Ace bit of advice that Bob, and one that I took 18 months to accept. Playing with players much better than myself, i'd be gutted if I couldn't make par, and only accepting a bogey happily on the longer holes.
Imurg said earlier in the thread that if you can par every hole on the course, you should be looking to do it each time. That's all well and good, but you need to have consistency in your game to do it. I've birdied 15 or 16 of the 18 holes at my course, if I played each one going for birdie, i'd end up with a score of 125. I'll play for bogey on the tricky ones, and make do with it for now.
A handicap for me is purely a way of being able to compete against other players with some moderate form of comparison. I always aim to go round in as few shots as possible and use the course par as a measure of that.