Humans follow patterns in the way they choose to act. That's why the list theory and the blank space theory work. Humans are creatures of habits and we follow the norms of society around us. However, because we have the capacity to make decisions sometimes we go against the "established" patterns of society and participate in violations of the theories. Violation episodes focus on what happens when people don't follow their theory properly. The obsessive creep and the hung-up violations of the list theory happen when a man makes a woman his number 1 before they are in a committed relationship.