Luckily, the question first struck me during the college applications process, and it didn’t manage to catch me by surprise during an interview or something. Nonetheless, though, this was the hardest question out of all of the ones offered to me so far on this supplement.

What’s your favorite book?

Just a moment. I switched tabs and messaged one of my close friends: What’s my favorite book? They didn’t know, not because we’ve never spoken about books but because we’ve spoken about too many of them. I tried two other friends before returning to the still-empty box on the Common App.

Maybe I’ll come back to this one, I thought grimly, but as I scrolled down a bit more I realized that I was going to be spending a while on this supplement. The rest of the application basically interrogated various favorites in media and life in general — what’s your favorite event that you attended over the past year? What’s your favorite movie or TV show? What’s your favorite kind of music or artist?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who blanks out if someone accosts me with a deceptively simple question

So there I was, looking for a way to express in 10 words or less for each question that I have far too many favorites for far too many states of mind. I have books that comfort me like a 350-page hug when I’m down and books that make me crack up again and again when I’m furious. I can’t squeeze 10 authors or 20 titles into 10 words or less — nor can I add my moods to each of the titles. And choosing one at random makes me feel dishonest, like I’m misrepresenting myself to these people that seem to just want to know what there is to know about me that transcripts and teacher recommendations won’t tell. I already feel that sinking pit in my stomach; I’m overthinking a question that probably only takes other people five seconds to write down an answer that’s probably obvious to them.

I have plenty of favorite angsty rock anthems, but I would only ever listen to them and enjoy listening to them when I’m, you know, feeling angsty. Liszt’s piano Sonata in B Minor makes me feel really productive, but I only ever listen to it when I’m trying to write an English paper. Kendrick Lamar could rap me out of a coma, but I listen to his music mainly when I’m feeling contemplative and poetic. How can I communicate a full, comprehensive version of myself over to these people deliberating upon whether or not I’d “fit in” at their campuses as myself over the next four years if I can’t even give an honest representation of my “favorite” types of media? Does that honest representation even exist if my favorites depend on something as flighty as my mood?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who blanks out if someone accosts me with a deceptively simple question: “What’s your favorite album?” My go-to answer is to make a really, really pained expression as I try not to list twelve albums in a fast-paced, frightening manner that would make the person regret ever asking. I wish there was some shorthand way of saying “I partake in a lot of various sorts of media, and I am trying not to scare you off with a weird, eclectic 20-item list of stuff I like, while I also appreciate your attempt to reach out to me and get to know me better, so I don’t just want to brush you off with a cop-out answer or something that doesn’t accurately reflect who I am just in case it ends up being misleading. Thus, you can imagine the stress that I am under.”

The common app just didn’t have space for me to type up this whole essay into the answer box for “What’s your favorite type of music?” So when asked the same question again in another supplement, I simply wrote “yes.”