Appearance question

I like the look of my highlighted items in my menus when I set the appearance of my mac (via system preferences I mean) from blue to graphite but when I make the change it makes my minimize, close and maximize buttons grey too. Is there any way to keep my highlighted items grey and still retain the color of my buttons?

And yes I have tried changing the highlight color in system preferences but that only effects highlighted text, not menu items.

Thanks.

No

Not easily anyway. That's just part of the graphite aesthetic. You'll have to get used to going by the 'x' and '-' that appear when you mouse over them. The same thing happens in Blue by the way.