Here’s a story that I love to tell: when I was a senior in high school, I took an anthropology elective in which our class participated in the Asch Conformity Test.  For those not familiar with the experiment, it goes like this: twelve people sit in a row, and the test administrator tells the group that they are going to take an eye exam.  The administrator passes a sheet of paper down the row, with a line on it, and instructs the group to commit the length of the line to memory.  Once the paper has made its way to the end, a second paper follows with two (or three, but our class did two) lines printed on it, labeled “A” and “B.”  The administrator asks the first person in line to choose the line of the same length as the first line, and gives a secret, pre-arranged hint as to the correct answer.  (In our class, the teacher asked the first student in line for the answer, and the student knew that if the teacher used his first name, the answer was A, and if he used his surname, the answer was B.  It worked because this teacher always switched up how he addressed students, so it didn’t seem weird.)

The first ten people in the group of twelve are “in” on the experiment – they know what’s going on, and their job is to all say the same thing.  When the first person says “A,” everyone else in the “in” group says “A,” whether “A” is the correct answer or not.  The question is, what will the last two unsuspecting souls do?  Will they agree with a wrong answer, or will they buck the group and go with the answer they know is right, even if it means being the only person who disagrees?

As you can probably guess, I was one of the poor two kids who didn’t know what was going on.  The teacher admitted, later, that he had actually delayed introducing the experiment until a day I was absent from class for a violin lesson, because he really, really wanted to see what I’d do.  Here’s what I did: I measured the first line against my finger (hey, there was no rule against that) so that I was 100% confident, when the second sheet came down the row, that I’d have the right answer.  So when the entire group said “A” and I knew the right answer was “B,” I said… “B.”  After a few sheets had gone down the row, the teacher started to pressure me to agree with the group – asking me if I’d had my contact lens prescription tested recently, signaling the class (unbeknownst to me) to laugh at my different answers.

I never did agree with the group.  I stuck to my guns and gave the right answers, even when I was the only one.  After the test (and after I got a big round of applause) the teacher told the class I was the first student he’d ever had, in over twenty years of teaching, to completely refuse to agree with a wrong answer.  He also shared the story with that semester’s psychology elective, which my boyfriend was taking.  When the teacher mentioned he’d had a student never agree with a wrong answer, for the first time in his career, I’m told my boyfriend threw his hands in the air, pumped his fists and shouted, “That’s my girlfriend!”  (Stubborn, or steadfast?  You decide.)  The teacher asked me what went through my head when he was making fun of me and pressuring me to agree with a wrong answer.  I said, “I thought you were being an idiot.”  (Sorry, Mom, but it was true.  If it helps, Mr. E laughed, and he definitely appreciated my honesty.)  Then he asked me how I felt when the rest of the class laughed at me.  I shrugged and said “I really don’t care what they think.”  And I meant it.

(Hey, I was the girl who drew on my jeans and read Shakespeare under the stairs at lunch.  I had built up a pretty good record of not caring what high school kids thought about me.)

If I didn’t care what my peers thought about me in high school, I care even less as an adult.  Obviously, I want to be respected in the community, and I want to be perceived as a valuable employee at work.  But (within normal social bounds, and with due concern for the needs of my family) I wear what I like, go where I please, and read what I want, and I really couldn’t care less who has a problem with any of those things.  With one exception.

When I read a book, and I love it, and one of my blogging friends picks up the book at a later time (whether on my recommendation or not), I desperately want them to love the book too.  I’m not entirely sure why this is so important to me.  It’s not like these are books I’ve written.  It’s not like I know the author personally.  It’s not like I actually have any skin in this game at all.  But it’s how I feel.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in recent weeks.  First, my friend Katie read A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True, which I read about a year ago and really enjoyed (although I liked the historical plot much better than the present-day plot).  Then, my pal Eagle-Eyed Editor tweeted about reading Rainbow Rowell’s Attachments, which I loved and which I recommended here.  Both times, I was filled with anxiety.  What if my friends didn’t like these books?  (Both times, they did.  Sigh of relief over here!)

This is just silly.  If my friends don’t like a book I like, it’s not the end of the world.  It’s not the end of the friendship.  (It might even be the start of a friendship: my blog pal Amal found me while searching for reviews of The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise, which I loved and she definitely didn’t.)  Really, if my blog friends and I disagree on a book, everyone is going to be okay.

I think what it boils down to is this: I like and respect these people, and I like and respect my readers (and if you’re reading this, that means you!), and I want to be a trusted source of book recommendations for people I like and respect.  If I like a book and you don’t, or vice versa, that doesn’t mean one of us is wrong – art wouldn’t be art if it wasn’t open to varying interpretations; it’d be science.  But I can’t stop hoping that we can love the same books.  And I’m always going to be giddy when someone tells me they love a book that I loved and recommended – whether that’s my blog friends, my mom, mother-in-law, BFF or close family friend, all of whom have read and loved books on my recommendation.  That just fills me with pride, and gives me so much joy – to know that I read and loved a book, and I told you about it, and you read and loved it too, and now we share this.

Should I try to care less whether my friends love the books I love?  I don’t know.  Part of me thinks I should.  After all, in the end, they’re just books and it’s okay – normal! – to disagree about books sometimes.  But I don’t think I’ll ever get there.  I think I’m always going to care.  I’m always going to be excited to pass out book recommendations to my family and friends, I’m always going to be a little nervous when they crack the spines, and I’m always going to be wildly happy if they love the book too and a bit bummed if they don’t.  Not because I’ll suddenly question my own opinion of the book.  (I have a pretty high opinion of my own opinion, if you couldn’t tell.)  But because I’ll feel badly that they wasted their time on a book they didn’t love, because of something I said.

So if I give you a book recommendation, know that my heart is behind it, and know that I care deeply about what you think.  I may pride myself on marching to the beat of my own drummer, but it turns out I really do care… because I care about you.