That's mainly because it seems to you that someone who doesn't believe in objective morality is a person who doesn't have any morality.
For example, you say I'd see myself as having lowered my standards. That assumes a meta-standard against which standards are measured. I don't think such a meta-standard is intelligible, so what you call a lowering of standards is, to me, simply a change of standards.
Another way of looking at the same situation would be to say that I value my life more highly than I value vegetarianism. If I somehow wished that I valued vegetarianism enough that I would rather die than eat meat, I can only imagine it would be because I value vegetarianism over the idea of living, but value actually living over vegetarianism. Sorry. Musing out loud there.
My point is, I really do have ideals. I am just not under the delusion that they are in any way objective. I realise that they are ideals-to-me. I realise that either I didn't choose them, or I chose them based on values I didn't choose. Either my ideals are handed to me by my situation, or I choose them based on values handed to me by my situation.
When one first makes the transition from believing there are objective ideals (or values, or morals, or whatever) to realising that ideals can't be objective, there is a period of thinking this renders ideals utterly meaningless. That is a period of inconsistency, really - one part of one's thinking has not caught up with another part. Then one realises that ideals were always subjective, and that the very idea of an ideal is subjective by definition.
In one sense, it's liberating. After all, I no longer live in a universe that imposes morality and meaning on me; there are no objective demands. I can choose my own narrative, choose my own meaning, choose my own ideals. On the other hand, I am not limitlessly free. I have a horizon. A choice of narrative, a choice of meaning, a choice of ideals cannot be made without some values by which they are evaluated. And so, just as with decision-making, at some point by definition, my values are outside of my control. Either they are handed to me by my situation or I choose them based on values that are handed to me by my situation.
I am a product of my culture. I grew up on '80s cartoons and Christianity and rock music. I value liberty and happiness and consistency (The Value Previously Known As Truth) and justice and I think 13-year-olds are too young to have sex and I think women are equal to men and I think graves should be left alone and I think species extinction is bad and I think greed and hatred are bad.
I have decided to save the world. I am a libertarian socialist. I am a writer.
They're real ideals to me, real purposes, real meanings, real narratives. I recognise that my values are by definition subjective, that there is no value by which values can be evaluated. Yet, they guide my actions. I am not burdened with the issue of whether or not my values are right, because I understand that the evaluation is not possible. When I come across someone with different values, the interaction will change us both. Such is the nature of the story.
I suppose I've ranted on long enough. Time for the signature.