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As a compulsive, I have the problem of liking too many things. I don’t drink coffee because in a month I’ll be neck deep in forums about the proper way to grind beans. I don’t own an aquarium because I’ll be obsessively learning about perfect water pH for the most exotic fish. I don’t drink hot tea because I’ll be studying growth patterns and how seasonality affects leaves and their flavor. I don’t drink beer because I’d be sucked into learning how to craft my own.

I appreciate that it’s useful to have an open mind about your tastes and preferences, but each rabbit hole I stumble into is far deeper than the time I have available to explore. So for me, i have to find reasons to dislike things to protect my time and my existing obsessions.

I had something of a semi-intentional palate reset in my early twenties.

I had been a super picky eater basically my entire life, and getting me to try new foods was like pulling teeth. Then I spent a couple weeks traveling around Japan with some friends. I think it was in part genuinely wanting to immerse myself in the culture and in part not wanting to make myself appear fussy or annoying to a girl we were traveling with, but I forced myself to try things I would never have eaten state side. I found myself by the end of the trip actually pushing myself to try things... Even perhaps a little too far as the Takoyaki triggered my shellfish allergy. Nothing a bunch of Benadryl couldn't solve.

I'd come to Japan a picky eater though and left an adventurous one. I will at least try just about anything once.

This is something which twenty years later my parents still don't accept. "Oh, I thought you didn't eat salad" when I am halfway through my salad.

Mind you there are still things I did not like before that I still do not like. Ketchup tops the list.

Something my middle-class British upbringing nurtured in me was incredible pessimism. Day to day this used to manifest as an assumption that I wouldn’t like any new experience, so I’d avoid them and stick to what I knew. My (American) wife pointed this out to me and life got much better when I learned to just give new things an enthusiastic and unprejudiced try more often.

I remember feeling vaguely threatened by interests that I didn't understand growing up. At one point for instance, my friend was really into anime, and I felt like it's too weird, like you'd need to be a very different kind of person to enjoy that kind of thing. Years later I decided to try it though, and still I have a bit of an aversion to a lot of the tropes of most anime, but there are also quite a few gems in there that I would've missed. I'm reminded of this often because it's common that people just have a blanket "I don't watch cartoons" attitude. I try to remember this when I have an aversion to some kind of music, literature, movie or hobby.

I‘m wondering why nobody has brought up the term "acquired taste" yet. Such a beautiful expression, sadly I can’t find a good translation in most other languages.

Many things need to be understood to be appreciated.

For instance music: we tend to like what we know, and what we know is what we hear on the radio/everywhere we go. When people tell me they don't like jazz, I always find a jazz song they like. If they say they don't like rap music, I can always find one they like. Why? Maybe because it's closer to what they already understand (making it more accessible), or maybe it has been very popular and so they've already heard it countless times (in night clubs, on the radio, ...). Most people who dislike a whole music genre generally don't really understand it and haven't put any effort into it.

You don't like churches? Go to Notre-Dame in Paris, and have someone explain to you its architecture. How they built it, how you can date the parts of the church just from its architecture.

Don't get me wrong: it's possible to dislike stuff, and it's alright. But it's worth trying to understand before disliking.

I regularly listen to music that I would have sneered at, when I was younger.

I don't feel the need to blast it to the world, though. I have learned that music and art tastes are extremely personal, and that not wearing them on my sleeve, gives me the freedom to just like what I like.

I really enjoy being adventurous; especially in food. It took over twenty years of repeatedly going to Tokyo, to finally land something I Just. Couldn't. Eat. (Undercooked chicken)[0].

I also have learned that "Things are cliché for a reason."[1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVRylssdu-o

[1] https://littlegreenviper.com/the-road-most-traveled-by/

When I was in sixth grade I was given an assignment: pick a food you don't like, eat it at least once a day for a week, and then report your experience. Funnily enough, by the end of the week I didn't hate tomatoes anymore.

I applied that lesson to many other things since then and it works far more often than it fails.

One aspect of trying something new is also separating the thing itself from the culture who form around it.

Sometimes the people around it are not to you’re liking, and it’s easy for that feeling to spill over into your perception, and you miss out on enjoying something you would have liked otherwise. Some examples with strong cultures: wine snobs, country music, and sci-fi nerds. If you don’t see yourself as one of “those people”, you could miss out on something you might otherwise enjoy.

I tried salted licorice. Granted, I don’t really like sweet licorice, or anise, or fennel, or any of the liquors that use that flavoring, but I tolerate them. The salted licorice was the worst thing I’d ever tasted.

So I bought a whole bag of it and ate a piece every day or so. After a week, I wasn’t cringing as much. After two or three weeks I started craving it. By the end of the month, I liked it. I don’t love it, but I did buy another bag when that one was done. And yes I know the health risks, but I’m never going to be eating a bag or two a day.

