The BS Quotient

Hey guys.  First, good news.  My plane tickets are purchased and I will be off to New York early next year to see Shawn.  Yay!!

Now, today’s post.

I woke up this morning thinking about Evan.  I wasn’t really thinking about him, per se, but something I always associated with him.

If nothing else, Evan had the largest employment of the BS Quotient that I have ever seen.  While other people would see BS and accept it as flattery, Evan would recognize the BS immediately and ignore it without question.  He’s often been described as an overly sarcastic ass, so that may be where the BS Quotient originates.

My favorite example of him employing it is in regards to Larissa.

As much as I love Larissa, over the past few decades, I have become well versed in the level of BS she employs.  This is nothing against her, of course, just me acknowledging that she has her moments, like everyone.

The time she most employs said BS is when she is flirting with men, whether they are single men, men other women are interested in, or, yes, even the boyfriends of her friends.

Larissa has many interests, but when flirting with men, she will start listing all her stereotypically manly interests in succession.  A comment like “This past weekend we drove up to the mountains in my “car” (where “car” is not the actually car she owns, or wants, but a stereotypically manly car that has been worked over with a certain kind of souped up engine, for example) and shot some deer.  Then, when we got home, we drank beer and played video games for six hours.”  There are many problems with this, but most notably that there was a high likelihood that the weekend in question she had been at work and then went to a bar with me where she invariably told another potential male interest that she went drag racing… she didn’t.

While all of this is going on, of course, I am left flailing and end up bringing up my only probable common interest: college football.  I never say anything like “Oh, last year, I totally went to every bowl game and blah blah blah blah blah” because I didn’t and they know that I didn’t.

It probably wouldn’t be quite so annoying if Larissa only did this to random strangers, but you’ll note above that I said she did it to the boyfriends of her friends.

One time in particular that sticks out is when my friends were celebrating my twenty-second birthday at a brewery/restaurant and she ordered a bud light.  My boyfriend at the time, old Brody, quipped sarcastically “You’re really ordering a bud light at a brewery?”  To Larissa, of course, this was a green light to rattle off manly interests.  It took everything I had to get Brody back into conversation with Bree and her boyfriend Kegan, whom he knew personally.  He eventually did, but that didn’t stop Larissa from trying to keep bringing up manly interests until she talked about her taste in music.  As a music snob, that was when Brody’s BS meter went off, and probably Kegan’s too.

Evan, meanwhile (though admittedly I don’t remember the topic), had his BS meter go off much quicker in regards to Larissa.  Steph and I have talked about it and she remembers that group dinner like I do.  Evan ignored Larissa’s manly interests and preferred to continue whatever conversational topic was settled upon by me, Steph, Cam, Bree, and her then-boyfriend, Blake.  It wasn’t necessarily that Evan was ignoring her because she wasn’t coupled up (rather, her then-boyfriend had just opted not to come), but I think he saw through the listing of manly interests off the bat.

I do not mean this post as a discussion of Larissa’s habits and I do wonder sometimes if she knows she does it (it even happens while she is in a committed relationship).  Rather, it is to look at Evan’s BS Quotient.

As I have alluded to, the BS Quotient is the amount of BS a person will accept and tolerate before they realize it is in fact BS, thus causing the BS meter to go off.  In general, I have a pretty mid-level BS Quotient.  It isn’t necessarily a certain topic or subject that will set off a BS meter, but usually a person’s behavior.  I’ve become fairly adept at reading people, so after a certain level of conversation, I can tell whether someone is being sincere.  Obviously it also depends on how long I’ve known a person.  If a girl I just met started a “manly interests” conversation, for instance, I would give her the benefit of the doubt while I decided if it was sincere or a flirtatious ploy.  Sometimes it is actually sincere.  I’ve known Larissa so long that I can time my watch by her “manly interests” conversations, and then subsequently roll my eyes when they eventually happen.

Old Brody, as I mentioned, is more oblivious to BS, depending on the gender of his BS meter tester or the situation in which his BS meter is being tested.  However, subjects like music and certain sports will always set it off when necessary.

Evan, meanwhile, could be employed as a BS tracker for the CIA if such a profession existed.  I’m not saying it doesn’t, because it really just might, but to my knowledge, it doesn’t exist.   (If anyone from the CIA reads this and needs new BS trackers, I will do my best to put you in touch with Evan personally.)  Evan’s BS Quotient is so low that he knows within minutes whether or not someone is BSing or being sincere.  This inevitably leads to him giving said BSer the cold shoulder, which is likely what results in his being described as an overly sarcastic ass.

My point here, muddled as it may be, is that there is probably some good use for Evan’s extremely low BS meter.  That’s likely why I woke up thinking about it this morning.