"It's An Acquired Taste"

Smoking. Coffee. Beer. Red wine. Dissonant music. Dark chocolate. Raw Oysters. Someone ever convince you to try something that you ended up disliking? You look at them enjoying their nasty, slimy globs on a half shell, and wonder what it is they're getting out of it that you're not. Ever ask? I bet the answer was "It's an acquired taste".

I wonder about acquired tastes. I wonder what it is about something a person could place in their mouth, hate, and then think, "Hey, i gotta get me some more of that! I gotta get more, and continue forcing myself to eat it until i like it". Typically, the more i try to force myself to do something i dislike, the more disinclined i am to do it in the future. It becomes like an anti-habit for me.

What motivates a person to want to do that? Maybe it's a palette broadening thing? Smoking's an obvious one: you just do it till the addiction kicks in. Maybe it's a social thing - someone wants to appear sophisticated, so they choke down the wine until they don't mind it anymore. Maybe it's to learn to find something pleasing in things we find distasteful. It seems like that'd be a good skill to be able to apply to people ;)

I don't usually do the question thing, but i think i will this time. Do you have any acquired tastes? What made you want to acquire it? Do you have anyone in your life right now that's an acquired taste?