Implemented select ajax. How do I prevent it from reloading on focus?

Question

Basically I have implemented a dropdown using select2, and I wired it up with ajax. That all works alright.

However the problem I have, is that I prepopulate some options via html. So what happens when I click on the select2 dropdown, it resets the options and waits for keyboard input. When I type in the keyword, it works as it should.

So is there a way to prevent select2, from clearing the items that were pre-populated whenever it gains focus? I would prefer that it would only get reset, once I actually type something in.

var merchantCategorySelect = $('#merchantCategory');

    merchantCategorySelect.select2({
        width: '100%',
        ajax: {
            url: "/admin/offers/not-matched/fetch-categories",
            data: function (params, page) {
                return {
                    term: params['term'],
                    merchantId: merchantCategorySelect.data('merchantid'),
                }
            }
        }
    });