Do you have a phobia? Not just an oo-I-don’t-like-that but something that you genuinely can’t handle? What is it? Snakes, spiders, eyeballs, blood? Heights (falling from) or depths (of water, trapped under) or something else entirely?
Do you dare to name it here?
Just to start the merry ball rolling, I will admit to being scared of drowning. I’ve come close enough before now to know it is not my cup of tea. (You can’t drown in a cup of tea.) I still go swimming, but you are unlikely to find me out of my depth. In fact, in rough water, you’re unlikely to find me out of my width.
What about you?
My phobia is obvious to those who have seen me encounter it, but I have a visceral reluctance to say what it is when asked—because it the person doesn’t already know (as seems probable, if they’re asking the question) there seems no advantage to my giving the information. If anything, it would be a certain disadvantage—volunteering knowledge that they could easily and conceivably exploit. Folks have deliberately put said phobia into my path, for laughs (presumably their own—it certainly wasn’t mine). Why would I enable more people to do that?
But since we’re not in object-throwing distance, I’ll confess it’s cockroaches. Now please don’t email me a picture of one.
Definitely not information to give to someone you don’t trust! Or to someone with a dubious sense of ‘humour’.
Have you seen Victor/Victoria? The main character also suffers from katsaridaphobia, which plays into the plot. Warning: film may contain depictions of cockroaches. Well, one cockroach, anyway.
AAAUGH! I’d never heard of katsaridaphobia before, and neither had my dictionary app, so I Googled it. (I’d read the “also” part of your post as indicating something else in addition to a cockroach thing.) The results page plastered a picture at the top, of a bunch of them! I think I actually yelled!
But don’t worry, I won’t hold you responsible for that one. It was my unhappy accident.
The things search engines do in a misguided effort to be helpful! Why doesn’t someone create technology that only does what you ask it to?
HEIGHTS. I wish I were braver but I can’t handle them.
Well, heights and snakes and things like that are the sort of thing which could actually be dangerous. So it makes more sense to be afraid of those than, say, afraid of having peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth (arachibutyrophobia).
Haha very true. I’m glad I don’t have arachibutyrophobia — I love peanut butter!