This is a topic I've thought about some this week--when does someone cross the line from being a delightful, unique individual who moves to the beat of their own drum to being someone that most reasonable people would cross the street trying to avoid? What are the behaviors and attitudes that cause individuals to reach that tipping point that makes them crazy?
What got me thinking about this was, someone pointed out to me that when I get frustrated at work (which has been a lot lately), I'll lean in moving my face closer to the computer monitor and I'll start to stroke my chin, as if I were Sigmund Freud trying to sort out a particularly tricky patient psychosis. I guess one day this week, I spent the better part of the afternoon with my face a foot from the computer screen and my hand rubbing my chin so vigorously you'd think I was trying to push the stubble back into my face. If someone who didn't know me had seen me, would they have thought I was some sort of a demented weirdo on a work-release program or would it have looked like I was being charmingly eccentric? I have no idea...
Tracy has the habit of checking to see if she's unplugged her curling iron every morning--even if she knows that she unplugged it. Sometimes, she'll be in her coat and ready to walk out the door, but if she hasn't checked TO MAKE SURE that the curling iron is unplugged, she's got to go back upstairs to look--or send me to do it for her, despite my protestations that I may have SEEN her unplug the curling iron. I find this to be a personal tic of Tracy's and generally it is charming, if occasionally annoying. I wonder if anyone else would suggest that this is OCD behavior that maybe she should have looked at. Beauty is not all that is in the eye of the beholder!
My cat Sammy cannot abide a closed door--he attacks it as vigorously as he would chase a mouse if he saw one and howls and meows piteously. Does this make the cat crazed or adorably needy?
I once knew a person in college who had to say "shit" under his breath every time he sneezed. Is that from embarrassment, or a chemical imbalance?
If you have a work friend in a different department or even a different city who you like to email several times a day, is that compulsive and stalker-ish or are you just good friends trying to make the day go by faster and easier?
When you're home alone do you ever watch television, cook or do other chores in the nude--even if you don't consider yourself a nudist? If so, is that just private, fun behavior that you enjoy and no one knows about or are you one and-a-half steps away from being a pervert?
I'd love opinions on this topic (anyone? anyone?) and more examples would be great. This is a completely qualitative survey of course, with no right or wrong answers, but I'd really like to know. Frankly, I just want to know if there's some way to tell if I'm falling off the deep edge or not or safely in the welcoming arms of Mother Sanity.
A quote...
"A man who falls in love once is truly lucky. The man who falls in love twice is cursed. But the man who falls in love three or more times is most certainly a fool..."
--Unknown, probably early 20th century origin
Peace...
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