Are you Superstitious?

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=#9944cc][font=lucida calligraphy]Oh man I hope I spelled that correctly. Anyway I wanted to know because this Friday is Friday the 13th and a lot of people have some kind of fear about that day. Or just some superstitions in general.

As for myself I'm not worried about Friday the 13th. Actually I'm quite lucky on that day so I may just go buy a lotto ticket. Heh who knows.

So anyone else care to share?[/color][/font]

[Korey]

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="Green"]I used to play baseball and let me tell you, that makes you supersitious. One time I pitched 6 perfect innings and I didn't wash my jersey because I thought it was lucky and I wanted to pitch like that again, so I wore my stanky arse jersey again. We used to always eat the same kind of sunflower seeds and chew the same kind of gum every game because we thought it was good luck. We also had our rally caps and stuff like that. Baseball players are the most superstitious people in the universe.

As for myself, yeah I am superstitious of certain things but not stupid stuff like spilling the salt and breaking mirrors. I have been involved in altercations that I won't care to mention, let's just say it involves guns and tattoos of the number XIII over your scar tissue. No I didn't steal it from Black Cat, I thought of it a long time ago.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[Japan]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]I am not superstious at all. I love to nuzzle black cats any and every day.[/COLOR]

[TheShinje]

Friday the 13th is no more unlucky than any other day. It's the nitpicking and fine tooth combing for unlucky anecdotes that make it [i]seem[/i] more unlucky than most.

Superstitious in general? Nah. When you've cracked as many mirrors, and walked under as many ladders, as I have, you simply cannot afford to be. ^_^

[Retribution]

[size=1]Perhaps Stevie Wonder said it best.

[i]When you believe in things that you don't understand
Then you suffer
Superstition ain't the way[/i][/size]

[Break]

I am and I'm not.

I could walk past floor 13 of my halls at Uni without thinking that I am going to be murdered or something stupid like that, but then at the same time I got a pang in my stomach just because it was floor 13.

Stevie Wonder seems to have got it sussed, alright.

[Rachmaninoff]

[quote name='Jeremiah']Friday the 13th is no more unlucky than any other day. It's the nitpicking and fine tooth combing for unlucky anecdotes that make it [i]seem[/i] more unlucky than most.[/QUOTE]Agreed. There's nothing about the day that's any different than any other day.

I've never been superstitious but I do have to admit that it is fun reading about the silly things people believe. Though most movies that play on that sort of thing are rather boring, if only for their predictability factor.

Ironically, if not for seeing the thread, I wouldn't have even thought about it being Friday the 13th tomorrow. Now I'll have to find some stupid horror flick to watch with my friends tomorrow just so we can poke fun. But then we do that with pretty much any horror show that uses superstition as part of the plot.

[Cyriel]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="1"]Personally I don't consider myself superstitious. Black cats, 13...haha, I can only think of the ones that were mentioned already. Oh yeah, sidewalk cracks? It's all whatever...

But I think it's interesting how in different cultures they have completely different superstitions sometimes. Also, they don't have to be "Oh my gosh! Don't do it or you'll die!" kind of things... It can be little things you do, sometimes out of habit...

For example, growing up my mother would never let us lay spoons upside down. They always had to be right-side up. For me, it just grew into a habit...and then I asked her about it, and she said it's a little Korean thing where a spoon placed upside down means that someone in or close to the family will die soon. I was like..."wha...?" But it's not like if we put one upside down, we're like "Shoot! Who's going to die now?" It's just...we don't do it. I feel like one of Pavlov's dogs - whenever I see a spoon upside-down, I can't help but turn it over lol. =_=;;

My mom also says that I have a lucky jaw. Who knows...haha.

Has anyone heard of any really weird ones?[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='Japan_86'][COLOR="DarkRed"]I am not superstious at all. I love to nuzzle black cats any and every day.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]I think it only counts if they cross your path, so nuzzling is still safe.

I don't consider myself superstitious. My family is, especially my grandmother, and I usually adhere to such things around her so she doesn't have a panic attack or something.

Of course, you'll never find me camping at a lake on a Friday the 13.[/color]

[Sara]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]Of course, you'll never find me camping at a lake on a Friday the 13.[/color][/QUOTE][color=#db2007]But just think of the stories you could tell!

[i]Twenty years ago, at this very lake...[/i][/color]

[Aberinkula]

[quote name='Sara'][color=#db2007]But just think of the stories you could tell!

[i]Twenty years ago, at this very lake...[/i][/color][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="Navy"]Well, if he had the stories are you sure he'd be alive to tell?[/COLOR]

[COLOR="navy"]Anyways, I myself don't believe in bad luck par say, but I'm not entirly non-supersticious. If that's the right word to say? [/COLOR]

[Skye]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]Of course, you'll never find me camping at a lake on a Friday the 13.[/color][/QUOTE]

[size=1]Oddly enough, I live [i]at most[/i] an hour away from where that movie was filmed. And I've been in the cabins. :p

I used to own a black cat - he got hit by a car though, less than a year ago. I've never had anything against black cats, in fact I love them.

What's really cool, is my 18th birthday is going to be on Friday the 13th.

I'd say I'm not superstitious, but I am. I believe in ghosts, and lots of other stuff. If anything, it makes for good scary stories.[/size]

[Break]

Camping? Noo way will you find me camping in a spooky place like that! It would just [i]never[/i] happen!

What get me most are the urban myths. Too close to home for my liking. Oh, and those emails that say "Email this to 12 people in the next 5 minutes or u will die!!" and then they even have proof of people who didn't email it on and died in car crashes and things (made-up of course), but I still get scared, end up forwarding it to X amount of people, continuing the cycle. Argghh - I hate them so much lol.

