Yes, it’s normal
A good friend in Canada sent me a link to a web forum (http://isitnormal.com) where people put out questions about their secret freakish behaviour and await judgement from readers on whether such behaviour is acceptable or not. Things such as ‘sleep rape’, a desire to eat your grey hairs, and regularly defecating on your neighbour’s driveway are some of the issues put out for the opinions of the web-trawling masses.
Reading through some of the items got me to thinking about the human condition, and these are the conclusions I have made:
1. No matter how weird you think it is, the habit has a name. Yes, they all do. Even that fantasy involving you, the broom, artichokes and the dog next door.
2. Following on from 1, if you’re inclined to think that anything you do is unique, get over it. It’s not. Someone somewhere (in fact, probably as you read this), is doing that weird thing you do sometimes.
3. Following on from 2, you as a person are still unique. While none of the individual things you do is unique, the particular combination of the things you do is unique. Which is why we can all relate to each other to some degree.
Using myself as a case study, I’ll point out an example of a unique combination of habits. And I’m hoping none of these make you judge me in any way – hopefully some of you have similar habits. Though I hope no-one has all of them, combined. That would lessen my individuality and cause me to contrive new habits to redeem myself:
Specifications: Individual, model X9939 v2.0
1. You may recall from a previous post that I have a problem peeing in public loos. I tried to sort that out by going to Peas’ hypnotherapist, but you could say I pissed the R400 away (sorry, just couldn’t resist it). Over the years I’ve developed a strange habit (naturally, mine are unique!) to help me um, pee, in such scenarios: I have to say, in a Jamaican accent nogal, “Extraaact da urine, mon”. Don’t ask me, I don’t know why. But it helps, sort of.
2. If I get pressure applied to one part of my body for which there is a partner (ie legs, arms, cheeks – facial and gluteal, ears etc), eg someone touches me or I accidentally knock one against something, then I have to apply similar pressure to its mate to “even out” the feeling. You can imagine the abuse this created when my friends found this one out…
3. Being a generally atypical Virgo (you know the perfectionist stereotype), I do have certain fastidious habits: yes, the room can be a complete wreck of a mess, but the shoes had bloody well better be sitting in neat pairs, wherever they are! And the tassles on little carpets must all be neatly combed to lie absolutely parallel to each other (the easiest way to do this is on hands and knees, using your fingers as a brush). No soap stains on the (clean) cutlery or crockery, otherwise they are deemed dirty and go straight back into the sink!
4. A habit of sniffing my underarms. I am strangely fascinated by the faint odour that arises at the end of the day. I’m also convinced that my left underarm smells more than my right one, and I frequently attempt to get the Gilb to verify this (involuntarily), usually by attacking him as he’s lying down, not suspecting me to pounce on top of him and smother his face with a smelly pit. (I very rarely get to give him both pits at once, so the comparison is seldom successful). Does “everyone loves their own brand” apply to pits, too?
5. Sex. There are a number of habits here, but I’m only going to point out one of the strange ones, relating to role playing. Anyone watched The Score, where Ed Norton brilliantly portrays a thief pretending to be a retarded janitor? The Gilb does a really excellent impersonation of his voice and facial tics. I get totally turned on in bed when he drags the persona out (sadly it’s rather infrequently, these days). He plays the retard, I play the regular person trying to have illicit sex with him (“ok Danny” – that’s the name I use – “we’re going to do some special exercises, but let’s keep them a secret, something just you and I know about, ok?”). Once, while trying to explain to Danny about how we’re going to perform these “exercises”, he says (in the retard voice) “just hurry up and stick it in your hole now!”. Total fucking hysterics. Not to mention the arousal!
6. My pedantic obsession with correct spelling. Calling over waiters to inform them that the Italian language has been raped in the menu (capucino, Guiseppe’s, expresso) and carrying a permanent marker in my bag for correction of posters displayed in public (cheap accomodation, millenium carpet cleaners, affect change, dependant upon, principle issues etc) are some of my habits. And interrupting you in conversation to point out that you have just split your infinitive (even though the dear O.E.D. has given up on this one and declared it acceptable a few years ago).
Any similar souls out there?
posted by Third World Ant @ 7:01 pm
15 Comments:
Well of course!
