Funny little habits

Can’t we be fussy about small things?

The other day, I blogged about making my boss a cup of tea and how pernickety he was about how it should be brewed. But all the time we see people around us doing things in a very particular way which would never occur to me, simply because they prefer it that was.

Another example is that I drink a lot of squash during the day and not too much tea and coffee (bad for you!). Contrary to popular rumour, I am not addicted to tea and biscuits but I do enjoy them at the weekend because I don’t really indulge in the week – so now you know! My favoured fruit squash is good old fashioned Robinsons Orange Squash, the full fat one and none of this reduced sugar rubbish which simply doesn’t taste the same.

But go anywhere else, and do you know how hard it is to find someone that has a bottle of this in their cupboard? Summer fruits, barley flavoured, Morrison’s own cheap brands yes, but Robinsons – rarer than hen’s teeth. I will settle for Ribena if available, but not that nasty summer fruit stuff which tastes nothing like summer fruit and more like fruit pastilles.

But that’s just me being fussy. I fully appreciate that these nice people like the things they have in their cupboard – why else would you buy them? – and are offering them to me out of the goodness of their hearts. I do feel somewhat churlish and ungrateful when they offer them up with a big smile and I decline and say “Actually, I think I’ll just have water thanks”. Quite often, they look devastated.

You see the same behaviour patterns reflected all over the place – at work, on the trains and buses, in our hobby groups and in our friendship groups. I suppose that diversity of behaviour and the willingness to express preference is what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, who by and large within species tend to conform. When did you ever see a big cat decline a hunk of dead cow and say “actually, I prefer lamb”. Yes, I know cats can’t talk but you get the point.

Alongside this preference and occasionally when taken to extremes rigidity comes adaptability, and of course if Robinsons suddenly went out of business then I would have to drink Tesco’s own brand or whatever and get used to it. And I would; I’d moan about it for a while but I’d eventually forget what Robinson’s tasted like and get on with it. That has to be one of the reasons human beings have been great survivors; their ability to adapt.

Small children establish these patterns when toddlers, preferring to get dressed in particular ways, have their food cut up in a certain way before they will eat it, and wanting to sit in a particular chair for instance. It’s fine to indulge these preferences up to a point, but also equally important to teach them to accept things in lots of different ways to make sure that they can fit in as adults and thrive.

Maybe all I had as a child was Robinsons? Will have to see if I can find out!