Some things, unfortunately, once heard cannot be unheard. “You know what my favorite Star Wars movie is?” an accomplished and intelligent person said to me last week as we were making polite chitchat before a meeting got underway. “It’s The Phantom Menace. I just love that one.”

“This meeting is over,” is what I did not say in response, but boy did I want to.

There’s a lot about contemporary politics and culture that’s debatable, of course. We all have our own opinions and positions when it comes to things like taxes and Ukraine, but if there’s one thing that brings us all together into an undivided polity, surely it’s that the Star Wars movie with Jar-Jar Binks and the pod race is really, really awful.

The Phantom Menace is hated by all sides. To the progressive Left, it’s racist. To the Comic-Con nerds, it’s unforgivably childish. To cinephiles, it’s too reliant on fake-looking special effects. The terrible dialogue and the complicated plot manage to be both boring and offensive at the same time.

What you expect when the subject of the movie comes up is a general discussion about which parts, exactly, are the worst. What you don’t expect is someone to cheerfully say, “It’s my favorite Star Wars movie!”

And then you have to sit down and have a meeting and take this person seriously.

That’s really the problem of contemporary living in a nutshell, isn’t it? There’s always a person in your life who is intelligent and interesting and — this is the important part — necessary for you to interact with who likes a politician who is loathsome or enjoys a movie that’s awful or, worse, likes goat cheese, which everybody knows is the lowest of the cheeses. Somehow we all have to learn, as the young people say, not to yuck someone else’s yum.

As I sat down and tried to focus on the meeting that was about to begin, I faced a series of choices. I could wipe that moment from my memory — never happened! — but we know that never really works. It would be like one of those movies where a person is talking and talking but all you can hear is the echoing thoughts of the person who is supposed to be listening. What is he saying? How can he like that movie? And that really wasn’t an option anyway because this was one of those meetings where I was the one who was asking for something — I hate those! — instead of being the one being asked, the one with all of the leverage. I love those.

I needed to project a warm, disarming vibe. So I tried to focus on the good things about that person. On the desk there was a photograph of a happy-looking family — that’s nice! — and a photo of a dog running on the beach — dog owner! Can’t hate that, can you? — and a sharp-looking Ticonderoga #2 pencil, and there’s no way you can harbor hate in your heart for a fellow pencil lover.

That small shift of attitude was all it took. I didn’t forget about the Phantom Menace scandal, but I did manage to put it all into context. What did it matter, when you get right down to it, if this person has an incorrect opinion about a certain movie? What matters in life is that we’re having a meeting in which I’m trying to get this person to see things my way, and that will never happen if I telegraph, through body language or the imperceptible curl of my lip, a lack of friendliness and respect.

I pretended, in other words, that I liked this person. As psychologists might put it, I modeled the behavior of someone who is a lot nicer and more tolerant than I am, and the only reason I did that is because I wanted something.

Of course it would be better if I really was the kind of person who doesn’t judge other people’s likes and dislikes. I mean, it would be much better if this person didn’t have terrible taste in movies, but in life, I’ve discovered, it’s nearly impossible to surround yourself with right-thinking folks. Eventually someone slips into your circle who is wrong about everything. And that’s when it helps to be able to see the good in that person, to open your heart up a bit, at least until the meeting is over and you got what you came for.

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Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.