Sunday Morning Revelation: Of Clean Freaks and Slobs

Both the clean freak and the slob have in common the propensity of controlling their immediate environments: their home, their car, their yard, their hair, the toilet, the kitchen, their cubical or desk at work.

The so-called "clean freak" maintains control over every bit of dirt in the shower, dust, every crumb of bran muffin on the floor and every pretzel molecule on the couch, and this allows the cleaner to feel as though they indeed have an effect on their surroundings. The cleaning is a metaphor for whatever inner disorganization exists internally, and helps give that person a sense of order and structure. In this sense the clean freak exhibits an "extroverted" personality, a personality type characterized by a person who, because they lack a deep ego structure, must seek ways to control their immediate environment, in order to help organize their inner chaos.

The so-called "slob" leaves droppings everywhere, shoes, hair balls, paper, magazines, socks, milk and coffee stains, strands of spaghetti, and this lets the slob know that he or she exists in this environment, these droppings in fact become extensions of that person's sens of themselves, their ego. In this sense, the slob exhibits an "introverted" personality, characterized by a tightly structured inner sense of self, an identity that does not rely upon external input or exertion of external control, to the extent that their immediate external environment is neglected, or left unattended.

Of course, being a clean freak doesn’t necessarily mean you are an extrovert and your sense of self is as stable as hot Jell-O, just as being a slob doesn’t necessarily mean you are an introvert and have such a tight and structured ego that while your house collects dust mites and bubonic plague you are working on new mathematical theorems. Sometimes, a slob is a slob, inside and out, and a clean freak is as controlling inside and out.