The weirdest, though, was cilantro. I’m in the genetic group that thinks it tastes soapy. And yet, after trying it enough, I love it.

This particular approach, intelligently applied, ultimately leads to a kind of freedom. Most of our preferences are simple conditioning, prejudices really, and only serve to constrain optionality.

Excessive rigidity is an early death.

> On planes, the captain will often invite you to, “sit back and enjoy the ride”. This is confusing. Enjoy the ride? Enjoy being trapped in a pressurized tube and jostled by all the passengers lining up to relieve themselves because your company decided to cram in a few more seats instead of having an adequate number of toilets? Aren’t flights supposed to be endured?

Wait, is liking to fly actually that unusual?

I hated natto (fermented soy beans) but I knew how beneficial it was to my health ,plus it's very affordable. Forced myself to eat it everyday for a week and now I love it. Staple of my diet

"Taste" is such a funny concept:

- A few weeks ago I looked up some music from my youth: Korn, Deftones, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Mudvayne, Slayer, Testament, Iced Earth. I played much of this to death back in the day. And ... I found I don't really care for much for most of it now. I also no longer care much for the "Trash metal classics" I liked at the time such as Testament, Slayer, and Iced Earth.

- I did like Papa Roach's Infest album though. I have no idea why I like that one now and not the other nu-metal type stuff that I liked back then.

- There are many things I "should" like because they're adjacent to things I do like, but that I nonetheless don't like. Sometimes I can find reasons for this. Often I can't. Deep Purple's Made in Japan is one of the best albums ever created and I will punch anyone who says any different into paralysis. Yet I don't care much for most other Deep Purple albums. This makes no sense to me.

- For a while I was really into prog rock. There are still tons of prog rock stuff I like, but also ... tons that I liked ~15 years ago but care much for any more.

- For years I didn't like wine (red or white). I really wanted like wine and I tried many times, but I just didn't like it. Then I didn't try for a few years and a friend brought some wine over for dinner and tried out of politeness, and ... I liked it! I've had tons of (red) wine since, and never had a bottle I strongly disliked.

- When I stayed at a hotel in England years ago I got a few of those little plastic jam containers for toast, which included Marmite. I didn't really know what this "Marmite" thing was. Instant regret ensued, much to the amusement of my girlfriend. Being Dutch I do like salty liquorice, which is similar in a way I suppose. Yet I dislike Marmite (without being aware that it's controversial).

I don't really have a deeper point; just some observations I guess. Cultural and psychological factors absolutely play a role, but I also think it's just a matter of different people being different, and people just changing over the years.x

I also think it's okay to dislike things as long as you're not a dick about it.

I like this post.

What I find a practical, related advice is “If you want to get good at something, you have to make yourself glad that you’re doing it.”

This involves reminding yourself why it is that you want to get better at it, perceiving the process of learning as an interesting challenge, and in general generating interest.

There is a lot of creativity in how you actually do this. It is a skill in itself, and a very useful one, especially for skills where you find yourself lacking patience and motivation.

This was a great read. I find myself becoming the grumpy complainer as I age, but as the post says, the torture is mostly in my head. It's good to keep that in mind; I can't always control my environment, but I can always control how I experience it.

I also enjoyed the writing style, and wandered onto another post. First sentence:

> I’ve always seen cathedrals as presenting a kind of implicit argument to atheists. Something like: God must exist, because otherwise it would have been insane for people to build [a cathedral]

This is my new favourite writer

> Sometimes we dislike things simply because we have a concept of ourselves as not liking them.

Astute!

I make it a point to retry foods I "don't like" at least once a year to confirm if I still don't like them. More often than not, that experience alone gets me to like the thing. Liking things is more fun than not liking things. Why wouldn't I want to move as many things as I can in my life from the dislike bucket to the like bucket?

You can do this with flavors or pain sensations by focusing on the feeling. You can also meditate on it then learn to mentally subtract it entirely, realizing that the experience is just an experience mediated in your system. Learn about how the mind flips and reverses and fills in vision from retina.

I see two (really just one) reasons to try to learn to like something you currently don't.

The first one, and the only real one, is to get closer to other people. Someone you like, who you want to understand, and maybe more like. Someone it's worth becoming at least a slightly different person for, in terms of how you approach the world.

The second reason is boredom. It's actually just the first reason in disguise.

But this is why recommendation algorithms and culture-related ads can be so viscerally offensive. "Hello kids! Want to be more like Spotify's ideal of the perfect music consumer?" and the answer of actual kids is often yes, because they think other kids will say yes too, and they'd be too lonely only liking things no one else likes.

What's wrong with liking Oasis?!

I have long been telling people the story of how I taught myself to like tomatoes. It really worked. I have loved tomatoes since that fateful day when I was about 17.

