Acquired Taste

Pole dancing classes on a Tuesday morning.

Olives.

Abstract art galleries.

All of these have one thing in common. They are pursued by people with an acquired taste for each one. Not in a literal sense, wherein some of us love the taste of an abstract art gallery (whatever that means). But in a metaphorical sense.

An acquired taste is “one that is unpleasant on immediate experience or is likeable only after being experienced repeatedly.”

People often refer to things that are ‘an acquired taste’ as if it is a bad thing. Understanding the meaning, I’m not too sure why that is. Isn’t there something interesting about only enjoying a type of food or hobby once you have developed a personal taste for it? It almost adds a sense of entitlement.’

We don’t tend to think about it too much, but every little thing we do is an acquired taste in some way. In my family, though we share inevitable similarities, we are each pursuing completely different careers to pursue our own tastes. I’ve never been too great at maths, whereas I have always loved writing and the artsy-fartsy (as my dad would call it) subjects at school. For example, drama was my favourite subject during most of high school. Must I say more?

People who don’t share your acquired taste might not always understand it. They’ll question why you like reading or writing, and you’ll question why they like formulas and numbers.

We simply question what we don’t understand. Yet, imagine how boring the world would be if we all simply loved the same things and agreed on everything being to our taste? It’s perhaps a little more intriguing that we have different tastes in essentially every aspect of our lives, some more acquired than others.

Different tastes in food, music, love interests. You name it.

Though it can be a wonderful thing when you share such tastes with others, some of us are particularly fussier. A specific example would be Cher’s acquired taste in love interests in the film, ‘Clueless’.

“You see how picky I am about my shoes and they only go on my feet.”

Part of me wishes that we could put our acquired food tastes on our resume. In an interview, I feel that it would be partly relevant to address that I have managed to acquire a taste for anchovies: a food that I detested in my younger years. This shows how adaptable and open-minded I am *cue cheesy smile freeze-frame*. In the hypothetical situation that this method would not work in a follow-up interview, you could always just question why the interviewer isn’t open-minded towards salty tinned fish and perhaps ask if this reflects their lack of open-mindedness in general. You could then dramatically defame him/her as a close-minded racist, sexist or anchovie…ist.

Take your pick: based on your acquired taste, of course.

[Please detect sarcasm and don’t defame strangers who hate anchovies]