Alison Bezzina

Let’s face it - we all have bizarre habits that can easily drive others bananas. Some of us pick our noses whilst driving, others bite their lips when nervous, some eat their nails when bored, and others might even resort to chewing their clothes when stressed.

Whoever we are, wherever we’re from, we all have some sort of acquired pattern of illogical behaviour that is beyond our control. Some habits are perplexingly bizarre - like compulsively having to do everything twice - but other habits are amazingly common - like not being able to sleep in complete silence. Personally, I have some old habits that are outright weird - like enjoying the idea of having a cup of tea by my side with no intention of drinking it. I also have some newly acquired habits that, at least to me, are very funny - like picking at my toe nails until I have none whatsoever left, or forming big knots with long strands of my own hair. I also have some habits that are seasonal - they come and go according to the amount of stress I’m under, how uncomfortable my underwear is, and in whose company I’m in. And, there are many other habits that I know I will acquire, and some, I know will find good reasons to keep for good.

Habits might be maddeningly annoying to the people around us; they might embarrass us if our kids pick them up and reveal them to all and sundry; they might be incredibly anti-social, downright disgusting, or hideously expensive, but unless we have to live with someone who is crippled with them, habits can be funny and are certainly a great help in our journey through life. For example, when good habits graduate to daily routines, they eliminate the need to strategize about each tiny step of the day. Let’s take me getting to work on time for instance. This is a daily miracle that is entirely dependent on a mix of good and bad habits – it starts with me getting out of bed after pushing the snooze button five times, taking seven steps to the bathroom, a skip and a hop to the kitchen, making a nice cup of tea with exactly five teaspoons of milk and half a gram of sugar, taking a shower with the exact dose of mint and lavender exfoliating shower gel, drying off all ten toes in an anti-clockwise messaging motion, and dressing up bottoms first, tops last. It ends with me blindly applying make-up whilst watching the morning news and taking the same route to work on automatic pilot. Without the force of habit, I’d be running late, getting lost and losing my head every step of the way.

Of course, bad habits can have a deadly grip on us because they are notoriously hard to break and are very easy to resume, but even bad habits can be comical unless you have to live with them. I once met a guy whose wife was losing her marbles because he had developed a habit of moving constantly. Unless he made a conscious effort to stop moving he could not stand or sit still for a second. He would incessantly crack, stretch or tap his fingers, wiggle his toes and twist his ankles. He would stretch his neck and scratch his head, shake his shoulders and twitch his eyes. He would shift his weight from one side to another, and relentlessly touch different parts of his body with random force. Every five minutes his wife would lose her temper and tell him to stop, which he could do for exactly two minutes and then the cycle started all over again. Medically there was absolutely nothing wrong with him and from afar his behaviour was hilarious. His wife, on the other hand, admitted herself into a mental hospital after she attempted to nail her husband to his bed whilst he was sleeping.

It’s very difficult to distinguish between OCD traits, plain phobias and strange habits. In fact I see the signs of all of these so often that I'm absolutely convinced that we all suffer from some level of neurosis. Most of us manage to conceal the signs, whilst some of us are a walking mad house. Personally I go through good and bad habits like there’s no tomorrow and, the only habit that has stood the test of time with me is the habit of inconsistency. Variety is the spice of life after all, so over the years I’ve gone through a phase of continually chewing my hair, biting my nails down to the bone, sucking on all my pens and pencils, and obsessively avoiding the grout lines on pavements. I also enjoyed folding many rice paper sheets into a small square and biting into the ultra compact deliciousness making my lips stick to each other until the rice paper melts. I read magazines and newspapers from back to font, and I’m still a ‘list-aholic’ – I have to list down on paper everyday tasks otherwise I cannot organize my thoughts well enough to do them. This includes every major task, from cleaning and shopping, to minor everyday stuff like calling friends and planning a day off. As a child I even used to say a sentence or two and then say it again quietly under my breath. I don’t think I do that anymore, I don’t think I do that anymore.

As a writer, I particularly love stories about the little rituals that famous authors were compelled to do in order to be able to write because they make my little habits look so normal when compared to their eccentricities. All I need to start writing is, to be seated in exactly the same spot, in precisely the same position and with the same TV channel muted in front of me. I also need a cold cup of tea by my side and no one talking to me or to each other. The poet Friedrich von Schiller on the other hand, used to keep rotten apples under the lid of his desk, open it, inhale deeply and compose. Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette used to have to pick fleas from her cat before she could write anything. Voltaire used his lover's naked back as a writing desk, and it is said that Edgar Allen Poe wrote with a cat on his shoulder.

Clearly my habits are not weird enough to transform me into a great writer, so I think I’ll adopt a few. Applications for broad naked backs are now open. Hairy backs will automatically be disqualified.

First published on FM Magazine September 2008