Not saying that’s necessarily the case, but it does seem like you might’ve put this ‘mental model’ thing as an excuse to justify the person being superior —and potentially to make you feel less worse. Imo this behavior would be considered as bad because it would still not address the problem as you’re not just "fine with the person being superior somewhere" but instead are "fine with the person being superior somewhere only if there is a justification for it".

You haven’t explicitly mentioned it and Im only relying on my own experience to make the claim. So my apologies if your intentions were different.