In my search to find individuals open enough to discuss their phobias, I have come across an interesting demographical issue: nearly every student at Tufts is afraid of insects.
When I say everyone, I don't really mean everyone, just a rather hefty cross-section of the general public here. Why? I sought to discover a bit of the reasoning behind this widespread phobia.
At first, it seems pretty reasonable. Insects are obnoxious, have multiple legs, many eyes, love to crawl and feed on human flesh. What's there not to be afraid of? I mean, when we all die from nuclear radiation during Armageddon (which, by the way, definitely won't be caused by anything natural), are we going to be jealous of the fact that cockroaches will still be scampering about our ravaged planet? Probably not.
My general opinion is that most aversions we have, however minute, stem from some kind of primal instinct. For example, even not liking a particular restaurant stems from our instinct to protect ourselves from food that may be imprudent to consume. Entomophobia seems completely unfounded; surely a small insect is too insignificant to pose any kind of threat to a human being over five feet tall. Why do we hate them?
Maybe it's because they are so different from us; maybe that's the survival instinct coming into play. Most large animals that walked the earth were either large enough to be consumed by humans or a combination of peaceful and inedible which made them completely non-threatening. Bugs are a different story altogether: Too small to be consumed for any real dietary value, insects actually attack us as though expecting us to fight back! Perhaps it is from this confusion that the fear has sprung.
As I recline in my oversized suede God-sent chair, hands diligently typing away, I hear off in the far distance an alien noise, a buzzing of sorts. The sound becomes stronger, then fades, like some deranged 1950s fall-out alarm. I try to focus, but the sound is so mystifying, so terrifying in its unknown that I can't help but look up. I see before me, teetering helplessly, a large bee, fruitlessly tapping its nervous, incomplete torso against the window screen.
I panic.
Running as though the fire alarm had just been pulled (for real, this time), I dash down the hall to a compatriot's room which I have noticed houses an arsenal of insect-abolishing paraphernalia. Raid? Too stinky. Hot Shot? Messy. Flyswatter? PERFECT.
I take hold of the lethal instrument, running with conviction back to the scene of the defamation. Ah...the familiar buzzing sound is still looming! The beast must be near.
I spot it on a far wall, nervously inspecting Orlando Bloom's forehead. I approach with the cool, calm and professionalism of a General Zaroff, poised to kill. I cock the swatter back, keeping the abomination in sight. Then, in one fell swoop, I take a tremendous swat at Orlando, managing to leave a flyswatter-sized indentation on his distinguished countenance. I am completely still as I listen for any sign of the monster.
Wait ... there it is ... buzzing against the window again, this time, barely (and luckily) making it through the tiny crack. 'Til we meet again, little man. 'Til we meet again...
Aaron Lee, lying on the floor in front of his dorm room, is awake enough at 2:30 a.m. to immediately respond to me asking him what he is most afraid of: "Spiders, no duh." In the average person's lifetime, have spiders given enough trouble to give rise to this intense loathing? Probably not.
"They're just so ... gross ... and they've got legs -- lots of them." So what? Octopi have eight tentacles with suckers on them and no one seems to denounce octopi as the scariest creatures around.
Maybe it's because spiders can actually sting to kill. Of the 40,000 species of spiders, less than 200 are known to cause any kind of harm to humans and only a handful of the 200 are deadly. That means that less than one percent of the known spider population is deadly. Even of those, only two live in the continental United States, the others residing mainly in Africa, Australia and Brazil. That narrows our odds down to a .005 percent chance of being bit. Honestly, guys, my chance of getting into Harvard, Yale, Brown and Princeton simultaneously, is higher.
But even I, typically the person in the classroom to get up and squash the spider that has just stopped the world from spinning, was frightened to scroll through Wikipedia for fear of what I might ... see. The only reason I've been mentioning the spider is because it is the insect that gives humans the most probable cause for disliking it. Our fears of insects such as flies, bees, dragonflies and cockroaches are even more asinine.
"The feeling of them crawling on my skin is just so nasty," says Lee. "I don't even know what I'd do if one crawled on my face." For guys like him, there's just no hope that their greatest fear will be eradicated.
Despite the fact that insects do a great deal of good for us on the planet, that never really seems to be involved in our reasoning for finding anything mildly appealing about them. Our best bet is probably to continue carrying around repellant and swatting.
It hasn't let us down yet.
