"i don't like cilantro"
A few weeks ago, my mom took me to an Asian restaurant. She ordered a soup, and after the first spoonful, she made a face I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Turns out, it had cilantro in it. And she really doesn’t like cilantro.
It made me laugh at first, but then it got me thinking. Isn’t it strange how something that tastes completely normal, even good, to one person can be almost unbearable to someone else?
And it’s not just food. The more I think about it, the more fascinating it becomes. Every person walks around with their own internal world of preferences. One person loves rainy days, another feels drained by them. Someone listens to the same song on repeat for hours, while someone else skips it after ten seconds. One person feels confident in bright colors, another hides in neutral tones. We don’t just experience the world differently, we like it differently. That idea stays with me because it feels so simple, yet people constantly forget it.
There are actual reasons behind these differences. Sometimes it’s biology. Taste, for example, can literally be wired differently (cilantro even tastes like soap to some people). Sometimes it’s a memory. Something you love might remind you of a good moment. Something you hate might be tied to a bad one. Sometimes it’s culture, environment, or just random experiences that slowly shape what feels right or wrong to you. No one wakes up and chooses their preferences like picking items from a menu. They just… develop. And yet, despite this, people are so quick to judge each other for them.
It’s everywhere. Someone gets mocked for their music taste. Someone else is told their clothing style is “weird.” People argue over movies, aesthetics, even the way someone decorates their room. There’s this quiet pressure to fit into what’s considered acceptable, popular, or “normal.”
But what does that even mean? If everyone experiences things differently, then there is no single “correct” way to like something. The hate doesn’t make sense when you think about it for more than a second. Disliking cilantro doesn’t make my mom wrong. Liking it doesn’t make someone else better. It’s just a difference. A small one, but it reflects something much bigger.
When people attack others for their preferences, they’re basically rejecting the idea that individuality exists at all. And that’s what makes the world interesting in the first place. Imagine if everyone liked the same music, wore the same clothes, watched the same movies, ate the same food. Everything would blur together. There would be nothing to discover, nothing to share, nothing to argue about in a good way. Differences create conversation, curiosity, and sometimes even connection.
So maybe instead of judging, we should just… accept it. Or at least try to understand it. Because at the end of the day, it’s not really about cilantro. It’s about the fact that everyone has their own version of what feels right to them. And that version deserves space to exist, even if we don’t personally understand it.