What I'm going to do is do a similar post of my habits follwing yours. You may even empathise dude. :)
I almost did a list of your quirks, then decided I wouldn't want to steal your thunder. Blog away!
I'm a compulsive fidgeter - I can't keep my hands still. I waggle pens, jiggle keys, knead cushions and move my bracelets from one arm to the other. All. the. Time. My ex-boyfriend automatically moves the salt shaker and other table ornaments out of range when we sit down in a restaurant because he knows I'll fiddle with them until he screams.
I've tried, with varying degrees of success, to tone it down over the years, but all I did was develop a new, more furtive habit - if I don't have an object to play with, I'll swing my foot (erm, sitting down, obviously), or trace patterns on the furniture / wall / beloved with my fingers, but it has to be repeated in a PRECISE pattern, an EXACT sequence, which I can reverse, but not deviate from in the slightest - or it drives me nuts. More nuts, I mean. And then I just swing/trace/tap/fidget in a faster, more agitated fashion.
There's more, but , you know, too much information... and I'm definitely with you on the spelling tip.
I can relate to that in some way - if there's a candle at the dinner table, there'll be little wax slivers all over the tablecloth by the end of the meal. Even burnt a waiter's hand badly once when he tried to remove the candle I was fiddling with (forgetting that the candlestick was metal). Ouch - left a hefty tip in way of pardon.
Now the foot thing, can't relate to at all. I sit with my feet tucked under me all the time (at board meetings, too) so no room for movement. Perhaps that's a solution for you if the habit bugs you?
Your spelling quirk must drive you mad in this city. Every day I drive past a "Dietitian" and the sign at Wanderers that insists that one has to get management "concent" to take a vuvuzela into the stadium. And many more. It shouldn't bug me, since the message is still quite clearly being communicated, but it's one of the first things I noticed about JHB. The rest of the stuff: well I feel (comparatively) rather normal now!
ATW, you have no idea. I'm trying to lighten up about it - after the introduction of SMS communication, accepted norms of spelling will be a thing of the past, anyway. And what about songs? I used to be so irritated when the word "asked" became "aksed / axed" (see, I'm still concerned about the correct incorrect spelling), now I've been worn down into accepting it. On the bright side, at least English is a growing and changing language, not left to die like Latin...
I was thinking why bad spelling bugged me so. I think it's the written equivalent of not brushing your hair. It's OK in some places like bed or the beach or a sneak visit to the 7-11 (read songs/sms's) but just sloppy elsewhere like restaurants & shopping centres (read proper signwriting or formal documents).
Amen! My attitude is: if you, Mr Boss of Company XYZ can't spell your important instructions for underlings to carry out, then how can said underlings read your instructions correctly and carry them out as planned?
Arb aside - I once read that some company deliberately misspelt its name (Millenium Whatever They Were) so that it would appear first on the list ahead of all the other Millennium Whatever They Weres. I would have gone right past them to the first correctly-spelt service provider (though why you'd look under 'Millennium' for a carpenter in the Yellow Pages is beyond me).
It's the people who spell "lose" as "loose" that really send me to the edge, though.
BarbedWire - F$@!?#* - that drives me mental, too! And so many have forgotten the correct use of it's vs its...
Glad I got theit's vs its right in my comments above. The problem with being a spelling nazi is that one has to try and be pretty flawless oneself!
But there is an interesting story here.
Until the 19th century, in fact, "it's" was usually considered the possessive of "it" -- in the Fall, a tree shed "it's" leaves. The usual contraction of "it is" was "'tis." Only when "'tis" came to be regarded as an archaic form in the 19th century did the use of "it's" as a contraction of "it is" push out the use of "it's" as a possessive. I know this is a bit hard to follow, but the point is that the "rule" used to be the exact opposite of what it is today.
Nothing screams "I failed Standard 7 English" like multiple exclamation marks, either.
This is a great resource for grammar mavens - and grammar retards, like me.
ATW - Too often when I make claims about poor spelling/grammar I commit crimes in my own! Its/it's: I read through the article, the second point about contractions using apostrophes is highly valid (strange I've never thought of it in the context of its/it's). Our glorious English language is riddled with inconsistencies!
BarbedWire - I keep threatening to read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", haven't got around to it yet... apparently it's brilliant.
You heard correctly. It's. Or should that be 'tis?
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