Once a subset, always a subset
First let me say.... GRRRRRR! Firefox crashed when I had this post almost complete, and now it's gone. Hopefully it will be faster in the reconstruction.
Or maybe I'll just omit a bunch of excess backstory.
For so long, I've liked a subset of what everyone else likes that now I assume if I like something, everyone else must also.
This has happened with at least scents, food, and drinks. Sweet scents remind me of rotting fruit (the free layer of pavement at some times of year near my parents' house), and make me sick before long. It took me years to find scents I like, some non-sweet ones like lavendar, tea tree oil, or sandalwood. I took some of these to a massage class a couple months ago and was going to use them, when the teacher said, "no scented oils." I was rather suprised and only then realized my assumption that if they didn't bother me, they must not bother anyone else. (Actually, something like this had come up during choir last year - someone was bothered by a perfume I couldn't smell - but I didn't think about it because I wasn't the one bringing in the scent.)
Next was food. I only like a few bland American foods, and I used to like even less. People are always surprised that I don't like fish since I grew up on an island. Well, my parents never served the local food, and we never ate out, so what do you expect? I was also never much into veggies, since I associated them with nasty canned vegetables. Thus, I was sort of surprised when I found that some people are hypersensitive to certain foods, like broccoli or cilantro, which I either like or don't mind.
Most recently this happened with drinks. First rule out anything with alcohol, then anything with more than a little caffeine, and finally any soda, and you've knocked out most of the popular drinks. So, again, I figure if it doesn't bother me (with the exception of a few odd teas I like which I figure most people won't), it won't bother anybody else, but sure enough, I found someone who won't (or doesn't) drink anything at all carbonated. I figured my slightly carbonated juice mixture would be fine with everybody, but no.
Did I have some point in writing this? Hmm, good question. Maybe just becoming aware of assumptions.
Looks like I didn't leave out much backstory. Oh well. I think I still have a lot of writing to get out of my system. Maybe I miss writing fiction. I recently re-read "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov (just the short story; if I still have a copy of the novel, it's at my parents' house), something I'd vaguely remember reading when I was a kid, but Shauna actually found independently and told me about... ah, the hive mind at work again :-)
Or maybe I'll just omit a bunch of excess backstory.
For so long, I've liked a subset of what everyone else likes that now I assume if I like something, everyone else must also.
This has happened with at least scents, food, and drinks. Sweet scents remind me of rotting fruit (the free layer of pavement at some times of year near my parents' house), and make me sick before long. It took me years to find scents I like, some non-sweet ones like lavendar, tea tree oil, or sandalwood. I took some of these to a massage class a couple months ago and was going to use them, when the teacher said, "no scented oils." I was rather suprised and only then realized my assumption that if they didn't bother me, they must not bother anyone else. (Actually, something like this had come up during choir last year - someone was bothered by a perfume I couldn't smell - but I didn't think about it because I wasn't the one bringing in the scent.)
Next was food. I only like a few bland American foods, and I used to like even less. People are always surprised that I don't like fish since I grew up on an island. Well, my parents never served the local food, and we never ate out, so what do you expect? I was also never much into veggies, since I associated them with nasty canned vegetables. Thus, I was sort of surprised when I found that some people are hypersensitive to certain foods, like broccoli or cilantro, which I either like or don't mind.
Most recently this happened with drinks. First rule out anything with alcohol, then anything with more than a little caffeine, and finally any soda, and you've knocked out most of the popular drinks. So, again, I figure if it doesn't bother me (with the exception of a few odd teas I like which I figure most people won't), it won't bother anybody else, but sure enough, I found someone who won't (or doesn't) drink anything at all carbonated. I figured my slightly carbonated juice mixture would be fine with everybody, but no.
Did I have some point in writing this? Hmm, good question. Maybe just becoming aware of assumptions.
Looks like I didn't leave out much backstory. Oh well. I think I still have a lot of writing to get out of my system. Maybe I miss writing fiction. I recently re-read "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov (just the short story; if I still have a copy of the novel, it's at my parents' house), something I'd vaguely remember reading when I was a kid, but Shauna actually found independently and told me about... ah, the hive mind at work again :-)
posted by Amy at 4:54 PM
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