For years, I was convinced I had terrible taste.
I hated:
• Poetry • Drinking more than one cup of coffee • Jazz • Classic novels • Card games
I remember forcing myself to listen to weird hipster music and painfully spending hours reading books I wasn’t enjoying. All the while thinking, You like this, you’re enjoying this.
Fuck that.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t dig these things. I’m just saying that I don’t.
You should always keep an open mind and be willing to experience new stuff, but you can’t force yourself to like something.
It doesn’t matter how much your friend loves this movie. If it doesn’t resonate with you then it doesn’t resonate with you. No amount of explanation or argument on their part will bring you much closer to the love that they feel for it.
A good analogy for this is when I tell people I hate smoking weed—it makes me insecure and diminishes my social skills.
I always get the same response from marijuana advocates (Jesus I sound like a 60-year-old Republican):
You just need to find the right strain.
Yes. I need to keep experimenting with this thing that makes me feel miserable until I like it.
Or…
I could just do a little bit once in a blue moon to the extent to which I’m comfortable.
Conclusion
It took me until I was 26 to come to terms with the fact that I simply don’t enjoy most classic novels. That’s okay.
I pick one up from time to time. But I never pressure myself to enjoy it (or even to finish it).
When I was in high school, I would literally play music my friends liked and I hated because I didn’t want to admit that my favorite bands were Blink-182 and Green Day.
Again, fuck that.
Life is too short to read books you hate.
You can be open minded and challenge yourself, but there’s no need to torture yourself with something just because other people love it.
Put on some American Idiot. Open your Harry Potter books. And don’t apologize for the things you enjoy.
I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you fucking like something, like it. Dave Grohl