So a couple weeks ago my sweetie and I got in a stupid spat about cherries. (Both our faults.) His main issue was thinking that I should treat everyone the neurotic unreasonable way I sometimes treat myself. I’m bad enough as it is, he certainly shouldn’t be encouraging me to be MORE neurotic. 😛

I was left thinking afterwards, if I knew I was being unreasonable, why was I still being that way? It took a week or two to percolate in the back of my mind to figure it out. (Another thing that drives my sweetie nuts – the knowledge is in there, but I can’t pull it out on demand for him.) I knew it couldn’t be about the cost of the cherries, I spend more time picking out good ones than we’d waste just not eating the bad ones. I think my issue is that I love cherries so much, it’s actually upsetting to have one that I can’t eat. And so to avoid the sadness/anger of that, I instead waste time and energy picking them out. Even then I was getting frustrated with the cheaper booth that had lower quality cherries and moved to one that cost twice as much, but had fewer bad ones to pick through.

So now I know why I was doing it even though I knew it was unreasonable. But really, now that I can look at the reasoning – with the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) skills I have now, I think I’m just going to do what my sweetie would suggest…. and stop it. I’m going to choose to not get upset, because it doesn’t help me any and just leads to me wasting time.

And now that I’m thinking of fruit, I’m realizing why I love cherries so much. They’re one of the few fruits that I actually prefer best raw. Strawberries are rarely sweet enough, so I need chocolate or sugar on them, or they need to be on cereal or something. Raspberries, blackberries, etc. are similar – I prefer them in pies, as toppings, with ice cream and so on. Blueberries I can eat raw, but I have to eat them in handfuls so the sweeter ones balance out all the tart ones. Or I throw them on top of stuff like I do with the cane berries. Apples I can only really eat Gala plain, and even that’s so-so, I prefer them with peanut butter or caramel. I love citrus fruits, but you have to peel them and get your hands messy (except for kumquats, but even though I love them I can only take so many at a time). Peaches & kiwi have the fuzz to remove. Melons are a hassle to cut or are drippy messy. Pineapple has too much acid so you can’t eat too much without burning your mouth raw after a while.  I don’t like the texture of papaya or mango really (they’re ok dried). Dates are another I can only enjoy a few at a time before I’m done or I’ll get sick of them and not be able to stand them for months. Dried cranberries are fine on salads and cereal.

There are probably other fruits, but really, fresh raw cherries are the best – I can happily eat a pound or more in one sitting (and have done so) – no additives or prep other than rinsing and somewhere to spit the seeds.

And really, that doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my picky eating. Unfortunately, the CBT isn’t going to work with my tongue and tastebuds. Can’t win them all!