People Like What They Like (And That’s Just Fine)

Each life is an exercise in time travel. We inhabit a body and watch the world pass by year after year, altering our consciousness and experiences with every new circumstance and plot twist. Each decade along our journey exposes us to new and strange experiences, the latter few shot through with insights about decay and impermanence.

Mostly we don’t relish the third act of this show as much as the first (nor the images that lurch out of mirrors at us), but aging is not wholly without redemption. Time’s lessons can bring us a certain equanimity about what is important and what merely seems important. On example that has been rising in my mind a lot lately is this one: I don’t need to get worked up about what other people like and, in fact, I can take real pleasure in people who don’t like the things I like.

This seems like a banal enough observation—like, really, who cares what beer you drink or car you drive or brand of shoes you wear? Yet in a social species, affinities matter—they become heuristics we use to evaluate each other. This was more true for me as a young person, still relevant well into adulthood, and it was only when I was well into my forties that it shifted. I distinctly remember saying the words “people like what they like” and feeling something click. At the time, it was more in resignation: “People like what they like, so what can you do?” But having said it out loud, it became a challenge and then an affirmation. “People like what they like, and isn’t that fascinating?” I started seeing it more as an open door to enter rather than a warning light telling me to walk on by.

Americans are riven by differences. In the socio-political sphere, they seem intractable, largely because the stakes are so high. They are genuinely high, too, despite the tut-tutting about “polarization” as the great affliction of our time. Yet those real differences amplify fake ones, as if seeing someone behind the wheel of a Tesla or Ford F-150 actually tells us something about who they are. We can spend way too much time on heuristics, way too little time enjoying the real human beings right in front of us.

Beer creates a wonderful opportunity to dial down the energy. I recently wrote about pumpkin beers, which are absurdly “controversial.” Really? The controversy here is that some people like uncomplicated, lightly-spiced sweetish beers and others don’t like them liking them, or don’t like seeing them on store shelves, or something. The controversy is actually so insubstantial it flows like water from my hands when I try to grab onto it.

It’s been a busy week, and I started this post on Monday. By chance, Doug Velicky offered another example by posting a debate with Chris McClellan about beer fests. Much like the pumpkin debate, this is a matter of taste. Chris doesn’t like fests and Doug does. We don’t have to adjudicate whether they’re good or bad, though—go if you’re the kind of person who likes beer fests. (Some people, and I very much count myself among them, like debates, so I hope Doug continues to post his take/countertake series with Chris.)

As an older gentleman, I have discovered that it’s incredibly satisfying to not just let go of my attachment to your preferences, but take pleasure in them vicariously. I honestly don’t like black IPAs, but I recently finished an article that will appear in Craft Beer & Brewing about them. It was a real joy to investigate the style from the fan perspective. Black IPAs are a minor style, but I learned that the people who like them really like them. I still don’t like black IPAs, but I love the people who do. Beer is such a low-stakes pursuit that it’s a great kiddie pool to try out this kind of vicarious enjoyment. Hate pumpkin ale? Go find someone who loves them and take joy in their pleasure. With beer, it costs you nothing.

One final story about a far more serious case of difference: sports. Many of you who’ve seen me in real life know I’m a Red Sox fan, having married into a New England family two and a half decades ago. My chapeau tells you so. Being a member of the Red Sox fan base comes with only one true requirement: you must despise the New York Yankees. So wearing this hat is a way of not just signaling my appreciation of Rafeal Devers, but my antipathy to pinstripes. Of course this is all in good fun, right?

There’s a cool restaurant in my neighborhood, and some years ago, a server there who self-identified as a New Yorker worked there, though I believe he was born in Puerto Rico. He was a a wonderfully kind and cheerful presence and we were regulars, so we always smiled and we chatted when we came in. One day I showed up in the Red Sox cap. He had a stricken look on his face. It was as if Luke Skywalker had learned Leia was secretly working for the Empire. For about thirty seconds, this rivalry was not good fun. I could tell he was really wounded. The city of New York meant a huge amount to him, all of it very good. Anyone who could wear the “B”—well, they had to be a foe of everything good and pure like puppies and sunshine and motherhood. It took a bit of time and unpacking, but eventually we sorted things out. (It helped a lot that I wasn’t from Boston.) In the end, this connection gave us more in common because we learned that we were both baseball fans who shared this intense rivalry. We’d joke about “your team” thereafter. One year, in fact, when a mediocre Yankees team made the playoffs, I genuinely expressed support for his Yankees in a series against the Rays. Because if there’s one thing on which Boston and NY agree, it’s that Florida sucks. In the end, we enjoyed each other’s fandom more than we hated the teams we were fans of.

Anyway, moral of the story. People like what they like. On the small stuff, take pleasure in that. Take it from an elder—it’s good for the heart.