Are Utensils Kinda Gross?

Yes, but I have OCD. So I can't touch doorknobs, or showers or toilets without cleaning them. Or most people.

*rare* in the last sentence is supposed to be 'are'. I can edit that post in my phone to change.

I'm fine with utensils. I have a greater problem with eating sounds. I can't fucking stand the sound of utensils hitting a plate and any other sounds like that.

That kind of makes sense and I understand where you are coming from but eating soup with my hands would be very difficult and probably just make it even more dirty, and you're likely to get a minor bit of backwash if you just try to drink it(assuming the soup is thin enough to support that course of action) so you're fucked no matter what you do.

Don't eat anymore, Jason! There's no way to avoid germs!

Its pronounced "salvia." It tends to make good posts, doesn't it?

There is no spoon.

@alwaysbebombing: That's not OCD, that's just knowledge. I would rather touch other people's genitals than their hands, because their genitals probably have far less bacteria on them (and also because I looooove touching genitals). Doorknobs, handrails, currency; they're more likely to get you sick than anything else short of someone spitting down your throat.

I'm sure I don't have to hector an actual doctor but you have nothing to fear from your own non-excremental fluids. Any time you're not eating food you have a mouth full of saliva and phlegm and mucus and god knows what else. It'll be fine.

Actual OCD is me avoiding cracks and lines on the floor with my footsteps because ... I don't know, it was a game to occupy my mind while walking around when I was a child and now it's a Goddamn sickness.

I'm sorry the formatting of this makes no sense, the forums are ass on phones.

@video_game_king:

I freak out about eating sounds to. I will leave the room if people eat with their mouth open or talk with a full mouth. Same thing with smacking lips.

@artelinarose:

I just need to eat food I can hold with my hands forever and ever.

No I mean like, other people have to open doors for me or I have to have like one of those sanitizing clothes, and if I don't I just cry until someone opens the door for me. I wash my hands over 50 times a day, it's really a living hell. I'm better than I used to be though. The hand washing is way down. Sometimes I can do it like a normal person (plus a little) still can't shake hands. So I just pound it like Howie Mandel does.

@brodehouse:

I know it's my saliva but it's gross! It's not even that I'm worried about germs. Saliva is just fucking gross. The fact that it is always in my mouth kind of freaks me out a little too if I think about it. Like I am now. Damn it.

Doesn't really bug me. Saliva in general doesn't really bug me. I don't mind double dippers or sharing a drink with someone either. Depending on the person of course.

@alwaysbebombing: That sounds rough. Can you tolerate wrapping your hand in a sleeve to open doors? That's what I do when I have to grab public objects, though I live in Winnipeg, so it's long sleeve weather 10 months a year.

@jasonr86: My position is that other people's saliva is gross. Mine is viscous and delicious.

No, pulling sleeve don't doesn't work, or a paper towel. And I don't use public restrooms, I mean like opening a door to McDonald's or something.

I don't mind saliva. But I do mind disgusting fingers/nails and especially teeth. If you've got bad/yellow/rotten teeth with pieces of food stuck in-between, I'm not sharing my drink/food with you. Same if you have ugly/dirty nails and hand me food. This is disgusting to the max.

Huh. I didn't mind it when it was in my mouth the first time, so I don't see why I should mind it the second.

Not really. I tend not to drink the backwash of a drink, though. Even in college when I got "called out" for "not finishing yer beer, pussy." Like, I'm not going to drink what is mostly my own saliva by now.

(I also have to think for a second whenever I type saliva, not to type salvia).

When it comes to utensils or glasses or bowls, I don't look forward to visiting my mom's for dinner. The food is fine, but everything (forks, glasses, etc.) looks old. The glasses look like they've been washed for 30 years and soap or detergent have forever stained the glass.

I've offered her to buy new things, but she isn't interested. (She also has trouble throwing things out when they expire. I have to check everything in the fridge before I use them when I'm there.)

