I try very hard to respect people’s phobias. I try very hard not to make fun of people for them, or tease them about them, or belittle them because of them. I am scared to great-googly-moogly of geckos. The house I grew up in had so many geckos!
I saw them crawl out of a sink faucet, ninja out of a crack in a countertop, and freaking materialize in the middle of a room as I walk across it.
They died in light fixtures and left creepy gecko corpse shadows in the ceiling.
They jumped off the door at you when you approached just trying to get into the house.
I have stepped on something “wet” in the middle of the night only to wake up to a corpse in the middle of my bedroom in the morning.
I had a lot of friends tease me over how much they freak me out. I know that they had no intension of being mean. It was intended as good-natured ribbing. But that teasing struck me harder than the other times because I felt like my fear was something I had no control over. I could try a new hairstyle and end up looking dumb, I could flub my words and end up speaking gibberish or with a weird accent, I could have a clutzy moment…. But those were one-time things that I had some sort of active participation in. I had no control over how much geckos freaked me out.
Because of how much the teasing bothered me (especially as someone who has a healthy sense of humor and is plenty self-deprecating) I go out of my way to respect other people’s fears. My husband is super afraid of bees and wasps, so I take care of the wasp nests every year and give him a heads up if I know there’s a particularly active area.
I had a friend who feared cats, so I made sure to shut my cats in another room when I knew she was coming over. If I’m walking my dog and a little kid seems afraid of him, I pull him close and put myself between the dog and the kid, keeping as much distance between all of us as possible.
It’s just not hard to respect people’s fears and I don’t get why more people don’t do it.
I saw them crawl out of a sink faucet, ninja out of a crack in a countertop, and freaking materialize in the middle of a room as I walk across it.
They died in light fixtures and left creepy gecko corpse shadows in the ceiling.
They jumped off the door at you when you approached just trying to get into the house.
I have stepped on something “wet” in the middle of the night only to wake up to a corpse in the middle of my bedroom in the morning.
I had a lot of friends tease me over how much they freak me out. I know that they had no intension of being mean. It was intended as good-natured ribbing. But that teasing struck me harder than the other times because I felt like my fear was something I had no control over. I could try a new hairstyle and end up looking dumb, I could flub my words and end up speaking gibberish or with a weird accent, I could have a clutzy moment…. But those were one-time things that I had some sort of active participation in. I had no control over how much geckos freaked me out.
Because of how much the teasing bothered me (especially as someone who has a healthy sense of humor and is plenty self-deprecating) I go out of my way to respect other people’s fears. My husband is super afraid of bees and wasps, so I take care of the wasp nests every year and give him a heads up if I know there’s a particularly active area.
I had a friend who feared cats, so I made sure to shut my cats in another room when I knew she was coming over. If I’m walking my dog and a little kid seems afraid of him, I pull him close and put myself between the dog and the kid, keeping as much distance between all of us as possible.
It’s just not hard to respect people’s fears and I don’t get why more people don’t do it.
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