I would never tolerate that.”

Until you like them.

Happy June, friends.

We made it to the middle of 2026.

Honestly, I’m grateful.

Because… what a year it has already been.

The economy is economy-ing. Notifications are relentless. Responsibilities are multiplying. People are trying to hold together careers, relationships, parenting, healing, ambition, and functioning adulthood with increasingly questionable amounts of sleep and caffeine.

Exasperation is not exactly rare these days.

So this month, I want us to talk about something quietly human, mildly embarrassing, deeply psychological… and incredibly relatable.

The things we swear we would never do.

Until attraction enters the room.

You know what I’m talking about.

The confident declarations.

“I could never date someone who doesn’t communicate.”

“I need emotional maturity.”

“My non-negotiables are firm.”

“Red flags? Immediate exit.”

And then suddenly, someone arrives with a good smile, compelling conversation, suspiciously excellent eye contact, or an alarming ability to make you feel seen…

…and your standards begin holding emergency internal meetings.

Welcome to this month’s theme:

“Your Standards Are Hypothetical Until Attraction Enters the Room.”

Light-hearted? Yes.

But also psychologically fascinating.

Because many beliefs feel solid in theory. Attraction simply tests whether they are convictions… or preferences.

Attraction vs. Stated Preferences: The Gap Nobody Likes to Admit

Human beings are surprisingly good at describing what we think we want.

We make lists.

We define values.

We outline deal breakers.

We confidently explain our “type.”

But attraction has a way of exposing the difference between our stated preferences and our actual behaviour.

In theory, you wanted calm emotional availability.

In practice, you developed a troubling interest in someone whose communication style resembles a disappearing Wi-Fi signal.

Why does this happen?

Because attraction does not consult only logic.

It recruits emotion, chemistry, admiration, fantasy, attachment history, social influence, timing, loneliness, hope, and occasionally… pure delusion disguised as optimism.

Your brain is not simply evaluating a spreadsheet of compatible traits.

It is negotiating competing needs, emotions, desires, and narratives.

Which explains why otherwise intelligent people occasionally find themselves saying things like:

“Normally I would never…”

Exactly.

Why People Abandon Their “Non-Negotiables”

This part deserves honesty.

Sometimes people abandon non-negotiables because the standards were never deeply rooted convictions.

They were aspirational preferences.

Important distinction.

A conviction tends to survive emotional pressure.

A preference often survives only until someone interesting shows up.

But there’s another reason.

Admiration changes decision-making.

When we admire someone, we unconsciously become more flexible.

More forgiving.

More interpretive.

What would have been labeled a “red flag” in one person becomes “they’ve just been through a lot” in another.

Same behaviour.

Different emotional framing.

Psychology has long shown that emotion influences how we process information, assign meaning, and justify choices.

Translation?

Attraction can make contradictions feel surprisingly reasonable.

Which brings us to one of my favourite psychological concepts…

Cognitive Dissonance: The Mental Gymnastics We Didn’t Order

Have you ever experienced the discomfort of holding two conflicting beliefs simultaneously?

Something like:

“I value consistency.”

And

“I am deeply invested in someone spectacularly inconsistent.”

That uncomfortable tension has a name: cognitive dissonance.

And our brains dislike it.

A lot.

So what happens?

We negotiate.

We rationalise.

We reinterpret.

We adjust the story to reduce psychological discomfort.

Suddenly:

“They ignore my messages“ becomes “They’re just overwhelmed.“

“This dynamic doesn’t align with my values” becomes “Relationships are complicated.”

Sometimes that flexibility reflects compassion and maturity.

Sometimes it reflects attraction quietly rewriting the rules.

The tricky part is that both can feel emotionally convincing.

How the Brain Negotiates Contradictions

Our brains are remarkable negotiators.

Not always objective negotiators.

But excellent negotiators.

When emotions become involved, decision-making shifts.

We do not only ask:

“Is this aligned with my standards?”

We also ask:

“How do they make me feel?”

“How attached am I?”

“How much do I admire them?”

“How badly do I want this to work?”

This doesn’t make people weak, irrational, or hopelessly confused.

It makes us human.

Human beings are meaning-making creatures trying to reconcile ideals with emotional reality.

And attraction is one of the most powerful stress tests for our self-knowledge.

So… Were Your Standards Fake?

Not necessarily.

But attraction can reveal an uncomfortable truth:

Some beliefs are convictions.

Others are confident theory.

The belief that survives emotional attachment becomes conviction.

Everything else may simply have been hypothetical.

And perhaps that’s not failure.

Perhaps it’s information. Useful information.

Because self-awareness does not come from what we declare in calm, detached moments.

It often comes from noticing who we become when emotion, admiration, desire, hope, and attachment are sitting at the decision-making table.

So this June, I want us to explore the unspoken.

The contradictions.

The psychology behind the things we insist we would never do… until we absolutely understand why people do them.

No judgment.

Just curiosity, honesty, and a little humour about the wonderfully complicated business of being human.

After all…

“I would never tolerate that.”

Mostly exists until you like them.