This is part our of a series of things I have noticed about the way I carry on normal life that can be tracked back to OCD—but in a much less serious sense as other situations written about on this site. “What is fun? Let me spell it for you!”

• Imagine your fixation on numbers extending into what others would consider the macabre—your own demise. First, know that on my phone I have a date counter that tells me how many days it has been since many life events. I celebrate when these hit nice, even numbers rather than calendar milestones like months since or years since. Rather, it makes me happier to celebrate numbers like 111 days since, 500 days since, even 666 days since makes me rather happy¹. Thus, I have it in my mind that I will die on my 75th birthday. This would be a perfect day to die. The 75th percentile is my favorite percentile, if we’re considering 100 a beautiful end-of-the-line number—which we are. Thus, I have a countdown to that date on my phone. It currently says “Remain: 11892 days.” Yeah, OCD.

• I have a very deep compulsion to always walk behind people. There is no worse feeling than having someone walking behind me, no matter how much I trust them. Strange, maybe, that this does not come from any sort of bad experience of being attacked, mugged, or anything like that. But I sense it has something to do with fear, if not order. Does this subconsciously make me a follower? It is possible, I consider myself a passenger in life much more so than a driver². I am—by orders of magnitude—more comfortable being behind people when walking so I can see them and their actions. Yeah, OCD.

• Imagine surfaces in the house. Counters, tables, desks, shelves. For the most part I have an obsession with them being covered with some form of fabric—usually a kitchen towel (clean, washed frequently, and perfectly centered and straight.) I do this even in areas that pick up dirt. What is ironic is that the fabric actually accumulates more dirt if I am not extremely careful, than the surface it is covering would. But I am extremely careful. For example, I won’t pour my coffee over the cloth covering my coffee station³. And spilling coffee grounds on the towel bothers the hell out of me. All the while if I did not have the cloth there, clean-up would be simple. But I need certain surfaces to be in fabric, for no reason other than OCD. Yeah, OCD.

• I use Twitter for Yeah OCD. (Here!) I have no real use for my own “likes” of things, so I’ve decided to keep that at exactly 111. And I will like my own posts⁴, in most recent order, by the count of 111. That is to say, every now and then I will like—say—three of my most recent posts and move to the bottom and remove three likes from my own posts. Yeah, OCD.

• Imagine simple hair conditioner. I use it. I haven’t found the right one for me in my decades of showering, but I still use it. I am, as one would know from reading this site, an extreme rule follower. My conditioner says to leave it on for “one to two minutes.” This doesn’t play well with me, I need to know an exact time. So I go with two minutes. Exactly two minutes. I will put my conditioner in, start counting “one-one-hundred, two-one-hundred, three-one-hundred…” up until I have counted to one hundred and twenty. Exactly 2:00:00 is my goal here, following the rules. Yeah, OCD.