Chocolate Covered Pretzels by Alycia Conrad

Have you ever played the game with your friends where someone picks out a snack for someone else based on their personality? Like Sour Patch Kids because first they were sour, but then they’re sweet. Or maybe a Tootsie Pop because it took some work to really get to know them deep down. 

I think people are like candy. 


When we were younger, my siblings and I we were taught to love all types of candy.I think as children we all were.  It didn’t matter what kind, we craved it and we would enjoy it in any form. On a stick, in a tube, in the shape of a baby’s bottle or being flung out of a mutilated colorful animal hanging from the ceiling. We loved that shit! Then as we got older we began to get more selective and form opinions.  

I loved Reece’s peanut butter cups and despised Mounds and Almond Joys. I still don’t care what anyone has to say, they are the same horrible candy just with a different name and equally as gross.

I love peeps (unpopular opinion, I know) and I hate gum. Hate it. With a passion. The taste. The texture. THE. SOUND. Like the taste of betrayal by someone I thought was my best friend. Or the texture of the knife being twisted in my back by someone I trusted enough to pour my deepest secrets into. Or the sound of my ex-boyfriend lying to me about countless other girls. 

I don’t enjoy gum because I’ve had horrible experiences with it. No matter where I was or what I was doing, the gum would find me and try to destroy me. 

It would get in my hair. How? 
It would stick to my knee. Again, how? 
Listening to someone chomping away on the slimy thing while trying to concentrate on the math portion of the SAT drove me absolutely mad to the point that I didn’t finish.

So gum is triggering to me. It makes me sad. Therefore, I stay away from gum.
One day in the future, could I learn to like gum? Yeah, maybe. I’m not ruling anything out and people can absolutely change. Maybe one day I will learn to love gum, but right now, I will keep a healthy distance.

Some candy is exactly what it is selling. When you get a Hershey bar you know you are getting a smooth, chocolatey, milky, rich bar of heaven right of the bat. The wrapper is straightforward and you can trust it. Some other candy wrappers are deceiving. You think that you are about to indulge in a delicious magical truffle filled with ribbons of caramel but actually it’s the strawberry cream one or better yet, the gross one with a cherry in it. It is terribly misleading.  Dots: Cute packaging. It’s colorful. It seems fun. Reality: It tastes like nothing and gets stuck in your teeth for days. But we don’t realize any of this until we try it. 
Kind of like people.

We go through life trying so many types of candy, meeting tons of different people who come from different walks of life. There’s no way we are going to like every piece of candy or click with every single person. Based on our tastes (and our allergies), there are some we are going to like, some we aren’t, some that cause us harm, some that we will grow out of and some we learn to love. Some are bitter and some are sweet and I think that’s okay. 
If I don’t enjoy gum, I’m not going to have any in my candy bowl right now. Maybe I‘ll throw in a few later on to try to learn to like them, but for now, if they don’t make me smile or challenge me to be a better me, I’ll keep them out of the bowl. It’s all trial and error.  My goal is to introduce myself to as many types of candy as I can, and although I’ll be cautious, I will try not to judge them by their wrappers. Because that’s all I can do. Try.

I asked a friend to bring me a snack that reminded her of me to a movie once. She brought me chocolate covered pretzels. 

What the hell does that mean?

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