You’re allowed to like things that aren’t cool yet. Somebody has to be early.

Taste always arrives before agreement, which means liking something early looks like bad judgment right up until it does not. People who seem to have great taste later are mostly the ones who admitted what they enjoyed before permission showed up. The awkward stretch in between is real, and it is temporary.

Name the thing you keep half-hiding and stop hedging about it this week. Say you like it, with no joke attached to soften the landing. Even if nobody else ever catches on, you spent the year enjoying something instead of waiting for clearance.