The White Lotus’ season three finale is well on its way, and I haven’t seen a single episode.
That’s despite the fact that everyone I know loves it, friends and critics alike.
I was the same with Succession, Game Of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Severance, and pretty much any other “water cooler” TV hit that launched in my adulthood.
I know the shows are good (I ended up watching, and loving, some many years later), but something about hearing my friends rave so passionately about them actually made me less likely to give them a try.
Am I alone? I asked Dr Mosun, consultant psychiatrist at Cassiobury Court, about why I was so contrarian about the whole thing.
I’m not alone
My coworker said she only just finished watching Succession, having picked the show up last month.
My partner refused to get into The Traitors season one until this year.
According to Dr Mosun, we are not simply freaks.
“It’s actually a very common experience.
“What you’re describing here is something known as psychological reactance which is when people feel their freedom to choose is being limited,” she explained.
Even subtle perceived limitations can lead us to “push back,” the psychiatrist added.
“So if everyone’s telling you that you must watch something, part of your brain sort of goes ‘actually maybe I won’t.’”
It makes sense. I’ve managed to get my partner into shows I love by putting them on in the background and making him think he’s simply learning to like them of his own accord – meanwhile, he won’t touch shows I effusively recommend.
In a weird way, the more people recommend TV shows to us, the more “trapped” we feel in our choices.
Is anything else going on?
“There’s also a social element,” Dr Mosun told HuffPost UK.
“For some, being part of the mainstream isn’t appealing and they prefer discovering things on their own terms without the noise.”
It’s true – while I might have the mental space for a new Big Show Of The Moment, I don’t always think I’m ready for the exhausting, endless discourse surrounding it (talk of “White Lotus theories” has put me off it for at least another year).
So, if you’re like me, be reassured: “It’s a totally normal quirk of the human mind,” Dr Mosun says.