Fruit Boy

I have heard of normal phobias that people have – you know, spiders, flying, outside space, cramped space – and I have heard of some of the more abnormal ones too – buttons, dogs, injections. But, I have never before heard of a fear of spherically shaped fruit and vegetables.

I have tried to google it to see if there is a name for such a phobia. There is not. There are various bizarre reports and articles about fears of pesticides on your fruit, and people who just don’t like eating fruit and veg, but nothing about how the sight of a spherical edible object can induce fear into a person.

It must exist though because I met a person with just such a phobia. There I was over May bank holiday weekend at a lovely BBQ on the Sunday evening with some friends, and friends of friends, and during dessert this chap suddenly asked if the blueberries could be moved further away from him, and looked distinctly uncomfortable with them being within arm's grasp from him. One of his friends apologised and quickly moved them away.

Interest immediately piqued by this unusual specimen I proceeded to ply him with questions about what was going on. Responses to my onslaught of questions only produced more and more bizarre responses from this guy. Our mutual friends were finding his oddities all relatively amusing, and in fact seemed to find Fruit Boy generally quite funny, but I was just getting more and more aghast as I went. Any round fruit he finds scary. Oranges, cherries, blueberries. He seemed unsure about the less perfectly spherically formed fruits such as nectarines and peaches and plums, but the thought of them still clearly bothered him. When I moved onto vegetables and mentioned peas, he became quite dejected.

He also has a multitude of other slightly less odd phobias (predictably flying is in there), and recently commit facebook suicide because members of his immediate family who he doesn't want to speak to "found him" on there. He is attracted to girls who wear white tracksuits, and look like the stereotypical Essex girls. And a multitude of other things. Most odd individual clearly. Intriguing though because everyone else seemed to find it all really funny. And it clearly bothered him a lot that I was not laughing along.

Anyway, Sunday evening progressed in a fun fashion -Pimms being merrily swigged down around the table etc. Then someone suggested hitting my favourite cheesy-music-playing-South-West London nightclub … Well, at that point, most people politely (and sensibly) made their excuses and tottered off and home to bed. About 5 of us though, including Fruit Boy, tripped our way along to the cheesy venue, me still steadfastly finding Fruit Boy something of an odd social being, and him still clearly becoming more and more put out by my not laughing at his jokes … Cheesy venue closed. Upsetting.

The other 3 people gave up. Fruit Boy and I were left alone on a pavement, slightly sozzled and wanting to have a couple more drinks. Fruit Boy lived close by and said he had wine back at his, so off we went. I was desperate to see if he lived in a weird way as well. I was not disappointed. His fridge contents were frankly astonishing, and he doesn't open his post as a general rule.

I have just finished reading the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson, and was beginning to wonder if Fruit Boy suffered some sort of social disorder like Salander.

Anyway. You probably all know where this is going… we drank some wine, we put a film on that we didn't watch, we talked for about 4 hours, I gained more insight into his oddities, he showed me some fancy dress costumes of his, I noted that one of them was actually a vegetable outfit, he pointed out it was a carrot and therefore not spherical, I put the carrot outfit on, he laughed, I made half-hearted suggestions that I should leave, I wondered whether he would finally make a move, he didn't, he offered me a t-shirt to sleep in, I said I shouldn't really, he promised to get me a glass of water, I ummer and ahhed, he said I could lie on one side of the bed untouched, I relented, he gave me a t-shirt and water, I wondered again when he would make a move, he talked for another few hours in bed, I was near falling asleep – then finally, he kissed me.

Yep – I have now officially kissed someone who has a fear of spherically shaped fruit and vegetables. And I put on a carrot costume for no reason. All in all, quite a good evening.