Author disclaimer: after reading this article, you’re likely to have a new phobia or two. Believe me, I wrote it, and now everything is TERRIFYING. I used to think having a fear of holes (trypophobia, BTW) was the worst. Nope. I was wrong.
Back to the nitty gritty. There are hundreds—heck, thousands—of phobias that cripple people’s lives and ability to function. However, some are a bit more quirky than others. Turns out facial hair, certain colours and being chained by the shackles of marriage can send people into a panic frenzy.
To introduce you to the world of phobias, here are 30 weird phobias you never knew existed. Oh, and you can disregard the first paragraph...as if I was going to fill your mind with the frightening phobias I found—I’m not that cruel. Here are the most ridiculous phobias I could find on the interwebs.
- Turophobia: fear of cheese. These poor, poor souls.
- Ergophobia: fear of work. Same.
- Venustraphobia: fear of beautiful women. Frightening stuff.
- Consecotaleophobia: fear of chopsticks. No sushi for you, homie.
- Genuphobia: fear of knees. Yep, the things on your legs.
- Pogonophobia: fear of beards aka. a hipster barista’s worst dating nightmare.
- Francophobia: fear of French people and their culture. Guess Paris is off the cards then.
- Sinistrophobia: fear of things to your left or left-handed people. Just imagine! If your child was left-handed, you’d basically have to adopt them out to survive.
- Bibliophobia: a fear of books. The saddest phobia of them all.
- Gamophobia: fear of marriage/relationships/commitment in general. It’s legit.
- Anuptaphobia: fear of being single. You might want to give this a read.
- Omphalophobia: fear of belly buttons. Having one, touching one, seeing one.
- Ithyphallophobia: fear of erect penises. Having one, touching one, seeing one. No comment.
- Euphobia: fear of good news. WHAT, WHY, HOW.
- Porphyrophobia: fear of the colour purple. What did it ever do to you, huh?!
- Arachibutyrophobia: fear of having peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth. This article probably ain’t for you then.
- Allodoxaphobia: fear of opinions. Keep them to yourself, please and thank you.
- Deipnophobia: fear of dinner parties/conversations while eating dinner. The ‘meet the parents’ dinner with your girlfriend is going to be an interesting one.
- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: fear of long words. How ironic.
- Coprastasophobia: fear of being constipated. Up your fibre intake, yo.
- Namophobia: fear of being out of mobile phone coverage. Pretty sure 87% of people under the age 25 have this.
- Peladphobia: fear of bald people. Um, rude.
- Papaphobia: fear of the pope. The poor guy is just trying to spread the love!
- Chirophobia: fear of hands. Guess massages are off the cards for you.
- Panophobia: fear of everything. EVERYTHING.
- Oikophobia: fear of household appliances. Basically the perfect excuse to avoid doing the vacuuming.
- Phagophobia: fear of swallowing. It's all spit and no swallow.
- Agyrophobia: fear of crossing the street. Hopefully you can cross this one of your list.
- Pentheraphobia: fear of mother-in-laws. Tread lightly.
- Phobiaphobia: fear of phobias. What is life.
Image Credit: Keeping Up With The Kardashians