Just like food, you could think peanut butter is your favorite

Host: The sunset bled through the city skyline, amber light spilling over glass towers like slow fire. The air carried that late-summer warmth — a mix of asphalt, smoke, and the faint scent of street-side jasmine trying to survive the urban noise.

Down on a quiet side street, a small rooftop café perched above the din, its tables half-empty, its lights flickering softly to life as the evening deepened.

Jack sat by the edge, leaning back in his chair, a cigarette resting between his fingers. His grey eyes looked distant, unfocused — like someone trying to read between the lines of the world.

Across from him, Jeeny swirled the ice in her glass. Her hair caught the light — strands of black turning copper where the sun kissed them. There was a calm fierceness in her posture, a patience that came from believing even chaos had meaning.

For a while, they just watched the sky change color. Then Jeeny broke the silence.

Jeeny: “Lily-Rose Depp said something I can’t stop thinking about. ‘Just like food, you could think peanut butter is your favorite food for 5,000 years and then be like, “I actually like burgers better.” I was just trying to say that kids and people in general don’t have to label themselves and say, “I’m straight” or “I’m gay” or “I’m whatever.”’”

Host: Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly — not in disagreement yet, but in the slow calculation of a man weighing thought against instinct.

Jack: “That’s cute. A nice, modern metaphor for confusion.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Confusion, or freedom?”

Jack: “Freedom is knowing who you are. Confusion is pretending every whim defines you. There’s a difference.”

Jeeny: “Is there? Maybe knowing who you are means accepting that you change. People aren’t static, Jack. They evolve — like taste buds, like music, like love.”

Host: The sound of a distant car horn drifted upward, merging with the faint hum of the city. Jack flicked his cigarette, watching the ember fall and vanish.

Jack: “You can’t build identity on shifting ground. If everyone keeps reinventing themselves, how do you trust anyone’s truth? You wake up one day, and suddenly the person beside you ‘likes burgers now’ — what happens to the promises made over peanut butter?”

Jeeny: “Maybe the promise was never about the flavor, Jack. Maybe it was about honesty — to oneself, to each other.”

Host: Her voice softened, but carried weight. The evening breeze lifted her words like petals, scattering them between them.

Jeeny: “The idea that we have to declare who we are forever — that’s what traps people. A child shouldn’t have to know whether they’re this or that. They should just… be.”

Jack: “Until when? Until they hurt someone by not knowing? Until they confuse the world enough that nothing means anything anymore?”

Jeeny: “No, until they grow. We treat identity like a contract. But it’s not — it’s a journey. Maybe one day you’re sure, the next you’re not. Why should that be shameful?”

Host: The sky darkened, the city lights flickered awake. A plane crossed overhead — a streak of silver cutting through the violet dusk.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic, but there’s a reason society likes labels. They give us structure — boundaries. Without them, we’re lost.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Without them, we’re real. Boundaries make us digestible — easy to categorize, easy to sell. But they also erase the truth of being human. We are messy. Contradictory. Wild.”

Jack: raising an eyebrow “And how far does that go? If everything is fluid, doesn’t meaning dissolve? If words like ‘love,’ ‘loyalty,’ or even ‘gender’ mean something different every decade, what’s left to hold onto?”

Jeeny: “The courage to be authentic — even when the definition changes.”

Host: The waiter passed, dropping two cups of coffee. The steam rose, curling upward like small ghosts of warmth. Jeeny wrapped her hands around her cup. Jack let his sit untouched.

Jeeny: “You know, once, being left-handed was seen as evil. Doctors forced children to switch hands. Because society needed neatness — right versus wrong, this versus that. Sound familiar?”

Jack: quietly “So now we just switch categories instead of hands.”

Jeeny: “No — now we stop pretending categories define the soul.”

Host: The streetlights glowed below, haloing the passing faces — couples laughing, strangers walking alone, a child running after his mother’s shadow. The world looked the same, but something about the conversation felt like standing on the edge of a quiet revolution.

Jack: “You really believe people shouldn’t label themselves at all? Isn’t that just another label — the ‘unlabeled’?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But at least it’s one that doesn’t trap you. The label doesn’t matter as much as the permission to change it.”

Jack: leaning back “You sound idealistic. People crave identity because it makes them feel seen. Without it, they drift.”

Jeeny: “Maybe drifting isn’t failure. Maybe it’s honesty — the acceptance that we don’t have to have everything figured out to be whole.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, though the habitual skepticism lingered like smoke.

Jack: “You talk like it’s easy to live in that kind of uncertainty.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. But it’s harder to live pretending certainty exists.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying faint laughter from the street below. Jeeny’s eyes glowed with reflection, her voice dropping to something more intimate.

Jeeny: “Think of all the people forced into lives they never chose — marriages, identities, expectations — because society told them to decide once and never change. How many silent lives are we surrounded by, Jack? How many invisible heartbreaks?”

Jack: pausing “Too many.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe Lily-Rose had it right. Maybe we should stop demanding that kids — or anyone — choose their identity like a brand name. Let them taste life first.”

Host: Jack rubbed his temples, his tone shifting from sarcasm to contemplation.

Jack: “But if everyone’s free to redefine themselves endlessly, doesn’t that make commitment meaningless? How do you build love, trust, family — if everyone’s still ‘tasting’?”

Jeeny: “Commitment isn’t about staying the same, Jack. It’s about choosing someone, again and again, even as they change.”

Host: A long silence followed — the kind that feels like truth settling in. The city lights flickered against their faces, painting gold over their fatigue.

Jack: “You really think love can survive that kind of freedom?”

Jeeny: “It’s the only kind worth surviving.”

Host: The words lingered. A train horn echoed distantly through the night — low, mournful, yet full of movement.

Jack: softly “You know, I used to think identity was like architecture — something you built, strong, clear, unmoving. But maybe it’s more like weather — unpredictable, but alive.”

Jeeny: smiling “Exactly. You don’t curse the rain for not being sun. You just let it be what it is.”

Host: A breeze swept across the rooftop, tugging lightly at their hair, stirring the napkins. The air smelled faintly of wet concrete and espresso.

Jack: “So what do we tell the next generation, then? That they can be anything?”

Jeeny: “No. That they can become. There’s a difference.”

Host: Jack let out a slow laugh — weary, but genuine. He reached for his cup at last, took a sip, and set it down carefully.

Jack: “You always turn rebellion into poetry.”

Jeeny: “That’s because it is poetry. Becoming yourself always is.”

Host: Below, the streetlights blurred in the drizzle beginning to fall — a soft shimmer over the restless city. The café felt suspended above it all, a quiet island of reflection in a world forever changing its mind.

Jack looked at Jeeny — really looked — as if realizing that every certainty he’d clung to might just be another form of fear.

Jack: “So maybe it’s not confusion after all. Maybe it’s courage — to admit we’re all still tasting.”

Jeeny: “Yes, Jack. And maybe that’s the point. Life isn’t about choosing a flavor. It’s about never stopping the tasting.”

Host: The rain fell harder, tapping rhythmically on the table, but neither moved. The city glowed beneath them, alive and unashamed.

And as the last light faded from the sky, their silhouettes remained — two souls in quiet agreement, watching a world brave enough to evolve beyond its labels.

In that moment, beneath the rain and the hum of neon, it wasn’t about peanut butter or burgers, straight or gay, certainty or chaos — it was about the infinite, beautiful truth of being human:

We are all still learning what we love — and that’s what makes us free.