Yeah, I think that's true for so many things. In a way, I think this is why I don't trust people who say they never drink and that they never have. To me, it says, "I am scared to relinquish any amount of control over any social interaction or how people perceive me, ever."You have to get to know someone in person to find out if it's going to work.
I am one of those "try everything once!" or at least "try to try things once!" kind of people. So someone who categorically refuses to try something which isn't guaranteed to harm them as long as they exercise caution would probably bother me. Like "I won't have sex because I'm afraid I'll get pregnant." Well, practice safe sex and use birth control and you mitigate those risks. Have one drink of alcohol, or two and wait until you drive, and you mitigate those risks. I don't enjoy people who allow their fears to run their lives. I historically attempt to confront mine - the ones that should be gotten over, at any rate. (How else do you overcome your fears? If you allow them to dictate your actions, you've lost. -If I seem opinionated, I have a friend who is very fear-run and it wears on me.) There are probably some foods I'm pretty unwilling to try though. Testicles, I think. That Asian delicacy where the bird has developed inside of the egg and you spoon into it and eat the whole wet-feathery, soft-boned-and-beaked thing. No thanks on that one. Of course, if push came to shove, it's survival first, taste second.
People who live in fear get my goat too. Fear is the great inhibitor and while it often modifies our behaviors in a positive way, I think that for a lot of people, fear is much more present in their lives than is healthy. Ah, you're talking about balut. That used to be one of family's businesses. It takes a practiced eye to know when balut is ready. I think the benchmark is around 13 days. You want to get it before the beak calcifies and the feathers get too . . . feathery. I don't care for eggs in general, so I'm not at all keen on balut. As for testicles, (I think) I've only had goat testicles and they were boiled. They might be ok fried, but boiled meat of any kind is pretty low on my list of "stuff I like to eat". I think another factor in my assessment of the goat testicles was that I had them at what was supposed to be a conciliatory dinner with my old boss, while we discussed the raise I had requested. I don't work there anymore, so there's that . . .That Asian delicacy where the bird has developed inside of the egg and you spoon into it and eat the whole wet-feathery, soft-boned-and-beaked thing.
That's just saddening. Or, to use the dictionary of obscure sorrows: kuebiko n. a state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence, which force you to revise your image of what can happen in this world—mending the fences of your expectations, weeding out all unwelcome and invasive truths, cultivating the perennial good that’s buried under the surface, and propping yourself up like an old scarecrow, who’s bursting at the seams but powerless to do anything but stand there and watch.