You sound like you could be the husband of a friend of mine. When she & her husband would come over for dinner, I would make two sets of almost anything. One set for her and my husband, very spicy. One set for her husband & me, with much less spice. The only way she could taste anything was for it to be extremely intense. The first time she ever tasted Mexican food (and found she really liked it) was when I made a pan of enchiladas and accidentally made it about four times hotter than normal. Before that, it had always been pastelike with a little bit of crunchiness.