I’ve been thinking a lot about preferences lately.
Not boundaries. Not dealbreakers. Not the things that make us say an unequivocal no.
Just preferences.
The restaurant you’d rather go to.
The seat you’d prefer.
The shirt you like better.
The way you’d like something done.
The plan that sounds a little more fun to you.
Small things, mostly.
And I think we sometimes make having a preference much more complicated than it needs to be.
There can be a strange amount of work involved in admitting that we want something.
We want to know whether it’s reasonable.
Whether someone else wants it more.
Whether it’s worth bringing up.
Whether we’ll seem demanding.
Whether we have a good enough reason.
Sometimes we don’t even get that far.
Someone asks what we’d like to do, and “Whatever you want” comes out before we’ve considered the question.
Someone asks where we’d like to eat, and we say we don’t care.
Someone suggests a plan, and we say, “That’s fine.”
And sometimes it really is fine.
Sometimes we genuinely don’t have a preference.
Sometimes we do have one and decide that it isn’t important enough to pursue.
Sometimes we know exactly what we’d prefer and are perfectly happy to let someone else choose.
I don’t think any of those things are failures of self-trust.
In fact, I think self-trust requires making room for all of them.
The important part is knowing which one you’re doing.
Because there is a difference between choosing to accommodate someone and automatically giving the decision away.
There is a difference between thinking, “I don’t mind”, and never checking whether you do.
There is a difference between saying, “You choose” because you genuinely don’t care and saying it because you’ve become so accustomed to accommodating other people that your own preference doesn’t even make it into the conversation.
And there is a difference between advocating for what you want and believing you should always get your way.
I think we sometimes collapse those things together.
We worry that if we admit we want something, we’re being demanding.
So we soften it.
“I mean, I’d prefer this, but it’s really not a big deal.”
“I’d like to do that, if you want.”
“I’d rather go there, but whatever works.”
Sometimes that softening is simply our personality.
Sometimes it’s kindness.
Sometimes it’s an attempt to leave room for another person’s preference.
But sometimes I wonder if we’re just trying to make our own wants as unobtrusive as possible before anyone has even responded to them.
What if we didn’t?
What if we could simply say:
“I’d prefer this.”
Not as a demand.
Not as a declaration that our preference is objectively better.
Just as information.
This is what I’d like.
Then the other person gets to respond.
Maybe they agree.
Maybe they don’t.
Maybe you find a third option.
Maybe their preference matters more to you in this particular situation, and you happily go along with it.
Maybe yours matters more this time.
Maybe neither of you feels strongly enough to make the decision worth much discussion.
All of those are possible.
Communicating what you want doesn’t decide the outcome.
It simply gives your preference a place in the conversation.
And I think that’s an important distinction.
Self-trust isn’t the belief that your way is always the right way.
It’s not needing to win every disagreement.
It’s not putting yourself at the centre of every decision.
It’s knowing that your own perspective is worth consulting.
You can listen to someone else’s preference without abandoning yours.
You can advocate for yourself without demanding that someone else agree with you.
You can compromise without disappearing.
And you can change your mind without deciding that you were wrong to want something in the first place.
That last one feels particularly important.
Sometimes we talk about self-trust as though the goal is to become completely certain about what we want.
I’m not sure that’s possible.
Sometimes you want something and then discover you don’t.
Sometimes you think you care and realize you don’t.
Sometimes you want two things that can’t both happen.
Sometimes you very much want something and still decide that something else matters more.
Self-trust doesn’t remove any of that complexity.
It gives you somewhere to stand while you’re figuring it out.
Maybe that’s why I’ve become so interested in the tiny moment before we answer.
The moment someone asks:
“What do you want?”
And instead of immediately handing the decision back, we pause.
Not because we have to make our preference known.
Not because we’re supposed to choose ourselves every time.
Just long enough to find out if there’s something we’d like to say.
Maybe the answer is still:
“I really don’t care. You choose.”
Wonderful.
Maybe it’s:
“Actually, I’d rather go here.”
That’s worth knowing, too.
And maybe you say it.
Maybe you don’t.
That’s your choice.
But there is something quietly powerful about letting yourself have a preference without immediately turning it into a justification, a negotiation, or a demand.
You don’t have to make a fuss for your preference to matter.
You don’t have to convince anyone that it’s the correct preference.
You don’t even have to get what you want.
You can simply let it exist.
And perhaps that’s where advocacy begins.
Not with becoming louder.
Not with learning to insist.
Just with allowing your own voice to enter the room.
I’d prefer this.
Then listening to what happens next.
Not:
“What if you stopped accommodating?”
More:
Sometimes we make having a preference much more complicated than it needs to be.
You know where you want to eat.
You’d rather have the window seat.
You want your boss to consider your idea.
You’d like your partner to do something differently.
You want to wear the thing you actually like.
And you don’t necessarily need a dissertation explaining why.
You can just say:
“I’d prefer this.”
This is about the uncomfortable space between having a preference and feeling entitled to get your way.
Because I think that’s where a lot of women get stuck.
We don’t want to be demanding, so we make our preferences sound like non-preferences:
“I mean, if you want…”
“It’s totally fine if…”
“I don’t really care, but…”
“Whatever works.”
Advocating for yourself doesn’t require certainty that your preference is objectively better.
It can simply mean letting someone know what you’d like.
And then being willing to hear their answer.
That’s much more interesting to me than another post about stopping self-erasure.
Leave a Reply