Going in Circles

: Tracy Beckerman on Jun 2, 2026

Given the choice between using a regular door and a revolving door, I always choose the regular door. I've been that way since birth. OK, maybe not birth -- I'm fairly certain there was no revolving door where I made my way into the world. But for as long as I can remember, I have been reluctant to go through them. No, not reluctant. Phobic. Truthfully, I am afraid of revolving doors. I have orbitagoraphobia.

Orbitagoraphobia isn't actually a legitimate word, but for lack of a better one, that's what people use to describe their fear of revolving doors. It kind of makes sense. "Orbit" means to go around, and agoraphobia is basically the fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult, so basically you have a fear of going around and getting stuck. It makes sense to me. Although if I were asked to call it something, I'd cut to the chase and just call it revolvaphobia.

I'm not the only one who suffers from this (clearly, or else why would they bother naming it?). The actor Matthew McConaughey is also, allegedly, orbitagoraphobic. I think this piece of information actually makes having this phobia somewhat cooler. Certainly cooler than having arachibutyrophobia, which is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Of course, if you had arachibutyrophobia and orbitagoraphobia and you happened to go through a revolving door while eating a peanut butter sandwich, you would probably suffer from orbitagorarachibutyrophobia, which obviously would be impossible to say if you had peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

There are a number of celebrities with strange phobias. Supposedly Billy Bob Thornton has a fear of antique furniture, Christina Ricci has a fear of indoor plants, and singer Lyle Lovett has bovinophobia, a fear of cows. McConaughey wouldn't have a problem having bovinophobia since it's physically impossible to take a cow through a revolving door, anyway.

Since McConaughey and I possibly had this thing in common, I thought it would be cool to meet him and ask him for his autograph, assuming I don't have to go through a revolving door to do it. However, this might be a problem if he also suffers from scriptophobia, the fear of writing in public, or anthropophobia, the fear of meeting new people. If this was the case, he would probably suffer from anthroporbitoscriptophobia, which is a combination of all three. But this would be a real issue if he also had hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, the fear of long words.

I wouldn't be surprised if McConaughey also suffered from the fear of being remembered for the movie "Surfer, Dude." But that wouldn't necessarily affect our ability to get together, unless I brought a surfboard with me or something.

Still, none of this is a problem for me, since the only phobia I have is of revolving doors.

Unless it turns out that I also have anthropomcconaughphobia, the fear of meeting Matthew McConaughey.

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Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

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