Preferences As a Way of Life

I used to think preferences were the little things: favorite food, color, a restaurant, coffee or tea, beach or mountains, morning person or night owl. Just simple choices that didn’t really mean much. But I have gotten older and I have started to realize that our preferences actually say a lot about how we want to experience life. The story of what makes us feel comfortable in this life.

Some people love being in a crowded room. They walk into a party and immediately start talking to everyone. Other people walk into that same room and are already looking for the nearest exit. Some people love constant communication and want to talk throughout the day, while others need a little space and might take three business days to respond to a simple “Hey, what are you doing?” Some people love making spontaneous plans, while others need a calendar invite, a backup plan, and maybe even a weather report before agreeing to leave the house.

None of these people are wrong, we all experience comfort differently. I for one think relationships become a lot easier when we stop treating people’s preferences like character flaws. Wanting quiet doesn’t automatically mean you are antisocial. Wanting adventure doesn’t automatically mean you are irresponsible. Needing alone time doesn’t mean you don’t care about the people around you. And wanting reassurance doesn’t automatically make someone needy. Sometimes people simply need different things to feel secure, happy, connected, or at peace. Am not saying being antisocial and needy are bad things. I am saying it is okay to just be you.

We spend so much time trying to convince other people to want what we want that we sometimes forget something really important: compatibility doesn’t mean being the same. I don’t need someone who likes everything I like. Honestly, that sounds exhausting. I want people in my life who can understand why something matters to me even if it doesn’t matter to them. I want to be able to say, “This is important to me,” and have them respect that without needing to feel the exact same way.

I think getting older makes us a little more comfortable with our preferences because we finally realize how exhausting it is to constantly perform for approval. You start choosing restaurants because you actually like the food instead of because they look good in pictures. You stop going to every event just because you were invited because you realize that sometimes “I don’t want to go” is a perfectly good reason. You stop forcing friendships that only exist because you’ve known someone for ten years. You stop dating people simply because they look good on paper and start paying attention to how you actually feel when you’re around them.

At some point, you start asking yourself a different question: Does this life actually feel good to me?

Your preferences start becoming less about being picky and more about building a life that feels like your own. You begin noticing the kinds of people you enjoy being around, the environments where you feel most comfortable, the things that give you energy and the things that quietly drain it. You become more honest about what works for you and what doesn’t.

For me that’s one of the best parts of adulthood. “I prefer it this way,” is enough.