pufferfish? He, like lots of sensation-seekers, encourages his kid to
try the new experiences that he engages in.
“I don’t push the envelope on my kid’s eating just for the
sake of it,” Jimmy told me. “I feed him what I’m having on my plate.
If that’s going to be a curry laksa then so be it. Two weeks ago we
went for Indian food and he was eating things that have a decent
amount of heat to them. I made some quesadillas the other morn-
ing with chorizo, potato, and eggs, kind of breakfast style. I was
dipping mine into a real hot sauce. He saw that and wanted to do
the same, so I poured him some. He was dipping his quesadilla into
this Valentina hot sauce and enjoying it.
“If I’m confident that the food’s been prepared properly and
sourced properly, then I have no problem feeding him whatever I’m
eating. I hope he likes food. I know little kids sometimes get pickier
as they get older. We’ll see.”
I asked him about a funny video I’d seen of the expressions
that kids make when trying lemons. I wondered if his son made
faces like that, or if he had tried to give his son a lemon like they did
in the videos. “Yeah, my wife and I were really excited to do that to
him, because it’s hilarious. And he just ate the lemon and loved it.
He didn’t make the face. Now when he sees lemons, he wants to
suck on them.” Sounds like a junior sensation-seeker in the
making.
But these sensation-seekers in training aren’t the only
family members impacted by HSS-type behavior. The sensation-
seekers themselves are often affected. Many sensation-seekers
say that once they have children, their sensation-seeking
declines. This was true of Gina, for example. We know that
sensation-seeking decreases as people get older, but many sensa-
tion-seekers have told me that thinking of their family, friends,
and children reduces their disinhibition and thrill-seeking beha-
vior. They think twice about their sensation-seeking activities.
It’s not fear that motivates them to change their behavior, but
what might happen to their families and how they would feel if
things didn’t go as smoothly as planned. It’s not just partners
but family and friends that act as anchors to keep sensation-
seekers rooted and steady in some cases.~
What I ultimately took away from all of this was that being a high
sensation-seeker absolutely does impact relationships. But high112 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:21:35, subject to the Cambridge