Why I Hate Chocolate

MAY 25

Kinda forgot about the whole food thing. The GOOD news, however, is that I inadvertently tried a cracker I had never eaten before. It was sorta plain so not particularly new, but I definitely had not eaten said cracker in the past. I actually didn’t really like it. Kinda sorta counts?

It won’t ever happen again.

I might as well take this failure as an opportunity to offer a clearer explanation of my dislike of chocolate as separate from my picky eating. Often, when I tell people about my picky eating and my disdain for chocolate, their response is something like, “How do you live?” This is usually not a concerned reaction meaning, “Are you getting the proper nutrients?” but more like, “How do you live with yourself?” Somehow I can stand myself, even as a non-chocolate eater.

So allow me to expand on that through an annotated version of a draft of a college application essay. Needless to say, I did not end up sending it:

I hate chocolate. (Now, having alienated 98.7% of college admissions officers, I decided to continue.) And that does include white chocolate which is, as some people refuse to accept, still chocolate.

       For a while, I told people that as a young child I had been allergic to chocolate and that was the root of my present-day aversion. That story is untrue. (Not only do I hate chocolate, I also lie! Take me, colleges!) I just simply hate chocolate. (Just in case they forgot.)

       I assume that only non-chocolate eaters like me are fully aware of how much a child’s life centers around chocolate. Chocolate-chip cookies were a practically constant presence in all situations so I quickly learned how to say “No, thank you.” (See, college admissions officer, I am polite and I say, “No, thank you,” rather than, "Hell no!”) Tootsie Roll Pops and M & Ms– deceptive devils (mmm, what alliteration!)  with their outsides pure fruit -flavored and their cores as chocolate as they come – were also often strewn across my path and required great vigilance to avoid. (Constant vigilance!!!)

       My parents love chocolate, all my friends love chocolate and, for most of my life, I have been the enigma, the soulless boy who senselessly rejects the chief source of sustenance. (Cause, come on, what college doesn’t want soulless, senseless students?)

       Being a chocolate hater, for all intents and purposes, should have ended me and left me friendless and alone. It really should have. Yet, somehow I have avoided that fate. (Yes, college admissions officers, I have friends.)

       The most dreaded time for chocolate haters should be the elementary school birthday celebrations when students bring in cupcakes for their classmates. Often, these are chocolate with chocolate icing which can be refused or, more embarrassingly, vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing which necessitate turning the cupcake upside down and picking at the bottom with your fingers or trying to decapitate the cupcake’s head with a plastic knife. (Really, you might as well skip over my SAT scores and just send me an acceptance letter, because nothing says, “He's a keeper” like decapitation.) Slowly, though, and miraculously, classmates began having their parents bring in cupcakes that were vanilla and vanilla. Sometimes, even, a box would open revealing a single vanilla cupcake among a sea of chocolate and the child – friend – would say, “Don’t take that one. That one’s for Dan.”

       This has continued. Only last week, a chocolatiering teacher reached beneath his three boxes of exotically produced brownies to find the Ziploc bag of four vanilla cookies he had taken the time to prepare for me. (OMG, teachers just love me) 

       Instead of fostering divisiveness, my hatred of the food only strengthened my friendships and allowed a level of trust and unity that I believe would not have otherwise existed. (I’m clearly more qualified than all the other applicants because I hate chocolate.)

       That pattern has not been limited to desserts either. Playing a solo instrument like piano is not naturally conducive to forming a community. (See what I did there? I’m a musician too!) Yet, even as the isolation of piano practice and performance has physically separated me from friends, their loyalty to me, through showing up for me at recitals or showing excitement and interest in my musical progress, has not wavered. (OMG, people just love me, LOL) That support has also encouraged me over the last few years to pursue opportunities in which I can be drawn out that seclusion, playing piano for theatre productions or accompanying vocalists and other instrumentalists. (And because hating chocolate has made me a great pianist, I can thereby service your college community.)

       Perhaps, one day, in the distant future, I will be similarly encouraged to try to enjoy a piece of something chocolate. Or perhaps not. I hear white chocolate might be a good place to start. (Hahahohoho. So witty.)

            And so, an essay on hate metamorphosizes into an essay on love. 
         College-essay appropriateness aside, before you judge a man for hating chocolate and condemn him to damnation, let me remind you of the three golden words: More. For. You.