Normal Or Nuts

Your oddest human compulsions, evaluated

- Lori Kolman

YOU LIVE A PRETTY NORMAL LIFE. You’ve got friends, you’ve got hobbies, and you’re happy to spend 20 minutes hunting for the toothpaste at the pharmacy rather than—God, no! No! Anything but that! —actually asking an assistant for help. Trust us, that behaviour is normal, because all of us are a little, well, quirky. And in most cases, our idiosyncrasies are curable, or at least curbable. We asked an array of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other health professionals to weigh in on a variety of odd behaviours burdening our readers and staff. You might recognise one of them in yourself and wonder, Am I normal or nuts? The answer is always yes and yes.

Why am I awkward around kids?

I have nothing to say to people under 12, and frankly, I don’t find them particularly cute. What’s wrong with me?

“I hear this all the time,” says Charlynn Ruan, a Los Angeles clinical psychologist who works, ironically enough, mostly with mothers. “A lot of them say, ‘The only children I like are my own.’” At the root of this more-common than-you’d-expect dread is the ever-potent fear of embarrassment.

One common concern is that “out of the mouths of babes” will come a truth no one wants to hear: “That man smells funny, Mummy.” “Wow, lady, you must eat a lot of food.” “What are all those lines on your face?”

Then there’s the cringe factor of doting parents—and worse, grand parents!— hovering nearby, convinced that everything their child says should be etched in stone. No wonder you’re uncomfortable talking to the no-neck monsters.