“What’s your favorite color?”

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Who’s your favorite artist?”

For the longest time, people have been asked for their favorite anything. It’s always been my favorite conversation starter as a kid, mostly because it let me talk about something I actually liked. Later though, as I started gathering more and more “favorites” I began to wonder: why choose?

My favorite song changes almost every week. It’s usually something I related to then, or just something I discovered that week. The same goes for my favorite TV shows, movies and food. 

Choosing a favorite just feels like picking something and staying loyal to it, even though these favorites can change with you. This also narrows your options down. You can like cakes, cupcakes and ice cream but at the end of the day you need to choose a winner.

Favorites get overridden easily, sometimes you might just discover something you like better. People say it’s okay to not know what you want to do in the future but it should also be okay to not know what you like the most. Our favorites aren’t going to be frozen in time. Maybe we should  shift from favorites to “things I like”.

And I really don’t want to hear “Oh, wasn’t your favorite…?” Yes, it probably was, but I just found something else.

 There’s just too much pressure on trying to decide something you like the best, something that could define how you view stuff and how you could view me. Maybe this is thinking too many steps ahead but picking favorites feels like a test. Maybe my favorite character could show you something I see in myself. Maybe it’s just something that entertains me. Maybe it’s just the person getting the most on-screen time.

I’m probably going to stop for a split second and wonder how much you would like my favorite too. After all, isn’t the point of this to connect? What if I pick a show at random, and realize the one I almost chose was your favorite too?

That being said, my favorite pizza topping is pineapple.