Why do some people have Taco Tuesday or Pot Roast Thursday? Why will people only drink beer if it’s Bud Light? Why will people watch a movie from their video library for the 18th time instead of watching a new movie? Why do classic rock channels exist and thrive on the radio?
I suppose I understand why kids watch the same video and get read the same books over and over and over again. Why aren’t adults more well rounded and open to new experiences.
This is the only life you get, I just don’t get why adults will voluntarily ingest the same old same old instead of grasping everything life has to offer (within your budget). Everybody around me is a stick in the freaking mud.
What a limited world some people live in. It’s not only not understandable but it’s actually off-putting. I would never date or marry anyone that wasn’t open to life.
Please help me understand the appeal of an extraordinary safe life.
You’re making the inherent assumption that, given the knowledge that a person does one activity repeatedly, that person doesn’t engage in other new and innovative activities. That person who does Taco Tuesday may spend every Wednesday making previously unknown foods combining the best of Ethiopian and French cuisine, but also happens to really like tacos.
Takes some of the guesswork out of life. I don’t do “Taco Tuesdays” but I can understand why a busy family would.
We are habits of creature. Some people cling to their habits more than others, but we all to some degree are running on automatic most of the time. We get variety the we need to keep life interesting in different ways, too. While one person gets their thrill from eclectic foods, another person might get theirs from a diverse wardrobe, playlist, or travel experiences.
Right, structure and routines have value; if some aspects of your life are safe and/or predictable, that’s something else you need not actively worry about and it actually frees you to explore in other areas, while giving you some steady points of reference. It is good to venture out of the comfort zone and to keep it from creeping up and taking over your life. However it is very much outside the norm to not have a comfort zone.
Also, Taco Tuesday, Beer Wednesday or the vacation to the same lodge in the mountains every July, may not be in fact about the food or the woods but about bringing the gang together. The repeat enjoying of the same movie/book/music may be about rekindling the memory of what it felt the first time, about always finding a new thing in every revisit, or just about the delight in some passage that really works for you.
From the OP:
The appeal of an extraordinarily safe life is it’s extraordinarily safe. It has serious minuses as well, but I will not deny that is an attraction. Because the world can be extraordinarily UNsafe. I cannot blame or fault someone for that.
Neither the OP nor I are compelled to date or marry that person, anyway.
I’m a creature of habit and routine. I like to know what I’m going to eat for dinner throughout the entire week when I do my grocery shopping on Sunday.
If I don’t do this, I will obsess. I don’t want to obsess; it just happens. I can tell myself “It’s just food! Stop thinking about what you’re going to eat for dinner and just focus on your work, dammit!” but it doesn’t work. So, to alleviate the unnecessary noise in my head, I plan my meals way in advance. I don’t keep the same roster week after week, but once I’ve decided I’m going to eat tacos on Tuesday, nothing short of the end of the world is going to make me change my mind.
I eat the same thing for lunch every day, though. My coworkers never let up about it, so sometimes I avoid the breakroom so I don’t have to hear “You’re eating that again?!” Why don’t I mix things up? Because frankly my mid-day meal isn’t that important to me for me to spend time coming up with creative concoctions. I also don’t like going out for lunch because I always end up spending way too much. I was a lot heavier and poorer back in the days when I ate different meals every day.
But I enjoy eating out. Every month, I try to go to a new restaurant. And over the past few months, I’ve been experimenting more in the kitchen. So I’m not as boring as I may appear.
Huh? It’s natural to repeat things you like. It’s great to look forward to things you like. Like the chili that I’ll be making later today. I trust it. It’s gonna be great.
For instance, I’ve tried MANY chili recipies. This happens to be the one I like. I KNOW it’s going to be good.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t try new things. Made a new soup last week that is gonna be a staple around this house for years to come.
But, I don’t want to be in an experimental mode all the time.
Frankly, I don’t understand people that don’t re-watch a movie they like or read a book they loved. It’s like home-cooking.
Date? MARRY?? There are seven BILLION people in the world, each one with a set of experiences and a personality that are completely unique! Why on earth would you ever want to spend time with the same person twice, let alone decide that you want to spend your whole life with just one of them?
Most people have a comfort zone; that is, a certain sphere of activities, experiences, environments, geographic locations, places that are familiar and good to them.
But some people are willing to expand this comfort zone, or, view it as a staging base of operations, if you will. They are willing to travel, sightsee, explore, do, adventure, and take risks, to expand their circle of experience. Or, at the least, they will do all of those activities and take all of those risks, while still having this comfortable home base of operations to return to. So let’s say they like to live a 50-50 life; that is, 50% familiar, comfortable, nice, and well-known life, and 50% new, unfamiliar, risky, challenging, bold life.
Other people, however, prefer not to stray out of their comfort zone, and this is especially true of older people who have already experienced much and may have less energy. They may live a 90-10 life - that is, 90% familiar, comfortable, nice, and well-known life, and 10% new, unfamiliar, risky, challenging, bold life.
