That Threatening Breakfast
I’ve just come back from a very pleasurable quiz night with some friends- and incredibly knowledgeable they were too. I knew nothing about tennis and Hot Chocolate, and stood helpless before a picture of chickens in their coop whose question was: Spot the fish. (answer: Perch.) Only in one area could I out-answer my co-quizzers: That of phobias.
Imagine – they didn’t know that arachibutyrophobia is fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth! Talk about ignorance.
Inspired by this I visited a phobia website. If you thought boring old “fear of spiders” or “fear of being buried alive” was anything to be proud of, think again.
Our dear chaps up north, as well as, to a certain degree, our own bowtie-ridden so-called leaders down here in Hong Kong, all seem to suffer en masse by the dreaded allodaxaphobia – a fear of opinions.
If they, being Chinese, in addition suffered from consecotaleophobia, they’d be in serious trouble, as it means “fear of chopsticks.”
Dikephobia (fear of justice) would be right up their street though.
Before I read the list, I considered myself fairly sane and phobia-free. Now it appears I have a couple, notably geniophobia (fear of chins) (mine, though, not others’) and arithmophobia. As the latter means “fear of numbers, I’d say that’s “fear” enough. I don’t only fear numbers but hate them with a vengeance.
Reading through the list with increasing incredulousness, I couldn’t help thinking: Are these phobias just made up for fun or have there been people being diagnosed with them and the doctor having to make up the word, or being diagnosed and the doctor finding there was already a thing called for example nomatophobia (fear of names)?
That particular phobia would make it quite inconvenient to exist in normal society I’d imagine, much harder than suffering from for example sesquipedalophobia, a fear of long words, which are easier to avoid than names – indeed some people manage to spend a lifetime without encountering a single one.
I read in a book of psychology once that phobias are mere projections – other fears or hatreds in one’s life which one feels are not quite comme il faut to express; as in: Hate your father but can’t face up to it? Come down with a fear of buttons instead! (I forget the greek term for this but I’ve seen it on TV.) Frustrated and angry with work and life in general? Express it by becoming deadly afraid of bananas!
The idea is that when you have a phobia, you can have a semblance of control over your life by avoiding the thing you’re afraid of. Yes, you know where you are with arachibutyrophobia; all you have to do is stay away from peanut butter-related situations like breakfast. You can probably even be in the same room as peanut butter, as long as you avoid it sticking to the roof of your mouth.
Of course, if your phobia of choice is phobophobia (you guessed it: A fear of phobias) you’re pretty much shafted. And don’t get me started on chronophobia, the fear of time. Unavoidable! I feel really sorry for the thousands and thousands suffering from that one.
Oh dear, is that the time? I’d better go to bed. I just hope I don’t wake up in the morning with a nasty case of cacophobia. If I do, my days in Hong Kong are numbered, because it means a fear of ugliness…