Ambivalence is exhausting.
It's the real reason I became Marmite on purpose.
For years, people have called me Marmite.
Usually with a little smirk.
The kind that suggests concern.
As if being loved by some and disliked by others was evidence of something being wrong.
“You’re a bit Marmite,” they’d say.
Translation: not universally palatable.
Sometimes it was framed as a warning,
and often as caring feedback.
It was even presented seriously as something a friend thought I should be worried about.
And for a long time, I absorbed it that way.
Because when you’re younger - or still orienting around approval - being told you are like Marmite can feel like a failure of being.
Like you are too quirky for your own good, and life will fail you if you don’t "‘normal up’.
Or if you just softened your edges, explained yourself better, or diluted the flavour, more people might “get you.”
But here’s the thing I’ve learned through being almost 52.
That murky, on-the-fence, ambivalent space?
Where you’re trying to be understood by everyone?
It’s sticky, like treacle.
And its energetically very expensive.
In the last couple of years - and really, only very recently - something shifted.
I stopped trying to be liked.
I stopped sanding myself down for the comfort of the room.
I started showing up in ways that pleased me, clearly and deliberately, without apology or explanation.
And do you know what happened?
The people who resonate with me leaned in harder.
The people who don’t? They simply faded from relevance.
Being Marmite isn’t a branding problem.
It’s a signal.
It means you’re distinct enough to provoke response - not indifference.
It means you’re standing somewhere solid, and not hovering everywhere.
It means you’re not performing neutrality for mass consumption.
So yes an acquired taste.
It’s rich in ideas.
And it’s absolutely — always — audacious.