[Claire]

[FONT="Arial"]I'm not superstitious, but my friend is. We were sitting backstage during a rehearsal for my school's production of Alice in Wonderland (I was Tweedledum, and she was the Queen of Hearts). My other friend, Tweedledee, had an umbrella prop and was practicing opening it. The Queen of Hearts freaked out and stood up, announcing how superstitious she is, and ran to a different part of the backstage area.

The funniest part was that we found a heads-up penny right where she had been sitting. Tweedledee said we should leave it for her to find, haha.[/FONT]

[quote name='Break']What get me most are the urban myths.[/QUOTE]

[FONT="Arial"]Me too, although I'm not really afraid of one actually happening to me. I read one about a man pretending to be a clown statue in someone's house, and I for a few days I couldn't stand being alone in a room. Also, last summer, I heard a cat meowing sickly out my window several nights in a row. I remembered the urban legend about a serial killer playing tapes of babies crying to lure his victims to him, and I had to convince my sister to sleep in my room that night.[/FONT]

[Break]

[quote name='Clurr'][FONT="Arial"]...and I had to convince my sister to sleep in my room that night.[/FONT][/QUOTE]

I have to do stuff like that. At uni this year me and some friends watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose and I got so paranoid that I was gonna get possessed - naturally, they jumped at the chance to scare me almost to death by telling me how I'm gonna wake up at 3 a.m, smell burning, get possessed, etc. I was begging one of my friends if I could sleep on his floor. Is that superstition scaring me, or just movie spin? Or just not being a sceptic? I don't know.

As it happens, it's 3:01 a.m now. I am scared... lol.

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='Break']I have to do stuff like that. At uni this year me and some friends watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose and I got so paranoid that I was gonna get possessed - naturally, they jumped at the chance to scare me almost to death by telling me how I'm gonna wake up at 3 a.m, smell burning, get possessed, etc. I was begging one of my friends if I could sleep on his floor. Is that superstition scaring me, or just movie spin? Or just not being a sceptic? I don't know.

As it happens, it's 3:01 a.m now. I am scared... lol.[/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]No wonder people called you "Wussel."[/color]

[Break]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]No wonder people called you "Wussel."[/color][/QUOTE]

I think they just had a speech impediment - it's completely unrelated. ;)

[Starfire0567]

[COLOR="Teal"][SIZE="1"]Honestly?

No I wouldn't say I am.:animesmil

I DO however take caution at night (it's just good common sense though)[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Shaholl]

I don't know if it counts as superstition, but whenever I am out and about and there is a crack in the sidewalk, I always make sure to step over it with my right foot. It has nothing to do with the old "step on a crack and break your momma's back" thing. It just feels wrong to step over a crack with my left foot, or even to step on it at all.

Am I crazy?

[Gavin]

[SIZE="1"]I've never been superstitious and always found it enormously amusing to know/work with people who are. Back when I was working in a large supermarket chain, a co-worker of mine used to throw salt over his shoulder if he ever spilled some, would never walk under ladders nearly **** himself when he broke a mirror. It was great.[/SIZE]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]i broke a mirror when I was 10. i walked backward into it and cracked it in half.

It was a house we had just moved into with my aunt and 2 cousins down in pensicola Florida. We had been sad about leaving our friends we'd known for 4 years, but we had high hopes because we were planning on living there till we could finacially get back on our feet, then we were going to move to Arizona where my dad has always wanted to live.

We'd only been there 2 days and it was Spring break, and everything was cool... I broke a mirror.

...

The next 6 months - the time in which we lived there - was the most grueling experience I have ever lived through. My whole family lived in 2 rooms and was living off of food stamps and minimum wage until we managed to get back to Virginia.

...Do I think that breaking a mirror equates to bad luck? I don't know. I've been through the first 5 years... it's been up and down, but... who knows...[/COLOR]

[Jiazu]

I don't think I'm superstitious.. though I must say that for me, anyway, it seems like if anything out of the ordinary happens, it's something good, not something bad...

One thing that's always bugged me about superstitions.. airplanes don't have a row numbered 13... that's never made sense to me.. it's not like it matters if you number it 14, it's still the 13th row....

[Break]

[quote name='Jiazu']One thing that's always bugged me about superstitions.. airplanes don't have a row numbered 13... that's never made sense to me.. it's not like it matters if you number it 14, it's still the 13th row....[/QUOTE]

14 is unlucky is East Asian countries, as is 4. Anything with 4 in it, I think. The character for it is the same as the character for death. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, please, I am borderline unsure! You may have even known it, so sorry to sound patronising if you do!!! :animeswea

At a hotel in Kuala Lumpur I stayed at, there was no fourth or fourteenth floor. But at university I lived on the fourteenth floor of the halls I was in lol.

EDIT: Oh and I think it's just the presence of the number that bugs people. You may sit in the thirteenth row, but if it were numbered as "13" people would have fits and go nuts and stuff.

[James]

[color=#606060]I'm not superstitious...I think all of this stuff is based on perception more than anything else.

I mean I think that if you start the day genuinely believing that you'll have bad luck...you probably will. And vice versa. You can go through horrible things in a day and end up reflecting that the day was positive overall.

It comes down to a self-fulfilling prophecy much of the time. It's amazing what a difference attitude can make.[/color]

[Break]

[quote name='James'][color=#606060]It comes down to a self-fulfilling prophecy much of the time. It's amazing what a difference attitude can make.[/color][/QUOTE]

When it's part of a culture it's a little harder to get rid of, lol.