When in an art museum, I intentionally keep my hands folded or in my pockets. The gooped-on paint is just too much temptation for me. With millions of dollars on the line, art museums do a good job of posting enough people on guard to keep my hands from wandering, but I will admit to breaking the �no touching� rule at other museums.

From way back when, I remember this compulsion. Don�t fingerprint the large geode at the museum we�d go to as kids; my eight-year-old prints are all over that sucker. I remember intentionally setting off the do-not-cross alarm with my shoulder so the guard would think that I wasn�t doing anything maliciously. That�s pretty sneaky for a Student of the Year candidate, if I say so myself.

More recently, I was fortunate enough to get VIP tickets to Body Worlds 2. Only a couple hundred people were in attendance, and all of us were assumed to be large donors or pillars of the community. I, though, was a faux-date for my friend who was screwing someone on the museum board. With apparently no respect for the science or thinking of the children, I took advantage of there being very few security guards.

Yes, I touched the dead bodies.

I find myself touching things all of the time. From the braided metal on the elevator walls at work, to any statue in the park, to globes with their oh-so-glorious mountain ranges, to rubbing that soft spot between my own ear and jaw.

I touch plants, claiming to be curious if they�re fake or real. I prefer Hambone to other cats partially because he�s so much softer than others. When I pass a water fountain outside an office building, I have to touch the water as it falls. I�ll toss a perfectly good tube of lotion if it�s too slick or too sticky. When my hair is dirty, I can�t keep my hands out of it. I burn through bars of soap in the shower. When there�s a container of beads, beans, or nuts, I have to stick my finger in it, if not my whole hand, before I lift it up and left them sift through my open fingers.

The list goes on and on.

I was thinking the other day about my penchant for hairy-chested men, and I definitely think it�s related. Hairy men have so many different textures. They�re an out-right smorgasbord, actually. Their faces feel different than their chests, which feel different than the legs, which feel different than the arms.

All men will have the same smooth spots. The side of the torso. The inside of the bicep. The nook of the neck. And when there�s chest hair, it�s a bonus -- one more texture to enjoy.

I love the juxtaposition. The proximity. The instant gratification.

On a seemingly unrelated topic, this afternoon my intern mentioned going to lunch. He named a few places, and I rejected each.

I don�t like sandwiches right now. Sauce is runny. I don�t want anything gooey. Crutons are too loud. Chocolate melting grosses me out.

I never noticed it before, but he pointed out that all of my objections were sensory related. Simply put: I don�t like the way these foods feel, so I didn�t want to eat them.

He started Googling for disorders, jokingly saying that I had something wrong with me because cotton candy freaks me out. And although he came up with nothing specific, merely saying that because I placed odd restrictions on eating that it was technically an eating disorder, his Googling sparked a thought when I combined the eating preferences with the hairy chest/art touching topic.

Googling for tactile sensitivity brought up a whole host off pages to read though. And although I don�t have violent reactions and have learned to ignore (or talk myself through) certain things that I know are weird, I had quite a few of the indicators marked off on their lists.

I have to cut the tags out of the sides of my shirts, or else it feels like they�re cutting me. Heck, I�m to the point that I can�t tuck in my shirts without it being excessively uncomfortable.

I have *never* liked my face being touched. Being in a close and intimate situation is the only time that I overlook it. I had this Turkish neighbor who used to touch my face every time she greeted me, and I�d instinctively recoil when she patted me affectionately. Please don�t get me started on cheek kisses as a greeting. My blood pressure raises just thinking about them.

About two years ago, I suddenly had to stop wearing shirts that touched my neck. Even today, when wearing those shirts, it feels like I�m being choked. Bye-bye turtle necks. Bye-bye Old Navy perfect cotton tees. All of my shirts are v-neck, scoop-neck, or have very clear marks that I�ve cut the collar off for my comfort.

I also can�t wear pants that aren�t low-rise. Anything that touches my belly button is uncomfortable, if not out-right painful. If someone poked me in it jokingly, they�d have no idea why I�d react the way I would. But, oh. Youch. Just thinking about it gives me a shiver.

For years now, I�ve had this thing about being touched. If you touch my arm in a direction that isn�t with the flow of my arm hair, I start unconsciously rubbing in the so-called right direction. My legs are even worse. I�ve rubbed myself red, scratched, and raw in response to bumping wrongly into an object. Massages that go up or into the middle of the back bring me no pleasure whatsoever and must be cut short.

I told my long-time boyfriend about this. Although very sweet of him to take notice and be conscious of it, I felt like a freak. I decided not to tell the next guy who came around in an attempt to break myself of the aversion and subsequent rubbing, but those two years with him were uncomfortable (unbeknown to him).

Going hand-in-hand with my aversion to touch is hypersensitivity to sound. I�ve said for ages that I have super-sonic hearing. It�s my long-time explanation for why I don�t like music and wear ear plugs quite frequently. Go figure.

The websites say that this aversion is part of a �neurological disorganization in the midbrain region of the brain which is largely responsible for filtering incoming stimuli�. [gulp]

I may have science backing me up on the point that I�m a freak, but I�m sure the hairy-chested guys don�t mind. �