I once dated a kid who listened almost entirely to ambient music. Every time I entered his car, some variation of plinking, dinging bells over a dull whir of soft noise was emanating from his speakers, creating such an intensely boring aura that it was capable of knocking me out for days. He loved those ambient tunes more than any other kind of music I threw at him; folk could not sway him, Motown made his skin crawl and twee pop actually offended his ears. He was nothing if not devoted to the genre, and I admired that sense of dedication. I would therefore humor him some and would listen to the drowsy music until consciousness failed me.
I could listen to his ambient music in an attempt to honor his particular preference. What I could not bring myself to do, however, was lie and say that I enjoyed that particular genre. What fluff! What fleeting, meaningless music! There was no message, no sentiment of personal strife or joy or anything! Ear-rotting doesn't even begin to cover it!
But that one lie could have saved me from so many heated discussions about the merits of ambient music. It could have saved me endless hours of defending my position. My calm explanations only confused him more and made him shake his head in disbelief. The offense of my inability to love the ephemeral sounds of computer-generated droning was tantamount to infidelity, a betrayal of compatibility and similarity that hurt him.
I wanted to like his music. Honestly. But I couldn't; the plinky-plunky ambient music could not grip me, and I could not deny as much. I owed it to my taste to be honest; any lie would have been a betrayal of self.
But this doesn't stop others from fabricating fancies! I have seen countless individuals lie about their taste in music, movies, art and the varied tenets of choice in order to appear more compatible or appealing to another person. Sensing that there is somehow a "right" or "wrong" set of preferences dictated by a higher cultural authority, fearful friends have launched blatant lies at unsuspecting targets to win their tasteful approval. "Oh, I love jazz. Uh, John Cold-Train, right? He's my favorite." That one kills me every time.
What they fail to realize is that it's not what your taste resembles, but the integrity of your taste that matters. How honest you are about what you love reflects an integrity and self-awareness that means so much more than a list of "cool" or culturally impressive favorites. If you truly love the smooth styles of Rod Stewart and are willing to be honest about said infatuation, then God bless you! Your virtue will not be overlooked! Your sincerity will make up for any criticism launched against you.
There will be times of temptation, of course, when the easy thing to do is lie about what you love. Barbra Streisand is actually your most-played artist on iTunes, but you'll meet a mysterious, brooding beauty whose favorite music takes the form of Brazilian guitar trios. In other words, Barbra just doesn't mesh well in this case.
But you do yourself no favors in claiming a particular liking of Brazilian guitar trios if you, in fact, know nothing about them! Instead, take a stab at honesty and admit that nothing gets you going quite like "The Way We Were" (1973). Their inability to accept this preference would indicate that they're not worth your (or Barbra's) time anyway.
Vulnerability is scary; honesty and sincerity are not humanity's strongest traits. But try, in taste, to be true to yourself, true to your loves and true to the world. It's certainly worth trying.
