Sunday’s post on my being neurotic has had a funny impact. Everyone’s been approaching me confessing their quirks. Not in an ashamed way, but in a way that comes with a cute smile that says, “we’re all such funny creatures, aren’t we…”.
I’ve even had a talent scout for Jerry Seinfeld’s The Marriage Ref wanting to get in touch with people who have quirks who’d be happy to appear on the show. This is what she wrote: “I’m really not looking for serious neuroses, but more quirky things that people do, along with their partner’s response or light grievance with it.”
In the spirit of our all being in this together, below are some more neuroses, names deleted. What are yours? You a tapper? A checker? A number counter? Share….!
Derek Reilly, at surfing mag Stab, sent me this from a column he’s just written for the mag (uncanny!):
- When boarding an aircraft I must walk to the final porthole on the air-bridge, sight the fuselage, identify the model of aircraft (and its potential age) or else it will crash. The responsibility of two hundred lives means that, even if I have a death wish, which I do occasionally, I still have to look – or risk having the blood of innocents on my hands.
- When I walk, I tap the back of my legs with my feet. The faster I walk, the faster I tap. Running is a physical impossibility for me.
- When I look in the mirror, the first third of my tongue comes out of my mouth, dog-like. I didn’t know even know I did this until Wheels, the other Stab guy, triumphantly announced it to a group of people in an elevator (it had a mirror and I was doing it). A humiliating triumph for a man whom I champion and behold as a great friend.