OCD people: what's your magic number?

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There are certain things I always buy in even numbers -- usually twos, but sometimes fours as well. There are other things I always need to do three times, or nine times. I like three and its multiples.

I also have a degree of aversion to the number that comes after twelve, but before fourteen -- and a disproportionate number of my bad experiences have happened on that day of the month, with a few taking place on the day of the month that is the two digits of that number transposed.

I'm an educated person, who was raised in an urban area by educated parents. I *should* be above superstitious thinking, but there are some kinds of superstitious and magical thinking I find myself really prone to.

On a sort of related note, I took up coffee drinking several years ago, because I was juggling full time work add graduate studies and found myself nodding off at inopportune times as a result. I was taking the subway to the job I had at that time. There were two exits out of that subway station, one on the East side of a busy intersection, and one on the West side. I would always get out at the West side because the place where I worked in those days was on that side of the street. Then I started getting coffee from a nearby coffee place to remedy the aforementioned nodding off at inopportune times. The coffee place I went to was on the East side of the intersection. Any normal person would have switched to leaving through the East side exit of the station to go to the coffee place, then crossed the intersection to the West side to go to work once his/ her coffee had been purchased. However, I'm not a normal person. I still got out at the West side, crossed the busy intersection to get my coffee from the coffee place on the East side, then crossed the intersection back to the West side to go to work. I did that because I had always gotten out of the station at the West side exit, and I didn't feel right about switching.

Once I have a specific routine for doing something, I like to stick to it, even when it doesn't completely make sense. I could give more examples, but this post is already far too long.

Mine is 3 or 13, but usually 3.

Me too. Usually it has to do with evening things out. Like if I scratch my arm I have to scratch the other in the same place on the other side.

"Sometimes i make a point of not following a compulsion - this is part of a recovery program."
Ack, me too. I think if I hadn't started resisting urges really early on, it would have gotten really bad. But when I was a little kid there was a point where I just got sick of it, because I remember that if I turned in one direction, I would have to turn in the other, and if I pulled up one sock I'd have to pull up the other, even if it meant pushing it down first so I could get the full feeling of pulling it up. But then I would have to push the other one down too. And it was just driving me nuts because it never ended, so I guess I just got fed up and ended it, lol. I have no patience, even for myself.

But even now if something rubs one way on my skin I usually have to rub it back, or rub it until it feels like it's been rubbed equally in all directions..

I just don't like odd numbers, everything has to be even. Like I can't stand the volume being on 3, it has to be 2 or 4.

7 or sometimes 4

As of now, I usually only feel the need to do things like washing my hands two to three times. I used to think washing my hands five times was necessary and gradually worked down to only feeling the need to lather with soap and wash my hands two times.

I'm not telling.

I love this topic. 3, 7 and to a lesser extent 5.

Eight. Perfect symmetry.

I've always liked number 4. It's the most flexible and easiest number to work with in various situations. It also gives the sense of completeness. I'm not comfortable with odd numbers.

three, six, nine

9.number of family member.

11

3, 9, and to a lesser degree 15, 19 plus one more that is only for me to know.
When I'm microwaving something I press stop in time to land on an odd number, evens are 'bad'.

I never count things. I'm not sure if I have a number that I don't think about when I do things. If not then I just don't have a magic number.

137. Worst reason ever: from when I was 9 till about 22, I was obsessed with Sweet Valley books and the Sweet Valley Twins books nearly all have 137 pages in them. I'm almost embarrassed to write that now, but it seemed obvious at the time!