I wrote a few days ago about my first kiss, which was also my first real taste of beer. Well, it wasn’t exactly my first first. My father used to let me taste his beer, but I think he put the equivalent of a half a shaker of salt in it to make it taste better to him. I couldn’t really taste the beer… it was more like a liquid pretzel.
As I found out that particular night at the party, beer is an acquired taste. It takes some getting used to. Actually, it take a lot of getting used to. Over the years, I have discovered that many number of things in life are an acquired taste, including me.
I often joke about this very fact. But it is true. All you have to do is ask my ex-whatevers. I was an acquired taste that slowly became a distaste. I was the caviar that was really just fish eggs there entire time.
This used to bother me a lot. In my younger days, I yearned to be liked. In high school, I just wanted to be mildly popular, instead of the guy who could have been a character on Square Pegs or who would be one of the geeks in the boy’s bathroom paying to gawk at a pair of panties in Sixteen Candles.
But I wasn’t. I later learned that I was an acquired taste. It took time to get to like me. Initially, I would put people off. But then they found out I was a pretty decent guy. Notice, I didn’t say nice. There have been times when I have not been nice.
I liken it to a bottle of wine. When you open it, the wine delights your senses. You enjoy a sip or two or even an entire glass. Then you cork it, but not well enough. Eventually oxygen seeps in and that delightful glass of wine you’ve been looking forward to enjoying all day has turned on you. You take a sip, but you’re not quite sure whats wrong. Then another and you are reviled. It’s turn to vinegar.
That would be me. It’s also been my experience with wine. The first time I had actually tried wine it tasted horrible. But my girlfriend Cassie continued to order more glasses of it, teaching me what to look for. It was an education and a process. That night, I drank a lot of wine. Too much in fact. Much of ended up in the back seat of my friend’s brand new car. The next morning I woke up with a pounding headache and wanted to die.
That pretty much describes a relationship with me. You’re not sure you’ll ever develop a taste for it, then you fall in love, drink way too much and wish you could die the next day. That my friends, is an acquired taste that leaves a lasting impression.
After the last ex-whatever decided she no longer had a taste for me, I decided to screw it. I was tired of trying to be a Baskin Robbins, always offering up 31 different flavors of me just so that someone might like one of them. Even though others seemed to like me, I didn’t like myself. I was no longer an acquired tasted, even to me.
Egads! I thought I had conquered that slippery slope before in life. Here I was, back where I started oh, so many years ago in Renton when I finally decided that I could no longer pander and cater to my family and my friends who wanted me to be something I wasn’t. I hated myself. And here I was, back on that precipice again, 30 years later.
So here it is. I finally admit it. I am an acquired taste. I’m not for everybody. Hell, I may not be for anybody. But at least I am me again and I kind of like it.
Me in a nutshell (emphasis on nut):
I make a living making stuff up in my house and having people send me checks. I play pirate in my spare time. I play guitar adequately and have a voice to match. I have a wry sense of humor and an over active imagination. I have no fear of bugs but am scared to death of snakes. I still have a fear of falling but no fear of heights. I still I don’t like rollercoasters. I have a string of failed relationships but I still believe that the next one will be happily ever after. I don’t have two nickels to rub together many times but I’m happier than most of my friends who slave away for the man. I eat way too much at times and exercise too little. I have a penchant for fine and not so fine wine but drink beer when I’m out because I’m cheap with myself. I exceed my limits regularly, but I no longer have to apologize for it. I am unapologetic about most of my life, except when I inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings. If it’s intentional, I’m not sorry. And for those of you in my past, I never was sorry. I only said I was to be liked. So there. Ha! I have horrible abandonment issues that are extremely deep seated. And I have insecurities about my own talent. I still wonder why I failed to take more risks and wonder why I took the risks I did. I don’t like horses, but they didn’t like me first. The same goes for cars. I have a fear of the water, but almost let an ex-whatever convince me to take scuba diving lessons just so she would like me. I also pretended to like Texas for the very same reason.
There. I said it. Like me if you will and I will be a loyal friend and companion forever. But I can’t go on being what I’m not. I wish I had learned this lesson long ago. I guess I should be grateful that I’ve learned it now.
Out on the Treasure Coast, looking back at the guy in the mirror who likes me best of all,
– Robb