I Like My X Like I Like My Y

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
I like my women the way I like my coffee: detrimental to hippocampal neurogenesis, but conducive to short term memory and attentional control.
—Steven Kaas

This is a phrase where a person compares one thing (often their ideal boyfriend or girlfriend) to another thing, and lists what the two things have in common.

A Stock Phrase that can often overlap with Metaphorgotten for comedic effect. Can also overlap with Dissimile

Examples of I Like My X Like I Like My Y include:

Comedians

"I like my women like I like my coffee... COVERED IN BEES!"
"I like my women like I like my coffee... In a plastic cup."
"I like my women like I like my coffee: hot, strong, and with a spoon in them."

  • Auggie Smith prefers Irish coffee: "I like my women how I like my coffee: Filled with booze!"
  • Michael Ian Black: "I like my coffee like I like my women -- strong, black, and proud."
  • Stewart Francis: "I like my women like I like my coffee: hand picked by migrant workers."
  • Gilbert Gottfried: "I LIKE MY COFFEE THE WAY I LIKE MY WOMEN: HOT... BLACK... and with a small piece of prune danish."
  • Variation by talk show host Bill Maher regarding whether it's necessary to report when a bomb goes off in Iraq; "Let's just assume that Iraq is like Lindsay Lohan; getting bombed daily!"

Fairy Tales

  • There was actually a fairy tale (Goose Girl at the Well is the Grimm version, but there are a lot of variants) about this where a king asked his three daughters to tell them how much they loved him. The girl who loved him best would fare the best. While her sisters claimed they loved their father as much as sugar and as much as the prettiest dress, the unlucky heroine (usually the youngest) told her father she loved him as much "as meat loves salt". He wasn't particularly pleased by this answer. In some versions of the tale his kingdom is cursed to go without salt (or his exiled daughter cannily serves him a dish of meat without any salt) and he rapidly comes to realize just how critical the substance really is.
    • Shakespeare pulls a variation in King Lear, except in that case, the youngest simply refused to provide a flowery metaphor, instead stating simply that her love for her father was Shaped Like Itself.

Fan Works

"Okay," Ritsuko said, turning around. "MAGI! Coffee, black, twelve sugars!" There was a whir, the sound of gears grinding and engines thrumming, and soon a little trapdoor on the workstation opened and a paper cup filled with coffee ascended from the depths of the MAGI's operating system.
"Neat," commented Shinji.
"Technology of God in action," agreed Ritsuko, sipping her coffee. "Ah. I like my coffee like I like my men."
"What... hot, strong and sweet?" Misato winked knowingly.
Ritsuko frowned. "No. Ground into powder and liquefied."
"Oh," Misato said carefully.

  • In the Worm AU fic Taylor Hebert, Pizzeria Tycoon, a minor derail in a PHO thread about Taylor's pizzeria about why people like cold pizza results in the response "Because sometimes people want pizza the way they want revenge... greasy and full of chunks of meat."

Film

  • In the movie Clue, Mrs. White says, "Husbands should be like Kleenex. Soft, strong, and disposable."
  • The little girl in Airplane! likes her coffee black... like her men.
  • The Naked Gun 33 1/3: "I like my sex the way I play basketball: one-on-one and with as little dribbling as possible."
  • In The Edge, Robert says, "I like my coffee like I like my women" and Stephen retorts, "Bitter and murky!"
  • In Its A Very Merry Muppet Christmas, Pepe has this line: "I like my coffee like I like my womens: a lot, eh!"

Live Action TV

  • An inversion of this trope from the Scenes From A Hat game on Whose Line Is It Anyway? is "Things you can say about your X, but not your girlfriend". Popular versions are "car/truck" ("Yeah, you could fit twenty in there!") or "dog", which results in an epic, single-word instance of Getting Crap Past the Radar: "Come."
  • From The IT Crowd..."I like my women like I like my toast. Hot..." "And consumable with butter, you don't have to remind me."
  • Home Improvement did a bunch of these in an episode concerning magazine compatibility tests. For example, in a question comparing husbands to kitchen appliances, Jill said Tim was most like a tea kettle: "Hot and steamy, done in two minutes" (adding that he does "whistle when he's done"). Tim and his friends also came up with their own test, with one question comparing wives to hockey equipment; choices included a stick ("Long, skinny, and likes to hit things"), elbow pads (A good housekeeper - "Takes care of the joint"), and a jock strap ("Gets in the way a lot, but basically supportive").
  • One Foot in the Grave: I like my toast like I like my women. Golden, brown, and covered in marmalade.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Pangs:

Buffy: "The thing is, I like my evil like I like my men: Evil!"

