SWEDEN – TESTING FOR NEUROSIS

Jerry Seinfeld is known to be a very neurotic guy. But is he really? Or is he just a regular guy being exposed to inhumane conditions? To find out the answer I tried a couple of his hang-ups on a bunch of unsuspecting, regular, un-neurotic people in my presence.

Experiment: Close-talking Subject number 1 Subject number 2 Subject number 3 Conclusion Experiment: Dipping mystery objects in the toilet Subject number 1 Subject number 2 Subject number 3 Conclusion Experiment: Peculiar food habits Subject(s) number 1 must Subject number 2 Subject number 3

Conclusion
Neurotically eating peas gave me actual neurosis. The closest I got to a reaction was a fake I’m-going-to-say-something-look. Since I consider dumping as a solution to a problem to be quite dramatic, I give Seinfeld 5 out of 5 Neurotic Points for this.


Experiment: “That’s funny”

Seinfeld meets this girl who doesn’t laugh. Instead she says, “That’s funny,” whenever he tells a joke. This freaks him out. This experiment is about interacting with people without laughing.

Subject number 1
First he looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown but then he started to laugh (slightly uncontrollably). Then he went to the other side of the room. It seemed as if I was bringing more happiness than nervousness into the world.

Subject number 2
This girl didn’t tell any jokes ever, so for the first 20 minutes I was convinced that I was totally wasting my time. But then, out of the blue, she told this long urban myth tale and expected me to laugh at the end. I didn’t, but I assured her that it was funny. She smiled sweetly and went to get a drink.

Subject number 3
I was getting the hang of it (it’s kind of like one of those don’t-say-yes-or-no-games). With my new skills I decided to try this off on somebody I knew a little bit more. It didn’t take long before she asked me what drugs I was on. I said none, and she made this joke about a drug that was the exact opposite to weed and would make you not laugh for an entire evening. I said, “That’s funny,” even though it wasn’t really, and I probably wouldn’t have laughed even if I wasn’t experimenting. She laughed a bit. I remained serious and then she asked me if I was depressed. She ended up buying me tiramisu-flavored ice cream to cure what she felt was my broken heart.

Conclusion
Not laughing turns you into a social cripple, no matter how much you guarantee people they’re funny. Hence, Seinfeld gains 0 out of 5 Neurotic Points for this one.


Experiment: Talking about yourself in the third person



A guy at Seinfeld’s gym refers to himself in third person all the time. Seinfeld finds it unbearable. Now we’ll see what it does to normal people. My name is Josefin, by the way.

Subject number 1
This guy didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he didn’t seem to notice anything that I was saying. He was probably concentrating on what he was going to say. Afterwards he told me this story about how he once turned down the singer from the Swedish pop band Lambretta. I told him that Josefin thinks that’s really cool and he gave me the happiest smile ever and nodded.

Subject number 2
I was shopping for a bra. I told the lady that Josefin likes red better than pink but she doesn’t mind a slight hint of pink. She caught my drift right away and asked what size Josefin was. It all went just fine until I left (when the counter-ladies gave me accusing looks). But it might have been because I’d been talking so much about what Josefin likes and dislikes that I forgot to buy something. Here I was starting to really enjoy referring to myself in third person. I didn’t care about the looks people gave me because I’d started pretending I was slightly retarded and therefore not physically and mentally able to give a toss about people’s thoughts.

Subject number 3
I talked to a girl at a party about the likes and dislikes of Josefin (once you get into it it’s hard to stop). She asked me who Josefin was. I chuckled in a superior way and pointed to my chest. She aha‘d me back and then I decided to make it more of a conversation. I told her that Josefin would like to know what she does for a living. She told me that she’s a florist and then she asked me why I called myself Josefin. I informed her that my parents had given the name to me and that I didn’t intend to change it. Then I chuckled superiorly again (not sure why) and she smiled. She left for the toilet. I think my experiments would be a lot easier to follow through if it wasn’t for everyone’s bladder issues.

Conclusion
It seems most people are medium bothered by having people around them refer to themselves in the third person. Seinfeld, on the other hand, got more than medium bothered which gives him 3 out of 5 Neurotic Points.

 
Experiment: Moving too fast

Asking people to help you move has always been a sensitive matter. Especially to Seinfeld, and especially if it’s Keith Hernandez doing the asking (as you can see in the episode entitled “The Boyfriend”). Below you’ll find me asking people who I don’t know if they could give me a hand the following Sunday (I was moving).

Subject numbers 1-4
The first person I asked just said, “No I’m busy.” So did subjects 2, 3 and 4, that’s why they’re all bunched up together in this section. None of them seemed too thrilled by all the free pizza I was promising them.

Subject number 5
She said yes and smiled innocently. I think she’s one of those people who don’t really exist. You know one of those who never really had a problem with their mother and likes vacuuming as much as one should logically dislike it. When I called her that particular Sunday she asked me if she should bring some homemade pizza. She didn’t really but she had a certain unsquashable spirit. I don’t know if she counts.

Subject number 6
He asked me exactly how much pizza there was going to be. I said that I’d be providing one pizza per capita and he told me that it was obviously a joke and that he’d love to help. Only he didn’t show up. And he stopped answering my calls too.

Conclusion
Asking people to help you move doesn’t seem so upsetting. People just say no and that’s that (apart from that one girl who doesn’t count). I think the main reason the subjects didn’t react that neurotic to the experiment was that there was a really easy way to get out of the situation, it’s not like I knew them in the first place, so they don’t have to worry about me being pissed. Point-wise this test was the hardest to judge so I decided to make it a 2.5 out of 5.

Final conclusion
Seinfeld’s final neurotic score is 16 out of 30. This means Seinfeld is no more than one point above your average neurotic. Sorry.

JOSEFIN PALMGREN