I still watch The Daily Show on television. Actually on cable, not streaming. Which means commercials. Which means, Comedy Central being what it is, Bojack Horseman commercials. Now, a lot of my friends are big fans of the show, and I know that they’d tell me that I should watch it, if I asked them. But what I’m really looking for is the answer to a slightly different question. I want someone who would look at my tastes and my interests and have the knowledge to say if they think I would like it.

I suppose this connects to my known distaste for white elephant exchanges and my known fondness for Secret Santa exchanges. A white elephant exchange is (ideally) picking something that you think someone will enjoy, or at least I suppose think is funny. Whereas the challenge in a Secret Santa is picking the thing that you think that specific person, whom you may not know very well, will enjoy. I like getting people presents I think they’ll like, not presents I want to give them—though of course the ideal is when they’re the same.

I liked Tradefest in the Dissolve Facebook group quite a lot and wish we’d bring it back, but for all that, there is something to be said for “I think you would like this thing.” How do you choose? I mean, there’s the obvious—I’m almost never going to suggest a horror film for my mother, for example, because my mother hates horror movies. You’d have slightly better luck recommending them to me, but even there, you know, horror’s not my genre. So if you’re trying to recommend a horror movie because of my interests, you have to really know my interests.

There are two reasons to recommend something. The version that’s about you and the version that’s about the other person. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with “I love this and I want you to love this.” For one thing, some of my own most beloved books and movies were originally recommended to me because the person who loved them shares them with as many people as possible. But there is also something to be said for “you should read this because this is exactly your sort of thing.”

Partially it is a sign of trust. I trust certain people enough to know what I would enjoy—and what I wouldn’t. To tell me that something is worth my time—or not. It’s not that my time is so perfectly precious, mind you. It’s more that there are always more things, and there is always more brain space, and there are some people I really do believe know the inside of my head well enough to know if certain things will fit in there right or not. Not “you should see this because it’s interesting” or “you should see this because I want to know what you think” but “yes, you’ll like this.”

There are some people you don’t give this power to. The people who think that everyone will like what they like. The people who think that your tastes are wrong and they can fix them. The people who don’t understand why you like and dislike what you do. The people whose scope is so narrow they have nothing to add. And so forth. If you are very lucky, you start finding people who will even pause when talking about passionate feelings one way or another about something and tell you that you would feel just the opposite without your even having to ask.

If you’re looking for something I’d like, a contribution to my Patreon wouldn’t go amiss!