I love Taylor Swift.

This is a common sentiment held by millions of people worldwide.

Her current global Eras Tour grossed an estimated $2.2 billion in North America. The tour was so big, it created an economic stimulus for the cities where she played dates, according to Time magazine.

Video from the tour shows throngs of people screaming, hugging, laughing, and crying at the world’s biggest pop star.

People love Taylor Swift.

And so do I.

But I felt uncomfortable saying it for years.

Part of it is the learned behavior of a failed music snob.

Many of my friends are the kind of people who look down their noses at the things the masses love, instead seeking an allegedly higher form of entertainment in deep cuts on albums from little-known artists.

I tried this. That’s how I ended up with CDs from bands such as Prefab Sprout and Ultimate Spinach.

In the end, it felt like I was sacrificing enjoying music for trying to find the secret garden of music no one else knew about but me, and as soon as that artist was successful I could curse them as sellouts.

The other reason was Swift fans, or Swifties as they call themselves, seemed to be heavily comprised of young girls.

A single, heterosexual male must be very careful in these situations lest he be labeled a groomer or worse.

I knew little of Swift for the first half of her career. I saw her picture on websites, heard gossip about who she dated, and her famed breakup songs.

I usually ignore celebrity news. They, like pro athletes, live in a different universe than I do. Trying to understand their lives feels like a Tralfamadorian explaining the space-time continuum to Billy Pilgrim.

If you didn’t understand that line, read “Slaugherhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut at once.

I might have missed out on Swift completely if it weren’t for a pizza I ordered late one night in the fall of 2012.

Swift promoted her 2012 album “Red” through a partnership with Papa John’s Pizza.

Order a pizza. Get the CD free. Why not?

I played the CD. I liked lyrics such as “Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street” from the title track.

I liked “22,” which has a refrain “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22,” Swift’s age at the time the record came out.

I was 37 listening to this and feeling like I could stay out all night and watch the sun rise.

I couldn’t. I didn’t. But listening to Taylor Swift made me feel like I could.

Swift appeared on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” That, I think, is where she cracked through my grumpy notions of being too old to like this young artist disappeared.

She told funny anecdotes about getting into two car accidents — that poor Maserati! — with a Rolling Stone reporter riding along with her.

Swift’s tour for her “1989” album came to Des Moines in 2015. By then I was an unabashed Swiftie, but I was too slow getting tickets to the show at Wells Fargo Arena.

I wrote a column for the newspaper in Des Moines called “Confessions of a middle-aged Taylor Swift fan.”

A former boss and friend used a connection and bought me a ticket to the show. It remains a highlight of my life.

I’m not exaggerating.

Swift knows how to put on a show.

When we filed into the arena, everyone received a plastic bracelet. There was a sheet telling us to remove a plastic slide and wait for the show.

The bracelets lit up different colors while she sang. That was neat, but she made it more special.

She sashayed down the length of the stage like a runway model and stood at the circle at the end like a giant thermometer.

Guardrails surrounded Swift. She hooked a safety line to one. Then she rose into the air on a giant mechanized arm. The stage turned so that at one point in the night everyone in the arena got to look directly at Swift while she performed.

While she was aloft, she told the audience that she knew some of them felt she couldn’t see them, but with those lighted bracelets blazing, “You would be very wrong.”

The crowd erupted. I remember being touched. What a nice thing to do: Let the people who maybe couldn’t afford a great seat near the stage that she cared about them being there, too.

Eight years later, Taylor Swift is arguably the most well-known woman in the world.

I’m a bigger fan than ever. The first voice I hear every weekday morning is Taylor Swift’s. I have three alarms on my iPhone.

The first is a clip from the torch song “Wildest Dreams.”

If I’m grumpy and hit snooze, the second alarm is the chipper “Shake It Off.”

If I’m in danger of being late, the final alarm is the rocker “Bad Blood,” and if I hear that, I’d better be in the Dan Van or on my way to it.

Her Eras show has gone international.

Des Moines is too small to host a show of Swift’s magnitude. Kansas City, Missouri, was the closest she came.

I could neither afford tickets nor had the perseverance to navigate the crowds on a walker with an arthritic back and knees.

But Taylor is taking care of us again. There’s a concert film coming in October.

The moment I heard about the show, I bought two tickets.

I might be the oldest person in the film who’s not escorting children.

I don’t care. I’m seeing that concert film.

There’s one hang-up: I bought two tickets. My buddy who usually goes to movies with me bowed out of going. She’s a music snob and proud of it.

Getting a movie is no problem, but how the heck am I supposed to get a date?

Taylor only knows.

Middle school teacher Daniel P. Finney is a columnist and reporter for the Marion County Express.

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