[Nick Zwar]

It’s always been a big mystery to me; how someone can be personally offended by a different opinion or preference. Yes, it can sting and make you want to defend, but personally offended? Why?

I have actually given this some thought in recent weeks, because I wonder too… why is that? Why does it sometimes cut deeper than it should when someone mocks the movies or music one loves? Doesn’t really make sense, does it?

I mean, just look at the tiniest niche of niches: classical film scores. Even within our niche, we have lots of different people with lots of different tastes.

But in some ways, it does make perfect sense. If you have a deep passion and love for something, then it’s often a “part” of yourself, your identity, of who you are, and when someone ridicules the music you like, it’s a bit as if they are ridiculing yourself. The more important that particular piece of music or movie is to your identity, and the more important that other person is to you, the more it might “sting” or hurt if the person outright rejects that movie or music, because it’s as if that person rejects a part of you.

That’s why it may not matter is someone somewhere dissed your favorite movie or music, but it’s much worse when it’s a loved one close to you, or somebody you would like to be close to.

Some people are more sensitive or more “affected” by this than others. I think the key is to “reframe” the situation for yourself, because even if it feels like the other person may reject you, it may not really be a case. I like lots of people whose music taste I find atrocious. That doesn’t mean I reject them as a person. But when you tell someone “I love this film score” or “that movie scene moves me to tears” and others shrug it off as “sentimental kitsch” or hokum, then it’s as if one way of a possible connection has been lost or cut, and we generally look for these connections to other people.