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Kendall Jenner is terrified of patterns. Not like afraid to wear them or afraid of all them, but afraid of a very specific type of pattern: tiny irregular holes. While this might sound like rich-person nonsense, it is a very real thing backed by science, and it’s called trypophobia.
“Anyone who knows me knows that I have really bad trypophobia,” Kendall wrote on her website. “Trypophobics are afraid of tiny little holes that are in weird patterns. Things that could set me off are pancakes, honeycomb or lotus heads (the worst!). It sounds ridiculous but so many people actually have it! I can’t even look at little holes—it gives me the worst anxiety. Who knows what’s in there???”
Trypophobia isn’t a phobia per se like arachnophobia or claustrophobia, but it is a very real feeling of disgust. Scientists believe it has its origins in evolution, as poisonous species often have patterns on their bodies that are similar to those that vex trypophobes.
So most of us have a threshold for the number of tiny holes we can look at before we recoil, but some people are set off more easily than others (google at your own risk to test yours). As Kendall says, who knows what’s in there?
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