My Quirkiest Quirk

Everyone has a few quirks, some more annoying than others, but it’s normal. Quirks help make up our personality. Similar to our mannerisms, it’s what makes us unique. It’s what makes me, me…or what makes me weird? Probably a little of both. It’s the little idiosyncrasies that that often go ignored in my eyes, but become visibly apparent in the eyes of another. Like when my 3-year-old niece and I were enjoying some Target fruit snacks the other day. She pointed out the fact that I separate the chewy little bites into color/flavor groups. “Why you do that?” she inquired. “Do what?” I replied. I didn’t have a good answer for her because I didn’t have the slightest idea why I do that, I just do it. I also eat them in this order – orange, grape and then strawberry. The red is always last because it’s my favorite. I’m not raciest. I don’t support fruit segregation, but I do seem to be giving special treatment to the red. But why do I eat them in groups and in that particular order? If you figure that out, let me know because I don’t do that with any other food, only the fruit snacks. It may be my quirkiest quirk. I give you Exhibit A.

Although, it doesn’t end there. I have other quirks. I’m a bit of a neat and clean freak too. I don’t like germs. I don’t like mess. Combine the two and I feel uneasy. I feel disorganized and out of my element. I have trouble thinking, even functioning in a world that looks as if a tornado blew in and left a thick layer or crud and debris marking its destructive path. Simply put, clutter and grime is not a friend of mine.

I think it’s the meterosexual in me. I don’t mind getting dirty, but I don’t like germs. More specific, I don’t like man-made germs. Filth left by strangers. Hotel rooms gross me out, even the five-star ones. I just can’t relax without imagining what bodily fluids a blacklight could reveal on the sheets. My skin is crawling just thinking about it! But I can’t let it get the best of me. I can’t be one of those OCD neat and clean freaks! I keep it under control.

When I was in high school, I believe I had a mild form of OCD when it came to my alarm clock. I would check it constantly before bedtime and throughout the night. It was bad. I must have checked to make sure the alarm was properly set at least 20 times in a single night. I would lay there and tell myself I just checked it 3 times before I turned the light off, but I just couldn’t fall asleep without checking it again. And again. And again. I don’t remember how I broke myself of the habit and I don’t even know why I was so worried my alarm wouldn’t go off. If it didn’t go off, so what. I would be late for school, big deal. I wasn’t even worried about being late for school so why the excessive time checking? To this day I don’t have the slightest clue. All I know is that I kept it to myself in fear that I would be labeled a freak.

I don’t have any Obsessive Compulsive Disorders now, but there are a few things that I do which some see as rather strange. I would list them, but perhaps even today I’m apprehensive to share this info in fear that the world will apply the freak tag upon me. And maybe I deserve to be called a freak, but aren’t we all freaks to some degree? My “kinda sorta not really girlfriend” reassures me that she disregards the peculiar little quirks that I do possess and focuses more on all the adorable idiosyncrasies and sweet layers that make me who I am. She refers to how I tend to bite my bottom lip when I am in deep thought. How I rub the back of my neck when I am nervous. How I tilt my head to the right when I’m flirting. And even how I give her this smirk when something sexual is going thru my mind and I’m trying my hardest to behave. These things I am not even aware of until someone brings them to my attention.

Mannerisms and personality will come thru no matter how nonchalant you think you are being. You can’t hide who you are and I can’t hide these things anymore than I can hide the fact that I color code my fruit snacks. It’s who I am – quirky.