I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier.

I had an exchange with a friend that kind of puzzled me for a while until I figured out what

was going on.

So my friend was somebody who cooks a lot.

She cooks for her family and she really loves to cook.

And like anything that you have to do very often, sometimes it feels like drudgery and you

don't really feel like doing it.

And she was complaining to me that she had said to her husband, what do you want for dinner?

Tell me what you want for dinner.

And he said, I don't care.

Everything you make is good.

And she was enraged by this.

And I said, I don't get it.

I mean, to me, that sounds like the right answer.

Why isn't that a good answer?

And she said, no, I wish he would say, oh, I wish you'd make your special pulled pork

or I wish you'd make that curry chicken that I love so much.

And then I would make it and it would make me so happy to be making something that he really

love to eat.

But instead, he just said, oh, everything you make is good.

And I thought, well, I don't really understand what she was talking about.

But on reflection, I realized, you know, sometimes when we're very specific about what we

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