  • House (who else?) gave us a rather distasteful one towards the end of season two, saying he liked his coffee black, the same way he liked his brain damaged neurologists.
  • While preparing to work all night on a case, Quentin Welcher (of Welcher And Welcher) - apropos of nothing - asked for his coffee "black; like my women".
  • Use in Psych

Mira's mother: I like my wine like I like my men: white and hairy.
Shawn: That makes no sense. None whatsoever. But I can see where Mira gets her spunkiness!

  • The Daily Show segment about Joe Scarborough's Product Placement of his morning show's new sponsor Starbucks had Jon Stewart saying, "I like my news like I like my coffee: black and sponsored. No, wait, that's how I like the NBA."
  • Fez on That '70s Show, after Donna changes her hair from red to blonde, and he disapproves.

Fez: I like my women the way I like my wine: red and full of alcohol.

Music

  • From the Mindless Self Indulgence song "Shut Me Up": "The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble / I like my coffee black, just like my metal."
  • In a song of Homer and Jethro: "Her teeth were like the stars above, because they come out every night."

New Media

  • There was a bit of an Internet kerfuffle when someone complained of seeing a T-shirt that said "I like my women like I like my coffee: ground up and in the freezer." The Fandom Wank community listed the many ways in which they like their men like they like their coffee:
    • ...strong, hot, and gone in around 10 minutes.
    • ...tied to the back of a mule.
    • ...advertised by a guy in a sombrero.
    • ...naked and in a burlap sack.
    • ...overpriced, and brought by a Ph.D. making minimum wage.
    • ...hot and black.
    • ...with a tongue-twistingly pretentious name that's much too long.
    • ...bitter and Jewish.
  • Was a bit of a meme at one point on GameFAQs before the mods cracked down on it.
  • Pedobear likes his women how he likes his whisky: 12 years old and mixed up with coke. (He also likes them like he likes his wine - 8 years old and locked in his basement.)
  • bash.org gives us the litmus test for a channel's racism.

<Jaayy> BLACK YOU FUCKING RACIST BASTARDS! I LIKE MY COFFEE BLACK!

I like my fish like I like my women: pretty, but deadly, pawns in my larger game.

I like my coffee like I like my women... with my dick in it!

Radio

Clocks should be like women; placed in the corner, and once a year, given a good servicing.
Bags should be like women; simple and with a single, lockable opening.

Theatre

  • Noel Coward: "Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs."

Video Games

  • In Kingdom of Loathing, the item description for the thermos full of Knob coffee says "Knob Goblins like their coffee like they like their female volleyball players: black, hot, and spiked."
    • And from the 'coffee pixie stick' item: "You always liked your coffee like you like your women -- dark, bitter, and they make you all twitchy and irritable and agitated."
    • And from the zone where everything talks like Dr. Seuss, the description of a 'cup of hickory chicory': "Like the women I like, it is dark and it's bitter / So drink it up, doc! C'mon! don't be a quitter."
    • Also "You like your showers like you like your women. Hot and in the shower with you."
  • In World of Warcraft, one of the jokes the female dwarves tell is, "I like my ale like I like my men: dark and rich."
    • Similarly, male dwarves have: "I like my beer like I like my women: stout and bitter."
  • Telltale's Sam and Max games give us this exchange while examining the coffee pot at Bosco's Inconvenience:

Sam: I think it's the tinge of green that makes this coffee especially appealing.
Max: I take my coffee green. Like my men!

Mordekaiser: I like my weapons like I like my music : heavy and metal.

Web Comics

Web Original

Joey Wheeler: Eh-rihga-toe back at ya, pal! Just Remember, you treat a Duel Disk just like a woman: you fasten it to your arm and place Trading Cards into it at regular intervals!

Western Animation

  • Futurama: Brannigan's Law is like Brannigan's love: hard and fast.
    • And to Zapp, making an arrest is like making love: it may or may not hold up and it's often challenged in court.
    • If it doesn't make sense, don't ask Zapp for an explanation. He didn't write Brannigan's law, he just enforces it.
  • Clone High: Clone-Gandhi likes his humping like he likes his martinis: Dry.
  • King of the Hill: Bill was pretending to be gay so he could work at a trendy salon. At a bar he has this to say:

"I like my drinks like I like my men: strong, sweet, and under an umbrella."

"I like my coffee, like I like my Secretaries of State. Not too dark, and a little sweet!"

Other

  • An entry to the Edward Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest:
    • "Jake liked his women the way he liked his kiwi fruit: sweet yet tart, firm-fleshed yet yielding to the touch, and covered with short brown fuzzy hair."
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