We're Anything Butt!

You're rudely awakened from a comfy doze in Ec 10 lecture when the person next to you whips out his stainless steel ruler to copy a simple supply and demand curve from the board.

You find another of the same amusingly annoying species in the Cabot Science Librarym where the person studying at the desk next to you can't seem to bear opening her biology book beyond a 45 degree angle for fear of breaking the spine.

Alas, even your room isn't safe from the species: today, your roommate has decided to label all his CDs with green dots in order to distiguish them from yours, and has cleaned, swept and vacuumed the room for the third time this week.

But at least he isn't re-alphabetizing his Pendaflex files. That was yesterday.

Echoes of the Epithet

There's a term for your roommate and your friends in Ec 10 and Cabot. Echoes of the epithet can be heard across campus from lectures in Sanders Theater to Bio 2 in the Science Center to meetings of the Society of Nerds and Geeks (SONG) in Mather House. In slightly less than scientific terms, all of the above cases demonstrate the Anal Retentive at Harvard (ARH).

But what, exactly, does anal retentive mean? Indeed, when one is so surrounded by it, it's hard to know.

So I asked around.

The Clicking Chorus

In search of the real experts, I went to the infamous mecca of anal retentive behavior--the Science Center, where I sat in on a Biology 2 lecture by Professor Karel Liem. In this course, students, almost without exception, take notes not only meticulously, but with Bic clicker four-color pens.

Bio 2 student Melissa A. Mazzini '94 recalls her first exposure to the phenomenon. "It was the first day of class...It was like there were crickets in the room. It was crazy," Mazzini says. Now she and her roommate use five separate pens to avoid joining in the clicking chorus.

Liem says he does not mind all the clicking in lecture; rather, he sees "the merit of the clicking."

"I find that using color really makes things much clearer," says Liem, who, coincidentally, often uses more than four colors of chalk on the blackboard.

Definite Definitions

At this point, I was amused, but still confused. So I took my question first to Cabot Science Library, and then out beyond the Science Center. There I found more revealing answers.

"One who takes orderliness to the extreme such that any disorder causes discomfort," says Greg Y. Fung '95, a frequenter of Cabot Library.

"Someone who's meticulous or takes a lot of care in what they do. That's how I think of it when I think of myself," answers psychology concentrator Katherine E. Maggs '92.

Freud on the Subject

But the official word came from Assistant Professor of psychology Todd F. Heatherton, who teaches Psychology 1. The term anal retentive, he explains, was first used by the inventor of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, to describe people who are fixated at the anal stage of psychosexual development.

The problem develops during toilet training: Heatherton says during this period, some people become obsessed with cleanliness and order, and begin to repress the pleasure received from bowel movements.

"An anal person is orderly, stingy and stubborn. He or she is the model of cleanliness and orderliness, almost to the extent of exaggeration of their goals," the professor says.

She's Anal, I'm Anal, We're All Anal

While not everyone comes up with the same definition, most Harvard students agree that the term can be easily applied to many of their friends, and even themselves.

"I think it definitely has a more collegiate, upbeat meaning. [The term] is used in a more jokingly than psychological manner--so many students are the same way," says Maggs. "It takes one to know one."

Maggs says that most critics of her idiosyncrasies--which include not allowing different foods on her plate to touch each other and eating each item one by one--are comparably anal.

"I think people are anal, but they're inwardly anal--you don't want to be seen as a dork even if you are one," says Fung. Though he acknowledges that many try to hide their analities, Fung doesn't mind admitting his own.

"I'm pretty anal," Fung says. "I'm so anal that I have to have my stapler pointed in one direction and flashlight in another on my desk."

Models of Cleanliness and Order

In Wigglesworth D-12, a passion for neatness drove Eric S. Witt '95 to label each of his desk drawers. His 'habit' eventually inspired his roommates to parody his behavior by labeling all of his possessions.

Witt says he came back from a meeting one night to find labels such as "Eric's Morrisey poster," "Eric's calendar" and "Eric's trash can" pasted to objects all over his room.

But Witt didn't seem to mind. Indeed, he says his bouts with anality are only sporadic, and very productive.

"Every once in a while I have anal days. I make 'to do' lists. I can only be around chaos for so long," says Witt. "On that day I'll accomplish 10 times more [than usual]. Ninety percent of the time, I'm a slob."

