First dates often hit a wrong note

“SO, what music do you like?”

That question rankles -- especially if it comes on the first meeting or the first date. It’s only one rung above “What’s your sign?” and “Do you come here often?”

And with last weekend’s Coachella music festival serving as kind of the informal kickoff to the concert-going season, plenty of date nights will begin with that very exploration -- as if to say that what goes in your ears is somehow emblematic of what lies in your heart.

Yet when I am asked about my taste in music, the name of every artist I have ever listened to immediately slips my mind. I blindly search for the name of an artist, any artist -- which is why I sometimes blurt out embarrassing secret loves, like Celine Dion or (God help me) Britney Spears, guilty pleasures that should be kept in the closet with my other skeletons until after my wedding or, quite possibly, after my funeral.

If a person’s music tastes are a window to her secret self, my secret self is schizophrenic (how else can you explain tastes as varied as Mozart, Rascal Flatts, Avril and the Who?). That makes me tough to read.

Beside, what good could come of asking this on a first date? If my date is a music snob, he will smirk at my pedestrian tastes, then try to impress me by waxing poetically about bands with names like Zoey and the Nuclear Fission Bomb and Slovenia, the God. Or if my date is a music pilgrim and just making small talk, he will stare at me blankly (and I will feel like the snob) when I profess my love for the Plain White Ts or Bloc Party. Either way, he will judge me by my answer, and despite what Malcolm Gladwell contends in his bestseller “Blink,” snap judgments are often faulty.

Yes, the initial attraction between two people is largely a result of similar tastes and interests -- when someone likes the same things you do, it subtly reinforces your confidence in your own good taste. If this is a basis for first-date questions, then, I beg of you, please don’t bring up music at all, lest we spend an evening dissecting the latest album from Francis and the Purple Piano Tie. Or was that Frank and the Pink Piano?

In my experience, music is not a tie that binds, but rather a quirky trait that must be endured, in the same way that a love of garlic chicken pizza (no first kiss for you, bub!) or a hobby of collecting “Star Wars” figurines must be endured. Face it, music taste is usually a small negative checkmark outweighed by other positive traits. For some reason, I seem to go for awkward computer geeks who like to pretend they are Snoop Dogg. Two of my ex-boyfriends tried to woo me with their freestyle rapping skills. It worked, but only because they were hilarious. I thought they were trying to impersonate suburban white guys who think they are bling-bling rappers. I later realized that no, they were not impersonating those guys. They were those guys.

It seems as if there would be the same problem with movie taste, but somehow with movies it is expected that guys will have their “Die Hards” and girls will have their “Notebooks.” And that’s OK. Everyone knows that true affection is uncomplainingly seeing “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!” with your girlfriend or “Rambo” with your boyfriend. But there are seldom any music equivalents.

Then again, sometimes you don’t want the other person to like the same music you do. On one first date, after I copped to my secret loves of Celine and Britney, the guy beamed and said, “Really? I love them too!” He then began to earnestly compare the merits of Britney’s first album with her later work. He felt a real connection; I just felt embarrassed.

Needless to say, I ordered the garlic chicken pizza -- and garlic bread too.

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