If you like tacos then why not eat tacos? Do what you enjoy in life. If you enjoy doing things you’ve done before, do them again. If you enjoy doing new things, then do new things.
The OP may find it limiting to repeat things. But other people would find it limiting to only like new things.
Let’s see… I have had pretty much the same breakfast every day for nearly 45 years… wow, creature of habit.
On the other hand, for lunch and dinner I am thrilled to try new foods and cuisines, and every year I make a point to grow in my garden and learn to use one new-to-me vegetable. Oh, the life of adventure!
I guess I like a mix of predictability and new things. I’m open to new stuff, I just want to continue to enjoy some of the old stuff I like, too. (Like classic rock, favorite movies and books, and so forth.)
Speaking to the food part, food is about comfort to a lot of people, and comfort is about the known. I’m a pretty adventurous eater (I think!), but I also have favorites I come back to again and again.
Same with books and other media. Sometimes I don’t want to expend the mental and emotional capital necessary to get into a new book or film, I just want to throw on a season of Good Eats that I’ve already seen 20 times, or open Dune to a random page, and veg out awhile.
I’ve met people who are constantly, tirelessly in search of the new and novel, and it just sounds exhausting to me.
Of course a person will have favorites and will go back to those favorites time and time again. My biggest beef are the people who will not even try a beer other than Lite. Those people who go to a restaurant and always order the same thing. Those people that dismiss a genre of movie or music immediately out of hand due to…who the hell knows why.
Personally I’ve never had had a movie library. I might really enjoy a movie, but I’m OK stumbling across it again on television at some unknown future date rather than having it at my fingertips. Stumbling across is (for me) infinitely more pleasurable than planning for it ahead. Kinda like Sex.
I overhear these people at work who are my peers, both in age and similarities in upbringing. I just can’t help but wonder how they got so stuck.
People tend to be more adventuresome in their youth. Not just because they want new experiences, but because kids are more likely to want to be seen as the type of person who is open to new experiences. So they’re willing to swallow down horrible food and drink and consume crappy entertainment because at least everyone will think they’re awesome for being so open-minded and COOL.
But eventually, a person becomes more comfortable in their identity and doesn’t care so much how “lame” they look. Maximizing their comfort and pleasure levels in their limited leisure time becomes more important to them than being perceived as well-rounded and “interesting”.
I’m the type of person who orders the same dish at my favorite restaurants. But it’s a different dish for each restaurant. Is this a boring strategy? Maybe. But instead of working my way down the menu of just a handful of places, I’ve been able to survey a whole bunch of them.
When I’m bored, I’ll click on random movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime. The movie has ten minutes to pull me in. If it doesn’t, I’m turning it off and finding something else to do. Why? Because I don’t care about being the type of person who watches movies that are hard to get into. Maybe one day, I won’t even be motivated to click on random movies.
Some people have a higher need for familiarity than others, just like some folks need more sleep or more stimulation or more attention/social interaction. Those folks know what they know and like and mainly stick with that. Some people have a huge aversion to potentially wasting money on something they turn out to hate and won’t consume. Those folks will usually try a sip or bite of someone else’s beer/dinner or borrow a book/movie/album and make future buying decisions accordingly. Some people have tried genres of stuff in the past and uniformly hated it, so they see no need to keep subjecting themselves to things they’re almost sure to hate.
I tend to fall into the latter category to some extent. I don’t like hoppy beers, or movies where the main attraction is that the explosion sequences are so fucking COOOL!, or rap or electronica, or relentlessly grim novels that are basically emotional torture porn, or any food that tastes of cilantro, raw tomato, celery, or anise. I’ve tried these genres of things, I don’t enjoy them (at best, some of them I just fucking hate with the fire of a thousand suns) and I’m okay with dismissing them out of hand. It sets certain limits on my possible new experiences, sure, but everybody has self-imposed limitations in their possible experiences.
People who refuse to try recreational drugs are limiting their possible experiences. People who refuse to learn to [insert craft I’ve offered to teach people that they won’t try because they won’t be good at it] are limiting their possible experiences. People who won’t keep pets, or have kids, or live in the city, or live in the country, are limiting their possible experiences. We’re all limiting ourselves, all the time, you included. It’s just that other people draw their limits in different places than you do.
This kind of describes me. When I go to restaurants, usually I will order a dish that I know I will enjoy, because taking the chance on getting something mediocre rarely seems worth it to me. Experimenting with food sounds good in theory, but when I’m hungry, I just want the known and familiar. Eating with others provides me enough opportunity to gain exposure to other dishes on the menu.
It’s the same way with music. Left to my own devices, I’m pretty content listening to the same artists and genres; it is not my style to browse spotify just for the sake of finding new favorites. But when friends or family recommend a new artist or song, I will readily give them a try. And in turn, I try to share my own discoveries with others in my circle.
My need for variety is most apparent at work, not in my home life. The desire for newness fuels my innovativeness, which keeps me creating projects and staying busy. A tradeoff of this is that I don’t spend a lot of time planning new and adventurous vacations and weekend excursions. This probably something I need to improve upon.