For Quincy House sophomore and self-admitted Anal Retentive Person (ARP) Manuel S. Varela '94, neatness and order manifest themselves in laying out the next day's clothes the night before, in order of what goes on first--shoes and socks last, of course.

"I've been doing it since I was six. I'm so dazed in the morning, I don't think I could pick out clothes," says Varela.

Even this habit, as unusual as it sounds, may just be another typical anal phenomenon. "I thought everybody did it," was Maggs' commentary on Varela's routine.

Varela says he hasn't always been so neatness-conscious. "When I first got here I was messy, but then it got on my nerves," he explains. "But it's gotten worse. I worry about creases in pants."

Varela also confesses to such typical analities as alphabetizing his CDs and files and highlighting textbooks with a ruler.

"I'm just neat. I vacuum often. I'm very compulsive about the floor," says Varela. "Right now, I don't think this room is neat," he says, gesturing to the one or two UC campaign fliers littering his common room coffee table.

And what does Varela think about people who don't mind a few stray fliers on a table?

"I don't think it's a big deal. To each his own. I do what works for me. Other people do what they want."

Is Varela proud to be anal? "I wouldn't say I'm proud, but I do like neatness and order," he says, adding, "By no means do I think it's a guiding force in my life."

Anal and Proud: The Planner

Unlike Varela, Amy N. Finkelstein '95 basks in her anality.

"Analness is a good thing. It prepares you well for the future," says Finkelstein. "I enjoy my anal retentiveness because I enjoy planning ahead."

For Finkelstein, thinking things through to the minutest detail is a way of life.

"I plan every possible situation and worry about its every possible permutation," says Finkelstein, who began compiling a comprehensive list of things she needed to bring to college last April.

"I brought up paper clips, contact lens solution, paper [and] soap for years to come," she says.

Much of Finkelstein's 'anal'yzing centers on the academic aspects of her life.

"I don't respond to my gut feeling. I analyze the situation," she says.

"If I have work to do for a given day, I'll schedule the day. If I get into it, I'll schedule the week," says Finkelstein. "If I have a lot of work to do and I'm tired, I wonder if I should go to bed, stay up, or go to bed for two hours. I spend a good amount of time analyzing the costs and benefits of the situation."

"Everything she does has to be planned. When we go shopping, she always knows exactly what she's shopping for--pants in a neutral pattern...a low cut spandex top for going out," says Ellie Grossman '95, who has been a friend of Finkelstein's since first grade.

"But she laughs at herself because she knows she's anal," Grossman adds.

And what does Finkelstein think about non-anal types?

"I think...more analness results in more intensity," she says. "If you're more laid back, you may have a healthier life, but you're not thinking about things a lot."

"Laid back people stress too, but the stress they feel is at the last minute on the night before a paper's due. I'd rather plan my stress," Finkelstein says. "If I pull an all-nighter, it tends to be a week before it's due."

"I don't plan to stop making lists and charts. It's the way I function," she adds.

Bedtime Rituals

Like Finkelstein, Megan K. Fritschel '94 doesn't mind being labelled anal retentive.

"It doesn't bother me. It means I get my work done. I don't think of it as a derogatory term," says Fritschel, though she prefers to describe her set pattern of pre-bedtime activities as "a habitual ritual."

Fritschel, a cross country runner, says she faithfully performs the same routine--"sit ups, toe lifts, contacts out, brush and floss, go-to bed-early-because-I-have-to-go-to breakfast-or-my-day-isn't-complete-without-it"--every night.

"All my roommates can tell what time of night it is by what stage I'm in," she says.

A Conspiracy of Jealousy?

Leonid Fridman '92, president of SONG, says Fritschel and Finkelstein should be proud. In fact, he insists that he and his fellow nerds are labeled anal "only by our enemies." The epithet has derived from "pure envy by those orally fixated Harvard students," he says, explaining, "Anal people tend to succeed in life. Others are just envious. It's nothing else."

While there may be some truth in Fridman's 'anal'ysis, it cannot be said that all oral types envy or dislike their anal counterparts.

"It's kind of funny. You have to have friends who are uptight, so you can be glad you're not them" says Chicu Reddy '95. "Those kind of people are fun to be with in a Woody Allen-ish type of way."

But while their unusual habits may be dismissed as annoying or merely amusing by non-ARPs, anal retentive people may soon be ready to answer Fritschel's rallying call: "Anal people unite. Make the world a neat and organized place."

How frightening.