Who Chose Your Favourite Coffee?

A while ago, I was at a café with a few friends.

The waiter came over to take our order, and without looking at the menu for more than five seconds, I said, "Can you just get me something fizzy and tangy? I don't really care what it's called." He nodded and one of my friends looked at me and said, "Yaar... you know exactly what you like. I would've just asked the waiter to recommend something."

I remember laughing and saying, "Doesn't everyone?"

Apparently not.

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Now, the mocktail wasn't life-changing. It was good, but not "I'm about to write poetry about this beverage" good. The comment, however, stayed with me. Not because it was particularly profound. Because I'd never considered that knowing what you like might actually be... rare.

The more I thought about it, the weirder it became. We've become surprisingly good at describing ourselves. I'm not sure we've become equally good at discovering ourselves.

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We know our body type.

Apple.

Pear.

Rectangle.

Hourglass.

(I still don't know who looked at human beings and thought, "You know what? Fruit." But that's a conversation for another day.)

But ask someone, "What kind of clothes make you feel the most like yourself?"

and.......Silence. Because knowing your body type and knowing your style are two completely different things. One is information. The other is self-discovery.

And maybe that's where the problem begins.

Because when you don't know what you like...someone else is always ready to tell you.

Sometimes it's a friend. Sometimes it's a trend. Sometimes it's an algorithm.

Take coffee Or... matcha for an instance.

What's with that?

Do people actually like it?

Or did we all collectively agree to keep drinking it until our taste buds eventually gave in?

(I'm kidding. Mostly.)

But it does make me wonder...How many of our preferences are actually ours...and how many did we inherit because everyone around us seemed convinced they were good?

A few days ago, I checked the IMDb rating of one of my favorite Netflix shows.

It had a 6.5. My first thought wasn't, "People have terrible taste." It was,

"Damn... if I'd seen this before watching it, I would've probably never clicked play." That thought genuinely unsettled me. Because it meant I was willing to trust thousands of strangers...

more than my own future opinion. Think about how absurd that is. I was ready to miss something I would've loved, because enough people I don't know... didn't.

And then I realized...Maybe recommendations don't just help us make decisions. Maybe, without realizing it, they've started making some of them for us. Now, before this turns into one of those "phones are ruining humanity" articles...that's not what I'm saying.

I love Google Maps because I'd genuinely like to continue surviving Bangalore without accidentally discovering three new localities every time I leave home. I ask ChatGPT ridiculous questions all the time. Spotify has introduced me to artists I'd never have discovered otherwise.

Technology has made life wonderfully convenient.

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The problem isn't recommendations. The problem is forgetting what they're actually for.

Recommendations are brilliant for helping me decide where to eat. They're brilliant for helping me choose between two headphones. They're even great at introducing me to a song I would've otherwise missed. But somewhere along the way...

I think we started expecting life to work like that too.

"What career should I choose?"

"What am I feeling?"

"What should I do?"

Or worse...

"What would you do if you were me?"

Those aren't recommendation problems. They're experience problems.

The internet became really good at answering questions. Life was always better at asking them.

That's the annoying thing about life. It refuses to spoil the ending. It won't tell you what kind of work fulfills you before you've done work that doesn't. It won't tell you what kind of people bring out the best in you before you've spent time with the wrong ones. It won't tell you your style before you've looked back at old photos and wondered what exactly possessed you to wear that.

It won't tell you your favorite coffee before you've paid ₹280 for one that tasted like regret.

Experience has terrible customer service. It takes forever. And yet...it's still undefeated.

Because every bad experience leaves behind something recommendations never can. Perspective.

A terrible movie teaches you your taste in films. A bad haircut teaches you your haircut.

An overrated restaurant teaches you what good food actually means to you.

Life wasn't just giving you experiences, it was quietly introducing you to yourself.

Maybe that's why we've become experts at avoiding disappointment. I'm just not sure we've become equally good at being surprised. Because surprise is where so much of self-discovery lives.

The café you almost didn't enter.

The book with mixed reviews that ends up changing your mind.

The song Spotify never recommended.

The conversation you didn't expect to remember.

The show with a 6.5 on IMDb that somehow becomes your favorite.

Those moments don't just give you stories.

They give you preferences. And over time...those preferences become you. Algorithms are getting astonishingly good at predicting what we'll probably like.

And honestly...that's incredible.

But there's one thing I can't stop wondering about...

If an algorithm knows what I'll probably like before I do...

When does that preference actually become mine?