There are things I would pay to not have to do. And there are things I would pay to do that other people would pay to not have to do. I guess what’s strange about this is what those things are. For instance, the other day I was in the bathroom in the morning, getting ready to go to a lecture, when someone knocked on our front door. My initial thought was to make sure the bathroom door was locked, turn the light off and hold my breath until something happened. You see, I have this irrational fear of answering the door, especially to strangers. However, I’d heard one of my flatmates get up a couple of minutes before, and knew he was in the kitchen, so I waited for him to answer the door. For some reason it took him a long time to walk the one metre from the oven to the front door, so the person knocked again. And every knock sounded like a gunshot to me. I got more and more anxious and unsettled with every knock. Finally I heard the door open and then close again, and when I left my bathroom sanctuary a few minutes later my flatmate informed me that I’d received mail. My new Visa card had arrived by courier… Oh. Right.
A similar fear is my fear of talking on the phone in general; making a phone call is classified as torture in my world, and I simply don’t answer the phone if I’m not expecting a call from someone or can tell from the phone number who it is. In many ways, the phone is a greater evil than the front door. When people call and I’m the only one around to answer (which I won’t do), the phone just keeps on ringing, and I almost freak out. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the annoying chiming of a phone. It really gets on my nerves. Unfortunately I’m too polite to pick up the phone and just hang up instantly.
I would never walk up to a stranger and engage him or her in a conversation voluntarily. I would, however, gladly speak in front of a room full of people, or perform something on a stage. I would pay a lot of money to not have to travel anywhere by boat ever again, but I would love to jump out of an aeroplane with nothing but a parachute to save me from certain death. I’m scared witless by the thought of swimming in the ocean where I can’t see the bottom, and where I can see the bottom I’m afraid of accidentally touching either the ground or some seaweed, yet one of my life goals is to go cage diving to see Great White sharks up close, and the thought of this does not scare me at all. Height does not scare me, apart from when it’s above water; I have, on two occasions, paid to jump off a platform with only a bungy cord attached to my feet – the first time it was a 45 metre drop and from a bridge suspended across a river – this nearly had me wet my pants. The second time it was a 134 metre drop and from a jumping pod suspended by thin steel wires across a nearly dried-up river valley far below, and I’ve never been more excited in my life; I couldn’t wait to jump off.
I’m afraid of driving a car on public roads, but if I could I would get a pilot’s licence. I have vowed never to ski or snowboard again, because the knowledge that I will, sooner or later, lose control, and that falling over is going to hurt, does not appeal to me. Yet I dream about one day climbing Mt Everest. Dream big and make it happen?
My greatest fear, however, is people. Rejection, judgment, failure, anger, desire – no matter what they do, how they act, or feel – I always feel intimidated by their presence, be it a stranger or a close friend or family member. And this fear can only be countered by one thing: Life.
No matter how odd these things may seem, it doesn’t change how I feel about them, and no matter how innocent or dangerous they may be, one thing is for certain: The postman always rings twice. And I’m not answering.
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