The Truth is in the Taste

I was doing a bunch of quizzes on the BBC website and found out I may be a supertaster. According to the explanation on the website, supertasters have more tastebuds than other people and thus, react more strongly to flavors. They have an strong aversion to many foods, especially bitter ones. Well, that's me. I always suspected I might be a little weird in the tasting department, since I am the only one in my family who can't stand ketchup, coffee or durian and I'm always the only one who finds certain things bitter. My mother always said that I react so strongly to some foods because I'm fussy. I'll bite into a carrot, tell her it's bitter, she'll taste it, pronounce it normal and tell me I'm hallucinating. Apparently, she's wrong. There appears to be a scientific reason why I am the way I am. I'm also the only one who more often prefers a vinaigrette dressing over a mayonnaise-based one. Thai curries make me nauseous, and as a result, I always come across as a picky eater. A curry on rice is the equivalent of a sandwich - it's just something you eat on the run, and is available everywhere. I can't eat any curry with coconut milk in it, which is basically every freaking curry, so my choices are greatly diminished. Coconut milk in any sort of savory food makes me feel like tossing my cookies; the smell alone is almost enough to induce a stroke, but I think it's due to classical conditioning. Strangely enough, I'm okay with it in desserts. It's just when it's served over rice that I feel sick. Because of all this, I always believed that I was a fussy eater like my mother admonished. Seems that's not the case. It's just something to think about - that you can labor under a false belief for so long, it becomes truth, and it only takes empirical evidence to turn it around. Guess that applies to so many other aspects of my life. I'm tired of thinking about him, but Mr. Heartbreaker keeps springing to mind. For so long I thought he was the perfect guy for me, that he was smart, sweet, sensitive and strong. It was all just a mirage, of course. The truth was, he wasn't smart - he was wily; he wasn't sweet, he was a sweet talker; his sensitivity was a ploy, his strength a sham. I fell for him completely, I believed him so thoroughly, his lies became my truth, and I still suffer because of them.

Final thought: Never hold onto something so hard it ends up drowning you.