Today I had these words of wisdom from a dental receptionist upon hearing that my previous dentist no longer worked at this particular location: “You’ll have Dr. So-and-so. You’ll love him!”

All of this from a two-minute conversation to schedule an appointment? You should be a psychic!

I don’t mean to come down hard on this one person (whom I’ve never even met—which is the point, really), though, when everyone does this. I’ve even done this, I’m sure. I think I try to limit it to people I do know, though—for example, telling my sister that she will love the new Neil Gaiman novel when I know, or at least I’m 99.99% sure, that I’m right—rather than complete strangers.

I remember the first time I was struck with incredulity over this little phrase. A high school guidance counselor told me that I would love my college, as his daughter or someone else he knew or was related to (I can’t fully remember) attended there. Yes! That’s it! I must absolutely love it there, since she (or he?) apparently did.

It turns out that I didn’t love my college experience. I loved parts of it, for sure—being on the debate team, living in the international house, and traveling to Spain to teach were all pretty awesome experiences. But day-to-day life was another story; I was a liberal drowning in a sea of conservatives, all people my own age (or older) who completely disagreed with me, felt that gay people (not to mention people of any color other than white) were second-class citizens, and had absolutely no problem with our school mascot being an actual person—or group of people, and misrepresented, no less—rather than an animal (which has since, thankfully, changed).

Of course, not all of the people I went to school with were like this—but so many were that I did dread attending most of my basic courses. I usually only felt comfortable in my literature courses—which, let’s face it, had a larger share of hippies like me.

Now this school is a great school. Its teachers were awesome, for the most part—my troubles were primarily with my own peers—and it was an ideal place for many, many people. But not me.

Why do we tell people that they’ll love something without even knowing who they are? Would you tell a vegetarian that he will love veal, or a person with an above-average IQ that she will love a Steven Seagal movie? (OK, my husband is a big fan, I’ll admit. But I’m not!) If you really knew someone, of course you wouldn’t say such things. (Well, you probably wouldn’t, unless you were at a wedding and trying to set up a cousin you didn’t like with some random, obviously obnoxious guy you think she will “love”…) So why do we say them to people we don’t even know?

What if my dentist is a KKK-card carrying, gay-bashing swamp creature who eats babies and pours crude oil on his pancakes? I don’t think I would love him. Of course, I doubt he is any of these things—but that still doesn’t mean that I will love him.

Hopefully, I will love this guy. If he can make my tooth stop hurting without scarring me for life and making me cry, I probably will, anyway.