Yup. Very yup. Dirty nails implies you don't clean your hands, and I don't want to have anyone who has unclean hands near my food.

@grantheaslip:

You're not helping.

It is Valentine's Day.

Nope because I'm not sure why saliva is gross? Also, that spoon isn't ever as "clean" as you think it is.

So here's a cool story. I'm a practical nurse by profession, though I don't practice it any more. However during the time I was in school for it, I had to go to work for X amount of weeks in various places. One of which was a hospital ward for the mentally insane. Going there made it so I can never use utensils that I haven't personally cleaned or taken out of the dishwasher. Don't read the rest of this unless you want to be really grossed out.

So 't was an evening shift, followed by a morning shift. In the evening, we gave out supper as usual. It was something to be eaten with a knife and a fork. When we brought the utensils back to the kitchen, we missed that one of the knives was missing. It's a real dull knife, not exactly anything harmful, and the typical mental illness here was dementia so there was no real worry that someone would kill someone with a butter knife - it wasn't a ward for the criminally insane after all.

So, during the night, the night shift did her rounds, checking up on sleeping patients. Nothing special to be seen. In the morning we come in, and I get one fairly large lady assigned to me. I go to her room and switch on the lights, something the night shifter hadn't done all night and I see and immediately smell something really, really off. Her sheets are almost covered in dark red, dried blood, and she's laying on her bed, passed out, with her legs spread wide across, with her genitals aptly on display, and they're covered in tiny lacerations she was able to do with that dull-ass fork. So we start administering first-aid, call out for a doctor, all that stuff. This is all gross, but then the next day I'm in morning shift again. I go to the cafeteria that's in the hospital during my lunch, and get something dull to eat. It's knife-and-fork-stuff again, so I grab a knife and a fork from those bins that the utensils are held in.

After eating about three forkfuls of food, I notice something off in my knife. It seems a bit rusty or something. So I look at it closer, wipe it off a bit with the napkin, and notice that it has several strands of dried, blackened blood on it. I freak the fuck out, immediately go tell the kitchen staff about this and head off for a few blood tests in the lab to ensure I haven't caught whatever horrid crap the patient had. Thankfully, I didn't. The hospital eventually traced the knife back to where it came from somehow, and it indeed was the knife the patient had used to cut herself. So this is why I can never use utensils that I haven't washed myself. Because I'll always remember noticing the blood on that knife and get that fucking awful taste of rust in my mouth.

Well, it's your own saliva and it started off in your mouth to begin with, so it's just going home. That's how I see it.

Now other people's saliva? That's fucking gross. I hate people who spit anywhere other than a bathroom sink.

@jasonr86: Utensils aren't making the situation any more or less gross. Yeah, you have saliva in your soup, but that soup's gonna be in your mouth anyway. Where all your saliva is.

Utensils are important to me because it keeps me from eating with my hands. A: I don't like my hands being dirty for any reason ever, even if it's food. B: No matter how often I wash my hands (which is quite often), they're still handling lots of day-to-day horrible things like money, keyboards, and those ever-so-prevalent doorknobs (okay, truth be told there's a section of my shirt that's a reserved quarantine zone for handling doorknobs). Anyway, hands are gross. Forks and spoons are a safe middleman mechanism between those bastards and my mouth. They're great.

@brodehouse: Well, at least I'm not the only one avoiding cracks like they'll break my back. We'd make a great scene in the grocery store.

@vierastalo: ... :'(

I don't think you're an idiot, but isn't the saliva and bacteria you're worrying about already in you? I mean sure, if it were other peoples saliva I'd be all with you. I don't use utensils unless I'm certain they were clean, but I don't think I'm going to kill myself by eating.

Yep, you definitely have a problem. Sounds like you should see someone about this if you're actually serious about these statements.

B-but, the saliva is in your mouth anyway?

@vinny_says:

I'm semi-serious. And as a therapist myself, I don't know what I would say to me.

Using utensils ain't as gross as eating with your hands.

