Abnormal Psychology - My Friend, Jason
The first time that I went to my friend, Jason 's house I noticed that this 25 year old bachelor was excessively neat. I thought this was quite an unusual quality for a single, busy guy, but took it at face value as I didn 't know anything about psychological disorders at the time. As our friendship grew and we spent more time together, I started to notice more "strange" behaviors, especially revolving around cleaning at first. No matter what time of day or night I visited my friend, everything in his apartment was spotless. And I mean everything! Every drawer was organized with every item of clothing facing the exact same direction. Every Item hung in his closet was color coded with all the black shirts perfectly ironed (by him) and hung together and every other color of shirt or pants only hung with other items of like color and style. There was never a glass on the kitchen counter or a dish in the sink. The coffee table had all the magazines organized in alphabetical order and all edges lined up together. The refrigerator had all food items facing a certain direction and positioned on the shelf precisely. If you happened to pick up a magazine, then replace it on the stack, he would reposition the magazine as it had been before you picked it up. If you took your jacket off, and just sort of placed it over the back of a chair, Jason would immediately hang it up, in a color coded way of course.
I started to think that this guy was just excessively neat, but always felt uncomfortable because I didn 't want to mess anything up in his place. Whenever we sat down at a table in a restaurant he would straighten out the condiments aligning the salt and pepper shakers and also, position his napkin and fork just so. He had a lot of good qualities so I overlooked this annoying behavior and tried to concentrate on his positive attributes. As we grew closer and talked more on the phone, I would often ask "What are you doing!" He inevitably answered, "Cleaning!" I
I started to think that this guy was just excessively neat, but always felt uncomfortable because I didn 't want to mess anything up in his place. Whenever we sat down at a table in a restaurant he would straighten out the condiments aligning the salt and pepper shakers and also, position his napkin and fork just so. He had a lot of good qualities so I overlooked this annoying behavior and tried to concentrate on his positive attributes. As we grew closer and talked more on the phone, I would often ask "What are you doing!" He inevitably answered, "Cleaning!" I
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