Damn, man, the peer pressure...
There's not much I refuse out of hand, especially when it comes to food.
The difference is, I have rarely ever changed my taste for something that I'm very familiar with. If that coworker had never told me the cookies were anise, I'd have eaten one without question... I mean, it's a cookie... and I still would have hated it. In fact, that's probably how I figured out I hated the taste of anise, because horrible people everywhere sneak it into holiday pastries without warning.
Minus the holiday part, I still think the analogy holds.