I Don't Have A Favorite
except for you, sweetie
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
"What's your favorite football team?" someone asked the call-in show host. Only moments earlier he had queried someone about their favorite band.
That got me thinking. Personally, I couldn't answer either question.
"What's your favorite... team ...song ...movie ...Britney Spears body part." I might have overall favorites -- a general group of things I prefer -- but rarely do I have any number one, absolute, all-time favorite of anything. Ask me what my favorite of something is and I might be able to come up with a list of things from that category. But one single thing to rule them all? Forget it. This ain't Highlander. There can be more than one.
Favorites are a ridiculous shorthand people use to ascertain who you are, as if such trivia reveals your essential being. They're a slightly better disguised, but no more accurate, version of, "What's your sign?"
I've heard instances of people saying, "I could never promote so-and-so, his favorite film is Blooble-Fitzer!" What foolishness. If a gypsy found so little information floating at the bottom of her tea cup, she'd never hazard a fortune. Until you know why Blooble-Fitzer is his favorite film, and what that why means to him, you haven't begun to scratch the surface. Yet people make major decisions on even less.
The only thing more delusional than thinking you know everything about a person from knowing the title of their favorite film is imagining corresponding favorites mean you were separated at birth.
As a child, I'd always feel obligated to answer demands for a favorite, even if I had to make one up, and an explanation for it, on the spot. Fortunately -- unfortunately? -- I had the imagination to fulfill the compulsion. At least as an adult, I can now say, "I don't have one."
People look at me strangely for not having a favorite, as if they just noticed my third eye, or that the extra arm sticking out of my back is waving at them. By not having a favorite, I've suddenly fallen off the map they were trying to pin me in to. I'm an unknown quantity, possibly of alien origin, and best avoided.
Thus even the unknown quantity becomes "known" and labeled. Even when the answer comes back blank, people find a way to categorize and file you away. Being right is irrelevant; the fleeting comfort of knowing is everything. Once the disquieting mystery that was you is removed, their life can continue serenely and obliviously on.
That got me thinking. Personally, I couldn't answer either question.
"What's your favorite... team ...song ...movie ...Britney Spears body part." I might have overall favorites -- a general group of things I prefer -- but rarely do I have any number one, absolute, all-time favorite of anything. Ask me what my favorite of something is and I might be able to come up with a list of things from that category. But one single thing to rule them all? Forget it. This ain't Highlander. There can be more than one.
Favorites are a ridiculous shorthand people use to ascertain who you are, as if such trivia reveals your essential being. They're a slightly better disguised, but no more accurate, version of, "What's your sign?"
I've heard instances of people saying, "I could never promote so-and-so, his favorite film is Blooble-Fitzer!" What foolishness. If a gypsy found so little information floating at the bottom of her tea cup, she'd never hazard a fortune. Until you know why Blooble-Fitzer is his favorite film, and what that why means to him, you haven't begun to scratch the surface. Yet people make major decisions on even less.
The only thing more delusional than thinking you know everything about a person from knowing the title of their favorite film is imagining corresponding favorites mean you were separated at birth.
As a child, I'd always feel obligated to answer demands for a favorite, even if I had to make one up, and an explanation for it, on the spot. Fortunately -- unfortunately? -- I had the imagination to fulfill the compulsion. At least as an adult, I can now say, "I don't have one."
People look at me strangely for not having a favorite, as if they just noticed my third eye, or that the extra arm sticking out of my back is waving at them. By not having a favorite, I've suddenly fallen off the map they were trying to pin me in to. I'm an unknown quantity, possibly of alien origin, and best avoided.
Thus even the unknown quantity becomes "known" and labeled. Even when the answer comes back blank, people find a way to categorize and file you away. Being right is irrelevant; the fleeting comfort of knowing is everything. Once the disquieting mystery that was you is removed, their life can continue serenely and obliviously on.
"
(And the ultimate answer to, "Why aren't you married?")