to share (she actually seems to like FunSize), but obviously, this creates a situation where both attraction and anxiety are high.

This leads to a characteristic shit test pattern whenever I talk about FunSize, or things I have done for her. At this point, the attraction anxiety becomes acute, and she responds with a single, repeated shit test, formulated around the word “sweet”. I am “sweet”. What I have done for FunSize is “sweet”. Our relationship is “sweet”.

FanGirl is badly in need of a thesaurus.

Now, obviously, any female with a triple digit IQ (and FanGirl is probably smarter than most of my readership) and basic social skills knows that “sweet” is an adjective that men find demeaning, so clearly this is a shit test. But observe how it also can be a subconscious jab at the immediate source of her anxiety… me talking about my relationship with FunSize. Thus, the timing and nature of the shit test is a result of the immediate nature of the attraction anxiety.

Her anxiety-brain asks “what the HELL am I doing here?”, and her attraction-brain must silence it with a further demonstration that Whisper really IS all that and a bag of chips and a pickle, lest it lose the debate, and expose her to internal shame.

So she robotically comes out with this same “sweet” shit-test, and I robotically bat it away with a mixture of agree and amplify (Yep, that’s me... a big marshmallow), disagree with amused mastery (nah, I’m an asshole… I just take care of my stuff), and pointed ignore.

If it gets tedious enough, I may shut it down for good with a pressure flip of some sort: “Aw, are you jealous that the other girl is getting a cookie? If you’re good enough for long enough, you can have one, too, you know.”

Implications

It’s important to remember that shit testing is an instinctive behaviour, an involuntary behaviour, a necessary behaviour, and generally an unconscious behaviour. Don’t take it personally.

Every girl will shit test. The more attracted, the more shit tests. The more anxiety, the more shit tests. The lower on the Bitch Management Hierarchy, the more shit tests (because more anxiety). LTRs will taper off their shit tests as they become less anxious, but anxiety will increase again if your game with them starts to wane.

Learn not to resent shit tests. Imagine if you had to deliberately check to see whether a girl was attractive or not. Imagine if girls could suddenly turn ugly in the middle of a date (or in bed) if you hadn’t checked carefully enough. How many times would you lift that veil and look again, just to make sure? This is women's daily reality.

Shit testing is a basic female vetting mode… so you cannot be attractive without the ability to pass a shit test. Period, full stop, no exceptions. You either need accidental confidence to pass them without knowing what you are doing, or the purposeful confidence of knowing what they are and how to proceed.

You won’t be able to pass a shit test by faking it. Even with these techniques, you won’t be able to agree and amplify if you are actually rattled. What shit test techniques allow you to do is know the right thing, and practice the right thing, so you learn that confidence. Eventually this will actually make you useful in a riot or the zombie apocalypse.

Go practice.

1 tip given to Whisper by the community for this post.