This thread made me think if this instant classic:

Do you also have problems making out? If using silverware bugs you then having another tongue in your mouth must be horrifying.

It is time to talk to your doctor about Zoloft (Sertraline Hcl).

How about "Physician, heal thyself"?

@hunter5024:

If I think about it. I mean I usually don't think about it. But sometimes I end up grossing myself out. Don't judge me!

@brodehouse:

Never!

You're worried about your own mouth? What?

I have Ocd and when it was at it's worst I was never bothered by my own germs. I could see feeling this sentiment for somebody elses though.

@themanwithnoplan:

It's not germs. Saliva is just gross.

@clonedzero:

I'm not saying I'm being reasonable.

Saliva is just pre-cum your mouth makes.

well, early as a child, I was traumatized when I handed a utensil still covered with food at a restaurant. But that ended when I became a dishwasher at age 17.

So what's the alternative? A series of Injections to avoid the mouth entirely? IV Feed pure protein? Be like Bane, and somehow have trouble getting through door frames with little hindges that get stuck with the wires?

Now I think saliva's gross.

Most eating sounds are fine, it's when something scrapes across something else that I cringe.

As for saliva... it's my saliva. It sits in my mouth all day. Having some of it exit and then re-enter is never something I've thought about, and now that I do, it still doesn't bug me. Eating with your hands sounds more germ-y and gross than eating with utensils.

Like "nails on a blackboard" scrape, or "simply make contact" scrape? Because I just hate eating sounds in general.

Some of you dudes are taking this poll more seriously then I was prepared for.

The former.

A fork or knife simply tapping a glass plate doesn't bug me. A fork or knife that, say, slips while cutting meat and scrapes against a glass plate really does get under my skin.

That is because you are human, and not deaf.

It bugs the hell out of me.

How do you eat, then?

*incoming answer related to Lunarians, JRPG themes, or something else not serious*

@video_game_king said:

@believer258 said:

How do you eat, then?

I am not disappointed.

I mean. Eating with utensils is the cleanest way to eat. I mean its why they exist. It's their entire purpose.

Also if you're super worried about your OWN saliva (which still confuses me), then can't you just tilt your head back and drop it into your mouth?

I personally don't eat alot of things with a spoon. I'm mildy lactose intolerant so i avoid cereal and ice cream. I don't like soup. I like stews. But stews you eat with a fork and then use bread to soak up the glop and eat that. After thinking about it, i rarely ever touch utensils with my mouth. Like i dont bite on the fork, i bite on the piece of meat thats on the fork and pull it off. I don't think i make any real meaningful oral contact with my utensils. If i did it wouldnt bother me but i was thinking about this today.

But eating with your hands is infinitely more "gross" and sure i eat with my hands sometimes. But i got called crazy for eating gold fish (with like a cheesy flavor dust on them) with a spoon. It worked great and was entirely to avoid cheesy dust fingers.

Utensils are great! its why we're the dominate species on the planet. We use tools. Even for eating! It's great!

This seems like an irrational tick to me. Perhaps born (bourne?) from the germ paranoia of today's society.

So you are worried about putting a trace amount of something into your body, that came from your body shortly beforehand? You are not an idiot any more so than I was an idiot as a kid and broke down nearly crying that an ice cream sandwich broke as it came out the wrapper (my parents assured me that I could still indeed eat it in that state and I managed to survive).

Are you aware that a small amount of saliva reaches your beverage of choice each time you take a sip? Regardless of the means in which you consume it.

Have you ever looked at a bun of a hotdog or hamburger and noticed there are teeth marks left behind? That's from you. You put that there. You monster.

Have you kissed a someone else? You sick monster!

You would probably die (I'm no health duder so no definitive statement) without saliva. It is in you always. You *need* it. The natural process of the stomach actually kills a lot of bacteria.

So no, utensils are not gross in any fashion. Assuming they are washed in stuff, I guess.

Also this thread is *literally* crazy. Sorry guys.