Falling for You

Why are we embarrassed when we trip and fall?

A friend and I were discussing this over the weekend as she recounted a recent tumble in a motorcycle shop. Her husband dropped his bike off for a brake check and of course had to look around the showroom. While squeezing out of a particularly crowded corner of the shop, my friend trips and goes flying. (Fortunately she didn’t fall into the bikes, sending them cascading like a row of dominos.)

Her first reaction after hitting the floor? Immediately jump up and pretend she was perfectly fine although the blinding pain in her knee brought tears to her eyes.

We’ve all done it–lost our balance, caught our toe, stumbled over our own two left feet. And we all have the same reaction–jump up, dust ourselves off and assure the world: “I’m all right, I’m fine. Yes, I’m fine, it’s nothing.” (This said while blood runs down our knees and bones protrude from our arms.)

We have all taken a tumble in our lives (and I mean past the age of just learning to put one foot in front of the other). And for those of us with clumsy tendencies, we’ve fallen many times. In fact, when I was an undergraduate at Ohio University, I tripped all the time–and so did everyone else on campus. The sidewalks and pathways are all brick–uneven, very uneven, brick. So everyone was stumbling and it had nothing to do with the fact OU is a top party school. Yet even though I knew every single student had caught a toe on a brick, I still looked around mortified every time I was out of step.

So, again I ask: Why are we embarrassed when we trip and fall?

Because answers to all life’s great questions can be found on the Internet, I asked the great and powerful Google about “fear of falling.” I was directed to www.phobialist.com.

It appears “Basophobia or Basiphobia” is the inability to stand or the fear of walking or falling. And “Climacophobia” is the fear of, not just falling, but falling downstairs.

To take this falling fear just one step further, “Philophobia” is the fear of falling in love. Well, that sort of falling can be embarrassing as well.

Now I know our fear of falling has a name, but I’m still not completely sure why we’re so embarrassed by falling. I only have one theory: because we know for a fact others will laugh at us. It’s common knowledge that it’s funny when other people fall (but not when we do).

So the next time I go flying across a slippery floor or rolling down the stairs, I’ll just laugh and think, “Fear of falling isn’t so bad, at least I’m not suffering from “Geliophobia.” (fear of laughter)