The relational theory of enjoyment

Connection, personal taste, and why I live in Anchorage

Last month the zine team finally celebrated our successful run of spring events. We met at my house and ordered takeout from Pho Lena, a restaurant that, despite its popularity, I find somewhat middling.¹

The five of us sat around the table and passed containers of noodles, curry, rice, and fresh rolls while dreaming up future plans. As I spooned pad thai into my mouth, something felt different. I took another bite of it, a dish I’d ordered from the same restaurant many times before. This tastes particularly good today, I said. Has Pho Lena majorly improved??

Jimmy’s face lit up. I was reading something recently, he said. Jimmy is always reading something. Always making something. His mind travels to a thousand different places each minute.

Apparently we experience the same food differently depending on where and how we eat it, he said. Joe and Meneka kept eating as Jimmy went on. Yeah, so, I think this is just what Pho Lena tastes like, he said. But maybe because we’re all eating it together and having a good time, your experience while eating it is vastly improved.

That sounds crazy, I said, while Leah nodded. But then again, I’d mostly eaten pad thai from Pho Lena alone on the couch and feeling guilty for not cooking instead. In that state, perhaps it was easier for me to consider all the ways I found this dish inferior to my beloved Thai takeout spot in Brooklyn. Compared to now, surrounded by friends and good conversation, when it tasted how I wanted it to.

After everyone left, I considered the theory. “Food tastes better good company,” I typed. The search results were less scientific study and more personal anecdote, yet still confirming what Jimmy said and what was beginning to feel true.

I often ate my favorite Brooklyn takeout while sitting alone on the couch in my old apartment—seemingly not so different from my experience in Anchorage. But the reason I knew about that Brooklyn place was because I’d eaten there with close friends. We all agreed it was the best Thai food in the neighborhood and adopted it as our preferred delivery meal. Subconsciously, when I ate it, I was thinking of them. Instead of feeling sad and alone on my couch, I was enjoying a quiet respite from the chaos of New York life alongside quality food chosen by quality people.

That’s when Jimmy’s theory really started to take off. I thought about all of my favorite things, from food, to sports teams, to music. How many of them were sparked by recommendations from people I love? After all, I only became a true U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team fan—now a seemingly core part of my identity—after my cousin Lucy made me watch some games in early 2019, right before the team’s World Cup win and subsequent equal pay victory. As I got more and more obsessed with individual players and their stories, I took pleasure in knowing she also watched and followed along.

Same with music. In high school, I spent a lot of time fretting about whether I had personal taste. It often felt like some of my peers instinctively knew who their favorite artists were, while I often felt like I was playing a part. Telling someone what they wanted to hear, or what I assumed they would think was cool instead of saying what I liked.

What I liked was simply what I knew. Artists my dad (Counting Crows, U2, Hootie…) or my mom (David Bowie) would play. Songs I heard on the radio. Songs my friends played for me on the bus ride to soccer practice, one headphone bud in each of our ears.

Over time, my range broadened. As I’ve accumulated enough music I love from friends, I’ve developed parasocial relationships with music reviewers and other internet people who guide me toward more artists I tend to like. I’m a more equal participant in sharing my interests with others. But still, the important thing is connection.

My enjoyment of all these things—activities, media, even physical possessions—increases exponentially when shared in real time or in memory with people I love. What’s better than borrowing clothes from your best friend or partner? Feeling them with you and reveling in how the same fabric can hug you both so differently?

This concept might be too obvious to warrant further explication. I was raised on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, after all. Plus, it was only a few months ago that

Haley Nahman

wrote about the pleasures of wearing other people’s sweatshirts.

In “the friendship theory of everything,” Ava of

bookbear express

states: “Your friends will change you, even in ways you initially reject. That’s a good thing. You will acquire new opinions and hobbies; you will find yourself in uncomfortable situations; you will learn to like the people they like.”

Anecdotally, as my friends have kids, I’m finding this extends to them too. Instead of a binary between “liking kids” vs not, I’m learning how instinctual it feels to like, and even love, the kids of my friends with whom I’m in a good place. There’s an ease to our friendships that translates to their babies. Kids pick up on energy better than any of us. They can tell when their parents are comfortable around someone and react accordingly. I love spending time with my friends’ kids because I love spending time with my friends. It’s awesome to see their souls imprinted on these tiny unique creatures.

Eklutna- a beautiful lake made even more so by the company. June 2024.

