playing favorites

When you meet someone & they want to know more about you what happens?  You play a version of 20 questions.  I hate 20 questions, a lot.  Among my other issues, I don’t like ‘favorites’.  There is something inside my brain that feels bad picking favorites, so I don’t.  As you might imagine, it makes me a bad 20 question player.

What is the point?  What information does it really give the person asking the question?  While theoretically I guess it gives a stranger a place to start, do you really want to know someone who has favorites?  I don’t think I do, it seems so rigid.  It seems so black and white.  If you haven’t guessed, I play in grey.  Who has answers to all of these questions?  How can you choose one thing over the other?  Why does one choice win over the other?

Of course in my world there are exceptions.  I understand the question coffee or tea, or brands of soda.  For me coffee is a favorite because I personally hate tea.  I don’t tea, iced tea, sweet tea or anything I can think of with tea as part of the liquid.  I really don’t drink soda anymore so that is an easy one too.  I pick water (because I am a rebel like that).  But even with a ‘this or that’ question, most of the time, can’t choose.

Why would you want to choose between the beach and the lake?  I personally wouldn’t want to choose between flip flops or heels.  Apparently ‘yes’ isn’t the answer most people are looking for.  Aren’t we generally more complex than having to choose a side?  Why can’t I find happiness at the beach and the lake?  Although I adore flip flops, I will find myself wanting to throw heels on when the mood strikes?

The real painful questions are ones with too many choices.

I don’t have a favorite color or food.  I know it sounds like I can’t make up my mind but really deep down I don’t want to hurt and other color or foods feelings.

So say today, I’m feeling the color blue.  Then suddenly it’s my ‘favorite’?  What about that cool purple shade I just saw or the pink whatever I thought was adorable?  Something in my brain cannot choose blue because I feel like I’m betraying the other colors I like too.  As if suddenly I am a member of team ‘blue’ and can’t visit team brown or green.

Food, is pure hell for me.  I can easily tell you foods I don’t like but my favorite food? I just can’t do it.  There is so much to choose from, it is a personal hell to be asked about my favorite food.  So right now maybe I love pizza, what about that lobster?  That occasional steak I will have?  Chicken, a great burger?  Shrimp, cheese, the torture is unbearable.  The pressure is overwhelming.

Favorite season?  While I clearly will never choose winter, the other seasons all have attributes that I enjoy.

Favorite music?  How about another yes?  I love music, I love it so much that I can find a song in probably every genre there is that I like.  I might listen to one type of music more than others but seriously if I chose one over another it says something about me?  Who am I if I say pop, country, classical, folk or classic rock?

So seriously, ‘favorites’ are stupid.  I mean I thought you weren’t supposed to pick favorites….