I have always, always, always been a milk chocolate girl. Put me in a room with dark chocolate and milk chocolate and it’s not even a competition. Occasionally, I’d throw a little white chocolate in there to mix it up and feel ritzy, but that’s it.

So naturally it’s weird dating a man who’s a dark chocolate guy. This isn’t like politics or religion…you can’t avoid a conversation about the sensitive issue of chocolate proclivities when you’re in a relationship. It comes up. It’s inevitable.

The funny thing is that I’ve never had a discussion about it with anyone else before. Much like religion or politics, taste in chocolate is one of those things you usually don’t try to influence in other people, unless you really are evangelical about it…and even then, those sorts of people very rarely have reasons for why they would want you to convert to their specific kind of chocolate-worship. Not my boyfriend—he has reasons.

While I’m fundamentally skeptical of the statement “milk chocolate is chocolate if it were a candy,” there’s a beautiful, paradoxical logic to it. Chocolate in itself is so rich and sweet, so flavorful and more distinct and traditional than any other candy…the milky sweetness just exacerbates the sugary quality of it. Dark chocolate hits at the heart of what chocolate is.

I shouldn’t be so afraid of dark chocolate. Even if I underwent a chocolate conversion for this man (and I’m not saying I’m going to…I don’t know if our relationship is that serious yet.) It’s not like I would end up a dark chocolate extremist like my brother: “I once had 93% cacao…I didn’t know if I was suppose to EAT it or SMOKE it!”