Like it or not

On her first day of work, my co-worker mentioned that she loves Captain America, while showing me her Captain America belt buckle. This was exciting for me, as I am a huge Marvel Comics nerd. I went into a long schpeil about Silver Surfer, the comic I’ve been reading lately. When I stopped to take a breath, she interrupted, “Well, I’ve never actually read any comic books.”

This is very confusing for me. How can you say you like a comic book character and not have read their comic? It instantly reminded me of another co-worker who said he liked jazz. I asked, “Oh, yeah, like who?” He replied, “Well, I don’t know any of their names but my grandpa used to play old jazz records when I was a kid and I really liked those.”

Or how about this one, based on an actual conversation:
Them: “I’m a big St. Louis Cardinals fan.”
Me: “Oh, you must be excited- they are only two games back and have a chance to take the NL Central, especially since the Brewers have been playing so poorly lately.”
Them: Oh, I don’t actually follow baseball…”

If you like something, you are going to seek it out and learn as much as you can about it. Don’t tell me you love it if you don’t know anything about it. Maybe I’m just getting hung up on semantics; if she had said she “admired” or “appreciated” Captain America, I probably wouldn’t have found the statement so annoying.

I told my co-worker it sounded to me more like she liked the idea of Captain America. To demonstrate my point, I asked her which Captain America she liked. Predictably, she didn’t even know there was more than one. (Admittedly, Steve Rogers is the real Captain America, but there have been numerous others. Upon further consideration, I realize this may have been too much of a trick question and wish I had instead asked her what she thought about Bucky, which any Captain America fan would know is his sidekick.) I asked her how one can like something that they know nothing about. She abruptly ended the conversation by stating “That’s just how I am, you’ll have to get used to it.”