The Trouble with Tastes Why Your Likes and Dislikes Are Not Universal Laws

 The Trouble with Tastes

Why Your Likes and Dislikes Are Not Universal Laws

 

"I like my black coffee without sugar," said Ravi.

Vivek shuddered. "Coffee without milk and sugar? I can't imagine drinking that."

"I love eating street food in a crowded market," said Swetha.

Anitha wrinkled her nose. "I can't stand those flies, the crowd, the noise. No thank you."

Sound familiar?

These small exchanges happen around us every day. At lunch tables. In office break rooms. Among friends and family. Someone shares a preference. Another person reacts as if it is a personal offense.

The Simple Truth

You like what you like. Others like what they like. There is nothing wrong with either. The trouble does not begin with having preferences. It begins the moment we start commenting on someone else's.

·       "How can you drink that?"

·       "You eat there? With all those people?"

·       "I don't understand how anyone enjoys this."

These may sound like harmless opinions. But beneath them lies a quiet expectation: You should like what I like. You should dislike what I dislike.

The Invisible Boundary

When we expect others to live within the boundaries of our tastes, we are doing more than expressing an opinion. We are demanding that they shrink themselves to fit our comfort zone.

Black coffee without sugar is not a crime. Street food in a crowded market is not a character flaw. They are simply preferences—shaped by upbringing, culture, experience, or pure instinct. Commenting on them as if they are wrong is not just unnecessary. It is a breach of someone else's right to choose.

What Respect Really Means

Respecting someone does not mean sharing their tastes. It means accepting that their tastes exist—and that they have every right to them.

You do not have to love street food. You do not have to drink black coffee. But you do have to let others love what they love without making them feel small for it.

 

 

Because here is the truth no one tells you:

The respect you give to someone else's preferences is the respect you protect for your own.

When you accept that others see the world differently, you create space for them to accept you too. When you force your boundaries onto them, you invite the same treatment in return.

The Choice

Every day, in a hundred small ways, we face this choice:

Do we react with judgment or respond with acceptance?

A black coffee. A crowded market. A thousand other preferences we do not understand.

They are not threats. They are not wrong. They are just different.                                                                                                

And different, most of the time, is perfectly okay.

M.L. Narendra Kumar