Johannian, I'm not much of a fan of spiders, but at least I don't suffer from arachnophobia. The net-casting spiders actually don't look that bad, in my opinion; it's the huntsman and wolf spiders that are really disturbing. Orb spiders can look quite impressive, although I'd hate to walk into one!
My poor sister had a real fright when she was younger - we lived on a farm growing up and she put on one of her gumboots (not sure what they're called in the US - Wellingtons?), only to have a mature huntsman crawl up her leg out of the boot!
