Apparently, I’ve got ‘comfort creep’. I prefer to think of it as finally knowing what I like | Polly Hudson

Routine isn’t a failure of imagination – it’s the reward for having done enough experimenting. So, yes, I’m going to my favourite restaurant again – and ordering my favourite dish, writes Polly Hudson

Feeling seen isn’t always a positive thing. “Comfort creep: do YOU have it?” Good Housekeeping asked, accusingly. I was certain that I did, even before knowing what it was. And that this was not good.

“Same holidays, same TV shows, same restaurants, same wine … If your life lacks excitement, it’s time for an anti-comfort crusade!” OK, guilty as charged, but hang on a second. When did the comfort zone become a horrific dystopia from which you must escape at all costs? Comfort? Ugh, the worst! Run, screaming, as fast as you can.

What about those of us who have comfort creep and don’t want to crusade against it, thanks? In today’s non-figuratively burning world, what’s wrong with battening down the hatches and refusing to budge from your comfort zone? After years of being ashamed, carrying it as a guilty secret, while trying to avoid the fuddy-duddy-sounding (but accurate) phrase “I know what I like”, I’m ready to admit I’m a routine queen. I’m in good company, too: the female cast members of Friends had the same meal, daily, for a decade.

In 2010, Courteney Cox told the Los Angeles Times: “Jennifer [Aniston], Lisa [Kudrow] and I ate lunch together every single day for 10 years. And we always had the same thing – a cobb salad. But it wasn’t really a cobb salad. It was a cobb salad that Jennifer doctored up with turkey bacon and garbanzo beans and I don’t know what. She just has a way with food, which really helps. Because if you’re going to eat the same salad every day for 10 years, it better be a good salad, right?”

Cox put her finger right on it there. It’s no coincidence that comfort creep is a mostly middle-aged occurrence and so can be billed as a miserable, joyless rut in which you’re stuck; proof you’ve given up, surrendered to the blah. It could, alternatively, be viewed as reaching a point where you have sampled much of what life has to offer and curated the choices down to a bespoke selection that suits you perfectly. Welcome to your good-salad days.

When I catch up with my closest friend, we invariably go to the same restaurant. That’s our place. After trying a few, we found one that was great. Even better (or worse, depending on your point of view), after sampling various menu options, we discovered something particularly delicious, so that’s what we both have. It’s not that we’re too set in our ways to take risks – it’s that we’ve already taken them. They were fine, but not as nice as the sea bass.

So now we’re regulars with a regular. The staff recognise us and vice versa; we’re at the exhilarating stage of being able to say – albeit slightly self-consciously – “the usual, please” when they come to take our order. It’s not quite “where everybody knows your name” territory, but it’s not far off. A reassuring, convivial little corner of the planet where we’re sure what’s what and that we will enjoy all of it. On a practical level, it also means we’re spared the boring bits of meeting up – deciding where to go and what to have when we get there. Tedious logistics are moot for ever more; let’s get on with the good stuff.

Similarly, there are a few TV shows I restart whenever I’m overwhelmed by events in real life. Comfort-watching, it’s called – and there it is, the C-word again, soothing billed sneeringly as unfavourable. I also have a favourite knife – my comfort knife, I suppose. If I’m chopping anything, that’s the knife I’m using, guaranteed. Maybe this sounds desperately sad to the kind of thrill-seeker who would grab randomly at the cutlery drawer, but why would I settle for the rest when I could have the best? I know what I like and what isn’t going to cut it.

It seems as though one person’s dull is another’s discerning – it just depends where you’re standing. More than enough about the times we’re living through is uncertain – I’m not sure about you, but I’ll take all the cosy, familiar comfort I can get.

• Polly Hudson is a freelance writer

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