Despite what advertisers say, there’s no objectively best thing. Instead, what I like is tied to who I like, and the memories I’ve made or even dreamed about sharing with them. I wear a pair of pants in part because they are comfortable (hopefully). But I also wear them because I think you, my stylish friend, will like them. Or because Mary-Kate Olsen wore them and I want people to associate me with the kind of cool that she represents. Or because they remind me of pants I owned years ago when we took that fun trip, and this new pair fits better now. Regardless, I’m wearing them because of how they connect me to other people.

I’ve resisted admitting this for so long. In college, I was the person who said I wrote all my essays “for me” and not to please a particular professor. I got praised for this by someone I love deeply and always want to impress. In making that statement, I was trying to be who I thought she would admire. Because really, as much as I resisted it, of course I was also trying to please my professors. You don’t get the grades I did without at least some degree of gamesmanship.

It’s scary to admit that people matter. That I can’t create an objectively good life from curating the right playlist or capsule wardrobe or takeout order. The pushback to such blandly crowd-sourced and algorithmic recommendations is warranted precisely because that’s not how enjoyment works. There isn’t a perfect restaurant experience devoid of connection to others. Even when dining alone, it’s the interactions with strangers that complete the meal.

The joy comes from the intangibles. The stickiness of trusting the people with whom I spend my time. Trying out something they recommend only to realize, more often than not, that I like it too.

And, sure, I’m drawn to people who already share at least some of my interests, which makes it easier to trust them on others. I’ve recently grown closer to a friend who has long been one of my favorite music recommenders. I respect this person’s taste and now see how it permeates beyond music. As Ava of bookbear express says, we often come to like the interests of the people we like.

I wonder if some of my high school peers whose tastes I admired simply had more influences early on. People with confidence whose guidance they trusted.

My taste feels more instinctive these days. I walk into a store and notice things that feel worthwhile to me, while leaving the rest. A big part of this is exposure. Through the internet and many years of life, I’ve seen a lot and can tell what works for me.

But another major part is: I like myself now. So, per the friendship theory, I trust what I like and am more confident in my choices. I carry the memories of my loved ones and the things we’ve enjoyed together. The places we’ve gone and food we’ve eaten and clothes we’ve worn.

Sometimes people don’t understand why, despite a privileged upbringing in the cultural mecca that is New York, I chose to move to Anchorage. Depending on the context, I’ll give superficial reasons: my job, the mountains, the pace and relative ease of life here as a public interest attorney.

But if I’m honest, the real reason is the people. My first year in Anchorage was when I started to truly like and respect myself. The people I met that year have shaped me profoundly, in part because I was open to being seen and even—here comes the stickiness—loved by them. Although many of those people are no longer in Alaska, our friendships remain. And the memories we shared that year tie me to this place. Reminders of my best self as I see her.

To be fair, I also need to leave every few months, both to escape the extreme weather and to replenish my city-kid cups.² It feels good to leave, and even better to return. Because once I’m gone, I notice the friction again. Cultural impediments that make it harder for me to be fully at home in my skin.

People shape a place, and a place shapes its people. I’ve chosen to be somewhere I can feel most at ease. It’s not always pretty but at least it’s true. That’s why I live here and put up with the things outsiders might see as negatives. This is where I love myself, even when the sky is grey.

Maybe next time I order from Pho Lena on my own, it’ll taste better. I’ll remember eating it surrounded by good company and ideas. I’ll know that people whose tastes I admire also enjoy this food.

Or maybe, the best version of myself knows that takeout in Anchorage just isn’t as fulfilling as takeout in New York. There’s less of a need to escape into my house because life moves more slowly here. Instead, it’s nice to share meals with others. Or at least cook and have leftovers to share at a later date.

We adapt to where we are. Our tastes influence each other’s, whether we want them to or not. That’s why the people we surround ourselves with matter. They’re part of our ecosystems, same as the land and the buildings and the rest. Loving the people I’m with makes loving myself all the easier.

An Anchorage friend texted me recently to ask if this was the song I’d insisted on playing over and over again one weekend last summer. It was boygenius’s “True Blue,” a song that I had indeed tried to beat over said friend’s head a year earlier. She’s listening to it now, and thinking of me. Thus continues the cycle and affirms what I already knew.

I can almost picture the string of connections that has led me to this place. The decisions based on trust and instinct more than reason. A feeling of unearthing, as if this will bring me closer to my core.

Guess what? I’m still seeking. I’m not sure the process ever stops.

Same lake, later that night. Developed and scanned by Mediam Film Labs in Anchorage.

1. Please don’t come for me, Anchorage. I swear Pho Lena gets redemption.

2. In fact, I’m writing this from Seattle (!) where I’m charging my sun batteries in the heat wave. I still refer to Anchorage as “here” because that’s probably where I’ll be by the time you read it. Artistic license, you know.