Picky is a word for other people

On a long flight, the man in the window seat has a system. Shoes off before take-off. His own pillow. The blind lowered by a precise amount, adjusted twice. His headphones go on before the safety demonstration ends, and his bag must sit under the seat in front, never overhead.

The woman beside him finds it all slightly ridiculous. She also has a system, though she would never call it that. She must sit on the aisle, because she needs to stand whenever she likes. She keeps her bag overhead, because she wants room for her feet. She wipes the tray table before touching it. These are not quirks to her. They are simply sensible.

Each of them can explain every one of their own habits. Each of them would struggle to explain the other's.

That is how most of us live. My preferences come with reasons, because I was there when I formed them. Yours look like fussiness, because I only see the result.

It matters for anyone who sells anything. The customer who wants the order left with the guard and never at the door, the one who asks for the receipt in a different name, the one who reads every line of the returns policy before paying. From behind the counter it can look like difficulty. From where they are, it is the obvious way to do things, and they have a story for each detail.

Picky, fussy, high-maintenance: we tend to keep those words for the people we are not.

Whether a habit counts as a preference or a foible has much less to do with the habit than with which seat we happen to be sitting in.