Have you ever known anyone with agoraphobia?

I encountered someone recently with the opposite of agoraphobia: claustrophobia. And guess where I met her? On an airplane. She climbed aboard the plane and at row 3 announced that she could go no further. She was claustrophobic and needed a first-class seat or she could go no further. I didn't know whether to feel sorry for her plight, or feel admiration for her ingenuity in trying to get a first-class seat.

Where claustrophobia is fear of cramped places, agoraphobia is the fear of the outside. Agoraphobia is the fear that keeps people locked in their homes, afraid to venture outside the comforting enclosure of their own four walls. The outside, open air world is too vast, too unpredictable, too teeming with unknown dangers to risk encounteri…