Do you bite your fingernails?

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I'm trying to stop. It's unattractive, unhygenic, sometimes bloody and painful. It's more than something I do when nervous; it's a constant habit. Moreover, I have slight complex about my nails, and subtly try to hide them from other people. I'm gonna try the disgusting paint stuff...

Do you bite your nails to a gross extent? what do non-nailbiters think when they see gnarled, scabby fingers?

― Bnn---, Wednesday, 16 November 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

Apart from the occasional nibble at a broken, hanging-off nail, I just don't understand the appeal of this.

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

They think it's fucking HOT.

http://www.quintadimension.com/0pics/literatura/delany1.jpg

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 16:06 (twenty years ago)

i was a huge nail biter as a kid. then, one day, sometime in high school, i looked at my hands and realized i couldn't remember the last time i bit my nails. it just passed. never bit them again. i wish all my bad habits would die this way! hmm, can't remember the last time i smoked. cured!

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

x-post

who he?

― Barnaby (Barnaby), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:29 (twenty years ago)

Samuel Delany

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

(acclaimed sci-fi writer and nail-biting fetishist)

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

Yes. I do it all the time.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

yep, have been doing it for as long as i can remember.

― bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

Dear god, yes. And cuticles, especially in dry weather, ie ALL WINTER LONG. In fact I've have been reprimanded for absent-mindedly nibbling on a stray cuticle in a work meeting, which is kind of funny. Obv it's not "professional" strictly speaking but I can't believe anyone noticed!

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:36 (twenty years ago)

sometimes i have to cover the cuticles with bandaids because they are so painful. i look like a drummer from a 70's classic rock band.

― bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

I don't know what I find worse in men: long finger nails or biting'em.

― Nathalie is in Da Base II Dark (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:43 (twenty years ago)

when i was on celexa and xanax it stopped me from biting them, but i couldn't get a boner, so i chose to go forward with boners.

― bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

I've confined my attentions to cuticles in recent years 'cos I hate the uneven, scratchy result of biting the nails off, but I do clean underneath them probably more often and assiduously than most people. Maybe I'll keep a pocketknife in my desk and use it to pick my nails clean when people come to my desk with a request to move up schedules.

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

do you ever get that really thin piece of nail left after you bite the actual nail off and tear it off so it hurts the tips of your fingers.

― bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 17:47 (twenty years ago)

Yes. Can't leave those floppy weak bits hanging around -- unless there's actual bleeding I will always tear it off. If there's bleeding, I'll probably have to slap a band-aid on the thing to stop worrying at it.

Have you ever tried refocusing on your blackheads, instead? Or tweezing things?

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

haha, no. although i use tweezers to peel back the cuticles i can't bite.

― bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

Jesus, I used to bite my nails but not THAT bad. I only bit them sometimes...not sure why I did or didn't at particular times. Brain chemistry? Anyway, I stopped.

― WTF, Wednesday, 16 November 2005 18:16 (twenty years ago)

its my nerves.

― bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 18:16 (twenty years ago)

Yes. All my life. They are a mess. Cuticles too. No antidepressant has ever affected the habit. Have stopped with zero-to-minor effort a couple of times owing to transient and unusually stimulating & life-affirming circumstances, but have always reverted. Nowadays when my nails grow out they are thin and seem not worth the trouble of keeping clean and filed. From time to time I consider getting some kind of insanely expensive professional fake-nail manicure and trying to keep it up, but fuck it. Between the nailbiting and the smoking, it seems that control issues, miniaturized and orally expressed, loom large in my existence.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 18:34 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, me too. At least that's what I've heard. And now that I no longer bite my nails, no thanks to anti-depressants (why, I don't know...I just don't feel like biting them anymore) I have to worry about perfectly groomed nails now!

― WTF, Wednesday, 16 November 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

Have always bit my nails and don't really consider it a bad habit, just something I do. It's useful, anyway. They look fine: slightly ragged perhaps but unnoticeable unless you're really up close. No bleeding or cuticle-picking.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 20:14 (twenty years ago)

i bit cuticles all the time. it's bad, but i dont usually get to the point of pain or bleeding. I just do it a lot, and yeah, especially in dry weather. I try to keep my hands moisturized all winter long cuz it feels good, but also so i'm not always biting them.

nails too, but not nearly as much.

i dont like that i do it, but it's so hard to stop. it's been a habit for so long.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 20:19 (twenty years ago)

besides, like jaymc, i like the results.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 20:19 (twenty years ago)

Getting a manicure helps tons -- if there's no raggedness to chew on, there's no reason for me to start. But I'm too cheap and too careless to make a habit of manicures. Don't know what the cause could be, I'm not depressed and I'm not THAT much of a control freak; maybe I'm just easily bored & need a goal, however fleeting.

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 20:24 (twenty years ago)

Yes, all my life except for the 18 months I had braces. My parents tried making me use anti-nailbiting treatments that made my nails taste bad or burn my tongue like hot chilies, but they didn't work.

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

i just stopped biting my nails a month ago. and stopped means that i still bite at them sometimes, but less frequently. and as a result, they're growing out nicely. but even this progress came with help. i got my nails manicured and asked for a gel coating, which prevented me from biting them for the first two weeks. but i've weened myself from that now. it's just so hard because your habit is always there, tempting you.

― origami snail (origami snail), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 21:13 (twenty years ago)

They look fine: slightly ragged perhaps but unnoticeable unless you're really up close

Actually this is a more apt description of mine than "They are a mess"; examining them closely is my usual prelude to gnawing, so my opinion is skewed. I suppose what's noticeable at normal range is just that they are extremely short, with the occasional bloody cuticle or two.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

I was actually doing so when I read this thread title. And stopped abruptly, ashamed...

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 17 November 2005 00:53 (twenty years ago)

My girlfriend keeps biting when I can't see anything left to bite, but she does. When I see her do it I ask her, "What are you doing?", bedause she would like to stop, she says, but can't bring herself to. Her reply is usually," Oh, sorry I forgot." Can anyone explain this to me so I can understand? I smoke, so I known what it's like to have to do something, is this the same impluse?

― Jacobs (LolVStein), Thursday, 17 November 2005 01:58 (twenty years ago)

95% of my nailbiting is unconscious. I'll look down at my hands and see the skin around a nail freshly chewed down, and have no memory of doing it.

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 17 November 2005 03:45 (twenty years ago)

This is gonna sound strange but I've just realised I dont think I understood what nail biting is. I thought it meant people chewed on the ends of the actual nails, but everyone's talking about tearing off hangnails/cuticles with yr teeth?

You can tell this isnt somethign I do, heh :/

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 17 November 2005 03:53 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it's both, actually.

What about nailpicking? Anyone do that, too?

― M. V. (M.V.), Thursday, 17 November 2005 03:55 (twenty years ago)

I tear my nails off if I get a "catch" on the side, a chip or whatever, and it snags on things.I totally shouldnt, it splits them all up.

I have really strong hard nails that grow real fast and rarely break. And yet, I dont like to have long nails or have 'em manicured up. Its wasted on me, I should sell my nails to someone.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 17 November 2005 03:59 (twenty years ago)

i smoke as well.

― bingo (Chris V), Thursday, 17 November 2005 11:33 (twenty years ago)

ten years pass...

don't bite, but I 'click' them, which is how I know it's time to cut them. it becomes hard to get work/anything done due to this habit of mine.

colleagues used to say it looked like I was operating finger puppets

― Neanderthal, Friday, 21 October 2016 12:43 (nine years ago)

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