I was watching an episode of Hot Ones, and the guest was a coffee connoisseur. Sean asked her about the quintesssential coffee, and she said something about someone not truly being a coffee aficionado if they could not drink a coffee black.
I rolled my eyes so hard, I think I sprained one of my eyeballs. She said it with a laugh, but she meant it. And it’s so meaningless, I don’t understand it. Most of my friends are weirdos, and we’ve talked about how being a weirdo is a gift is so many ways. One of them is accepting other people’s quirks and realizing that there’s no validation for liking something that other people don’t.
Because of this, I have absolutely no patience for gatekeepers of any sort. I have talked about this at length when it comes to From games, but I’d like to make it into a more general statement. Even before I got into the From games, I have being a weirdo when it comes to pop culture. I don’t like things other people do, and very few people like what I do. In addition, I am very open about the fact that I don’t care if what I like is canonically considered good or not, and I will vigorously agree when people tell me I have terrible taste. Which, by the way, takes the wind out of their sails. Which is hilarious in its own right, though not the reason I started doing it in the first place.
I honestly don’t get it. Pineapple on pizza, for example. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it, either. And I don’t get why people give a shit if other people like it or not. Honestly. Who the fuck cares that much?
But I get it on some level. I don’t drink. At all. It’s in part because I’m allergic to alcohol, but it’s more in part because I hate the way it tastes. All of it. Beer and wine are terrible-tasting to me, and hard liquor is the least offensive, but still not on my list of top ten things to drink. One is water with Mio. Two is carbonated flavored water. Three is coffee. Four is tea. These are the ones I drink on the regular. Five would probably be Diet Coke, though I haven’t drank that in ages. Or iced tea. Then six is the other one. I could come up with a dozen other drinks I’d prefer to alcohol. Basically, I would not drink alcohol in any situation. Well, other than my life was at stake for some reason, and even then, it would be with hate in my heart.
When I was in my twenties, I got so much shit for not drinking. And qusetions why. And people insisting that I just had to find the right beer. And I don’t talk about it beacuse people think it’s some kind of judment about them (which it wasn’t at the time).
It’s the same with my decision not to have children. I really thought it was no big deal and only mattered to me. I didn’t understand that it was a decision that everyone in society was allowed to comment on and argue with me about. Passionately. It had no effect on anyone other than me and my hypothetical (nonexistent) children. I was so much the sweet summer child back then. I did not realize that because I was a woman* of child-bearing age, my abilitiy/desire to spawn was fair game.
I can’t tell you how many women were upset that I did not want to have children. The basic responses were: 1. Condescension. Saying I was too young to know what I really want and I would change my mind later. 2. Guilt-tripping. Saying it was my duty to society/my parents to have children. 3. Confusion. “What do you mean you don’t want children?!” like it wasn’t a possiblitily. 4. Condemnation. Similar to the second one, but more scoldy about it. Saying I had to do it because it was my womanly-duty or some such nonsense. 5, Anger. This is the one that took me most by surprise. Many women (by the way, this was all women. Women can often be the worst with upholding the patriarchy) got angry when I said, in response to the question of if I wanted children, that no, I did not want them.
Please note. I never talked about children except when someone asked me. Why would I? I did not want them so it never occurred to me to talk about having them. It would be like me talking about buying a clarinet when I don’t play one and have no intention of doing so-why would it even be on my mind?
Anyway, the ones who got mad would accuse me of thinking they were stupid/bad/wrong for wanting children or having them. I didn’t understand that at all until decades later. Those were women who had children because they were supposed to. They were being dutiful women and upholding the social contract (in their eyes). The fact that not only did I not do that, but I was ignoring the social contract completely was what pushed them over the edge. They felt that I was breaking the (societal) law and it made them angry. They had followed the rules like a good girl; how dare I think I could get away with not doing the same?
That’s also the reason for the comments about how I should have children whether I wanted them or not because that was what women were supposed to do (I got that one from my own mother along with pressure to spawn for fifteen years). It wasn’t about me as a person–it was about the fact that I was female-shaped, so I should do things that society considered a woman’s duty.
Obviously, the societal pressures on women to perform femininity is not exactly the same as people getting upset because I don’t like the Beatles, for example, but it’s from the same sense of adhering to the societal norms. And from what is acceptable and what isn’t. The more a person deviates from the societal norm, the more they are an outcast. And, again, something like thinking people who don’t like black coffee aren’t ‘real’ coffee fans is on the lighter side of things, sure, but it’s also indicative of who gets to set the rules and norms.
It’s like when British people go on and on about putting milk in tea. That’s fine for British people, but for East Asians who are 100% lactose-intolerant, that’s pretty unfathomable. There is a thing called milk tea, but it’s not the norm or the basic tea that people in East Asia drink. So if a British person goes to East Asia, they shouldn’t expect to be served tea with milk.
It’s funny. I’m in a Discord for a trio of content creators who are British. And they’ll slag off Americans for things they don’t understand (they meaning the three British guys. One of them is partly American, but I don’t think he really considers himself American). It’s like, yeah, you wouldn’t do that over in Britain, but America is a whole different country. In fact, we fought a wor over that very belief.
What I’m saying is that in general, if someone likes something and it doesn’t affect you at all, why give them shit for liking it? And, more importantly, vice-versa. If someone doesn’t like something you do, that’s ok, too. I’ve dated people who really don’t like this (usually cishet white dudes, by the way), and I’ got dumped beacuse I didn’t like Pulp Fiction. At this point in my life, I am not having that bullshit. I like a bunch of things that very few other people like (or like in a different way), nad I’m fine with that. Someone I date has to be fine with that, too, or I don’t want to date them.
*or perceived as one.