Until then, I would bite something with tomato already anticipating that I wouldn't like it. To teach myself, I would imagine the feeling I had before biting in to something I really liked, and I would think "Yummy! I can't wait to bite this yummy tomato!".

Something’s I’ve noticed are better in a context; or similarly, I choose not to like them because time / my life has gone a different way.

Like I like going to state fairs, and I like country music in that context, even if I wouldn’t choose to put it on the radio at home. I don’t watch snarky reality tv like the real housewives, but I might enjoy it surrounded by my snarky gay friends or put another way - if people I like like like something I can appreciate it with them.

Cross cultural experiences when traveling fit into this category too. Lots of things I wouldn’t sort of pursue in my own but leave fond memories with strong emotional resonance in retrospect.

I do this often with music - typically there is a single song from an album that I love - so, I try and place the entire album onto my device and then listen to it as a cohesive whole. Often, I end-up with 2-3 more songs that go into my regular rotation.

If you want to learn to like country music, listen to Margo Price, not Garth Brooks.

since you mentioned spinach in your post in point 2, i wanna add that try eating palak paneer once. you'll fall in love with spinach after that

Yes! This is underrated and something I work on with my kids, because it really is a pillar of good living. For me it's been everything from many foods, to basketball, to hiking, to art museums, and maybe someday I'll even tolerate musicals.

Or take someone you don't like and try to like him or her. This is hard

Michael Jackson was an unfortunate example to choose.

Actively trying to like something is already a sign that you don't like it intrinsically. Continuing to try strikes me as...some expression of over-socialization. It's okay to pursue things you actually like for your own sake.

hōrensō no ohitashi, made from some exotic vegetable I’ve never seen before.

That's spinach

As stated in the article is the absolute last thing I would ever do in my personal imediate and intimate space, but for education ,work, public and customer facing parts of my life,doing just what is stated has been a game changer for getting things done, AND, I cant stress enough, enjoying the things I do for myself in my personal time and space as the contrast seems to energise everything.

An old bit in Harper's Index quoted that the average number of time you have to taste something you have an aversion to and develop a taste for it is 12. Like most statistics in Harper's Index, the veracity of that number is questionable and amusing. However, the idea that you might just need to try more than you think is what's thought provoking about citing this probably fallacious statistic. (Harper's Index was basically a nicely arranged list of thought-provoking cited statistics you weren't supposed to take at face value, arranged in a way to create a narrative arc.)

Another piece I read on this topic was aimed at foodies. The thrust was basically: "You're trying to broaden your horizons by trying different obscure dishes from other cuisines. Why not revisit the foods you hated as a child? I used to hate eggplant and thought it was slimy and now I love eggplant."

There's something compelling, in matters of taste, about addressing a huge blind spot you have been avoiding tackling instead of hyper-specializing in your chosen niche.

Almost all TV is, in fact, bad.

keep an open mind esp if it challenges your biases and as you age, and sometimes it worth being “just ok” with something if it’s a group context?

The hardcore version: "Embrace the Suck".[1] That's by a Navy SEAL. Those guys are chosen for not giving up. This guy may go a little too far in that direction.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Embrace-Suck-Navy-SEAL-Extraordinary/...

I do this with music. I like to pick a genre I haven't gotten into, find an essentials chart for it, and then listen to an album.

This is how I fell in love with alternative country, power pop, r&B, drum & bass, and so on.

Or don't, and cultivate taste, which is about having a rationale for separating the good from the bad -- and disliking stuff. It might not make you popular at parties though.

I needed to read this today. This person writes really well. Thank you for sharing this, OP!

Listen, I am 30 now. Not too old, still missing plenty of experiences in life. But I know what stuff I do not like, and I won't force myself to try and like them.

I hate sports, I tried liking it, did not work out (heh pun intended).

I hate cooking, I try it every other day, I will never like it.

Its okay not to like things.

Imagine people in politics adopt this mindset? The world would be a much more tolerable place.

“While you can’t always control your situation, you have tremendous power over how you experience that situation. You may find a cramped flight to be a torture. But the torture happens inside your head. Some people like your situation. You too, perhaps could like it.”

Or like the Russians say, "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."

No one is proposing a list that is tailored to the HN audience? That people should try to like? Here's a start:

- Ads

- Regulations

- Trump

- The EU

- Social Media

- Musk

- AI

- Venture Capital

- Unions

- Peter Thiel

- China

- Cryptocurrency

- The United States

- Zuck

- Taxes

- Big Tech

- Recommendation Algorithms

- Billionaires

- Google Search

IMO it's a good sign if you can think of something to appreciate in all of these things, even if you can't bring yourself to like them. To appreciate them is to understand them at a deeper level, since it's all too easy to hate things you don't understand.

I use a Mac for work. I've gone from "eww God no" to, "Meh, it is fine minus the keyboard."

That is about how all these exercises have gone for me over the years. It becomes tolerable at best. Still hate it at worst.