I will say on the picky eating habit, that can be a common behavior seen in autistic folks. With me my picky eating stems from texture - if a food feels weird in my mouth I get nasty gag reflex or vomit. Doesn't matter how often I try, there's foods and ingredients that, if I chew on it, I will vomit. It fucking sucks. I have to swallow my edibles whole with water cause most gummies make me vomit if I chew them.
Obviously not all picky eating habits are autism related, but myself and the other autistic picky eaters I know are just as frustrated, if not more, about having those habits.
Being stuck on music though, that I can understand. Even with me having my comfort zones, it's always an occasion worth celebrating when I find an artist or album that absolutely SLAPS me silly from how rad it is.
ADHD here, big texture issues too, I still won't eat nuts or beans, due to similar reasons (they flake apart in my mouth and I hate the feeling), I have gotten better though, I'll eat peppers and a lot of vegetables I hated as a kid.
As a kid, I wasn't a picky eater, but I wouldn't eat asparagus. Eventually I started eating it. One of the few common American foods I turned my nose up at? Chef Boyardee and similar canned soup noodles. To me, they were always overcooked pasta in a bland, overly salty, homogeneous tomato liquid. I love soup, but screw that.
This makes sense but would be such a mismatch with me. Also I think kids who do not get early exposure to flavors and textures can also develop into picky adults. It's not a judgement exactly, but a hard no nonetheless.
I am opposite and enjoy novel textures and smells and flavors, enjoy cooking and eating (and cocktails!). It's nice to share that with people. Obviously nobody likes EVERYTHING, I sure don't, but just having that open mind about flavors is important to me.
Music, same - I just enjoy it so much, finding new songs, going to concerts. It's not that I don't like old - we went to see Foo Fighters, lol, and just recently Thievery Corporation, but the list of what I like has expanded so much since I was young till now. My husband listens most to basically dad rock but will come out to see new bands and quite often is so impressed and loves the music and performance, and he will hear stuff me or the kids are playing, ask about it and add it to his playlist. His mind is not closed.
But only that? A lot of guys are so nostalgic about music they do not listen to new stuff, taste never grows or evolves at all, that is a bad sign to me.
Not saying abandon old music. Just open minded to new things, not stuck.
Must say I have a hard time getting to know new music in this so rapidly changing music world.
I was used to brick and mortar stores and friends having wildly different tastes in music, nowadays I think it's complicated to just duck under the load of influence for commercial music (and other too I guess).
How am I even supposed to find new music I like, and that I can support, without enormous efforts?
Well I miss Google Play Music so much, it was creepy how well that algorithm worked, and it could find me very local concerts. But streaming in general and we have a good community radio station here, that's how I find so much new stuff. What old music do you like? Maybe we should start a Lemmy community to recommend bands, based on bands people like?
It's surprising how being stuck on music from your youth is common. While I do listen to new bands, I was reminded the other day that Futures by Jimmy Eat World is almost twenty years old.