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Last edited by ProfessorF on 27-06-2006 11:23; edited 1 time in total

Apologies if there's another thread that covers this - I looked but couldn't see one!

I was talking to my housemates about their phobias - not the usual things like fear of heights, but objects, noises, smells, sensations that trigger a genuine fear.

Personally, I don't think I've encountered anything that I have an irrational fear of, quite unlike my housemates.
One cannot be in the same room if I'm sharpening a knife on a steel - fairly mundane compared to the girls.

Girl A hates seeing someone touch, rub their feet on, or rub anything else against carpet. I only discovered this after getting a dustpan and brush to sweep up a spilt ashtray - she went bright red and started cringing on the sofa! Even the noise was torturing the poor girl.

Girl B wouldn't tell us what her special fear is - until I brought home of the Direct Line Red telephones from work (a neglected prop from our basement many years old now) and BINGO that's the trigger. Something to do with the old school handsets I think, but she won't even talk about it! She had to leave the room - even though the phone stayed in a cardboard box.

So I was just wondering - who else has a completely irrational fear of an otherwise mundane experience?

edited by TheQuixote: altered thread title

Posted: 19-04-2006 20:00 Post subject:

A former roommate of mine would always ask me to take the cotton out of her pill bottles. I remember seeing her cringe, turn and run out of the room as I did this. She hated cotton!

Posted: 20-04-2006 00:56 Post subject:

I have a strange phobia myself. I have a complete fear of pickles. I will not even eat at a resteraunt that serves them. Many people ask me if I was tourmented with them when i was young, but no, i was just always like that. When I was starting to eat solid foods, my mom offered me one, but i screamed and cried until she took it away. She tried once more the next day, but it still caused me to get very upset. I cannot even feel comfortable in a room with them. Its such a stupid fear.... Embarassed

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:05 Post subject:

My bro has some phobias that are not only a bit weird but also his reactions to them sometimes takes the biscuit.

He is really phobic about gherkins and cucumbers. When I was younger, I *decorated* his bedroom door with cucumber (mashed and sliced - sticks like glue). He beat several shades of crap out of me as he couldn't even bear to touch the doorhandle to get into his room. His toddler has twigged onto his phobia and when she has cucumber (she loves it) she'll either wave it in his direction or throw it at him. He also can't eat any food that may have once touched either a cucumber or a gherkin.

We've also taught her to throw her Disney *Grumpy* Dwarf at him as he also shudders and screams like a girl at garden gnomes and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He'll actually retch if you take the toy dwarf close by him.

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:24 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:30 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:37 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:39 Post subject:

Ohhh.. oh ho... you can't trick me into disclosing that one on here.

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:40 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:44 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2006 02:55 Post subject:

Oh okay, it's...

Bill Oddie

it's not that I dislike him as such but a friend had a running joke in which she would text me that Bill Oddie was on his way over to my house to do unspeakable things to my skull.

Yes, she is still my friend and I do love her dearly but it has left me mentally scarred. *puts hand to forehead and swoons*

Joking aside, it's true. I can't even look at Bill Oddie now without thinking of what she used to text me. What he'd get up to when he'd got to my door...

Posted: 20-04-2006 03:05 Post subject:

My dad has a phobia of chickens. This is extended to other birds, though mostly birds that have pointy-ish beaks and might peck, so to him, ducks aren't too bad but pigeons are pretty unpleasant. He does eat chicken but he won't prepare it if it still looks like a chicken.

I had a housemate who had an aversion to wet cotton wool - something to do with the squeaking sound it can make, or something.

She knews a woman who was phobic of buttons, and you couldn't wear clothes with visible buttons around her. How such people survive in the real world I don't know. How do you get by if you can't be around buttons?

Posted: 20-04-2006 07:11 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2006 07:49 Post subject:

Oi! This thread should be in chat!

I have a phobia about arbitrary message board rules.... Evil or Very Mad

Posted: 20-04-2006 07:55 Post subject:

Nope - phobias are Fortean enough to stay here, provided that perhaps there's some discussion on them rather than just a rote list of odd fears, hence my question about the source of the really strange ones. People frightened of gherkins is pretty odd, IMHO.