There’s a silent universal nod for what things people commonly find irritating. Like, when someone’s loudly gobbling a mouthful, or picking their teeth with bare hands (worse, braces!), or when a person in front of you is biting their nails like they were some salty caramel popcorn. Apologies for ruining whatever it is that you were eating.
But people are so much more complex than that. You see, among the universally annoying and “no, we won’t be friends after that” list stands a bunch of very subtle little things that for many mortal ones, like you and me, don’t even raise an eyebrow, but for others, provoke a full-on breakdown.
So let’s dive deep into the sea of stuff people find annoying, although often totally irrational.
This post may include affiliate links.
When the TV show you're watching goes to an ad and the volume goes from reasonable to incredibly loud without having changed the volume.
Having to watch movies with your thumb on the volume buttons on the remote - have to turn it up to hear talking, then its immediately too loud for action sequences and wakes up the kids. Movie night ends before it even starts.
Same applies to TV shows when the commercials are louder than the show you're watching.
People who step closer to you when you step away from them. You were violating my personal space, and I’m trying to fix that. Come on.
I volunteer as treasurer at a museum. There are mainly older helpers there. One of the older ladies really has no tolerance for personal space. She gets really close, gropes you, and lacks any kind of personal space. Interestingly, she is a former social worker and should know how problematic this can be for people. I don't like it at all when someone comes so close to me without being asked. Especially and particularly in Corona times.
Drivers who overtake you on the road, and then slow down once they're in front of you.
People that pee on the seat and don't wipe their f**king piss off the seat
A sleeve that rolls down your arm when washing your hands/doing dishes.
unrecognized item in bagging area
I'd be more entertained if it was 'You f#cked up, start again. Idiot'
misuse of their, there and they're
the people who do this really need to work on there spelling and grammar😒
When People don't say please and thank you. Probably one of my biggest pet peeves. Just shows how little they think about others.
Chewing with your mouth open
As someone with misophonia, this is one of the worst triggers for me. I already can't stand it when someone chews loudly with their mouth closed. However, I usually manage to ignore that. But when someone chews with their mouth open, I become the hulk. Apart from the fact that it is simply bad behavior. I don't want to know what your chewed food looks like. I also can't stand it when someone eats behind me, especially something "loud". For example, when the kids are eating cookies behind me in the car.... I really have to pull myself together.
People who don't signal when they're switching lanes. Are you really that lazy?
Stopped at a light and told the person that their indicators are not working. When they said they were I said "well f753ing use them.
People who walk side by side slow as s**t down the aisle in the store. They’re juuuust far enough apart that you can’t squeeze by them, and at least around my parts, when you say excuse me they just ignore you.
People who spit on the ground for no apparent reason. There’s a guy at work who consistently does this and every time I see a spit stain on the ground I automatically know where it comes from.
I've never understood the need to spit. Sure if you've got a cold and you do it discreetly, but just walking around in normal life, I've just never thought 'oh no, I've got too much saliva, best gob it onto the ground right now'
Open floor plan offices. I need some peace and quiet when I work. Plus Dave slurping his coffee.
My husband watching his phone during a show and asking me what happened constantly. If you want to know, put your damn phone down!
MY hubby wants to converse when I'm watching something. I usually play deaf and he goes away.
This just happened to me. When people respond to your email and spell your name wrong, despite the fact that both my email and the contact associated with my email both have my name spelled correctly, not to mention I signed my name at the end of the email.
I responded by thanking him and misspelling his name.
Had my new soon to supervisor email me to ask me what’s my email address again?
When people always try to one up you In a conversation.
Not as bad as people who try to two up you. Once I met superman and I three upped him he was very sad. I am humble. Only smart people will get this. I think that's enough now before y'all throw tomatoes at me ^-^
Really subtle buzzing from lights in classrooms and gymnasiums. I swear to god that s**t is so annoying I’d rather learn in the dark.
When your pant pocket/earbud wire gets caught on the doorknob and pulls u back
Whenever I touch something that feels greasy or oily. Like a utensil, doorknob, or even a tube of tooth paste. Makes me cringe. Wash your nasty ass hands.
When people take their phone calls right next to you. My coworker is doing it right now on our lunch break as i write this.
Extra sh*tty points if they use the speaker phone option forcing you to be part of their conversation.
If they use the speaker, I assume it’s because they want me to join in. And I do.
Forgetting that 1 thing from going shopping
Oh always. You come home with a ton of stuff you didn’t really need though.
Pessimism at work. None of us wanna be here. Shut up and do your work so we can go home.
It really depends how you define pessimism. If it's the good old sarcastic jokes, they help you cope with this situation you don't want to be in. Also, when there's a problem, it needs to be addressed. I dislike constant meaningless complaints too, but the "just shut up and work" is a bit of an unhealthy and kinda dangerous attitude. Meanwhile, forced optimism is annoying too. It feels insensitive.
when you're listening to music and people keep trying to talk to you. If I have both my ear pieces in, I don't want to f**king talk to you.
I was once on a long-haul flight and had briefly chatted to the girl a few seats away as it turned out we were going to the same place. Every time I turned around it seemed she was talking at me, but I had my headphones on, so had missed it all.
When you're trying to tell something to someone or a group of people and something interrupts you, then you forget what you meant to say
And then they say, "if it was important, you'll remember it". Like b!tch! What I have to say is just as important as what you interrupted to say! Unless it was an emergency in which case let's go deal
When people say "I seen..." instead of "I saw..."
Hearing someone chew.
It's one thing when people use improper grammar while speaking or informal communication like texting- I don't mind it, it's usually cultural - but I can't abide it in formal or professional writing/correspondence. There was an article a while back in the US about a group of college students trying to get their professor fired on the grounds that he was racist for correcting and knocking off points for improper grammar in their papers. It still gets me to this day, because you know what the real kicker was? THEY WERE JOURNALISM MAJORS.
When people eat and they bite down on the fork as they drag it out of their mouths sends shivers down my spine. It’s hard to hear but once you notice a person has the habit of doing this, sharing meals become excruciating
When someone’s headlights are like high beams...
I'd dearly like to outlaw LED and HID headlights. I drive a low car and it's like having the sun staring you in the face - either in front or reflected in all three mirrors from behind. They are supposed to be self levelling, but this never seems to work and they just blind the sh*t out other road users.
Being able to hear someone’s TV muffled through the wall. It drives me MENTAL.
IMO this is a problem with housebuilder. My 1950s council house is almost completely soundproof. That or the neighbours children are freakishly calm indoors compared to outdoors.
The last specific thing I remember getting real pissed about was ghost flights.
At the beginning of the pandemic, flights were running without passengers because if they just stayed on the ground they would lose government subsidies. So they flew around without any passengers wasting insane amounts of jet fuel for government benefits.
F**king insanity...
You have to ask yourself who is the insane party here, the government or the airline? If you could get $15 million by spending $ 500 000 on kerosine you would burn that kerosine too.
Improper grammar. Mainly from the kids who sat through English class complaining that they “speak the language so there is no need to study it”.
This was also before social media so it wasn’t noticed as much. But once Facebook hit... the horror.
During May, I had 3 guys hit on me hard through the online games. They know nothing about my personality, didn't bother to ask, but just kept wanting pictures and personal information and trying to insert themselves into whatever I'm doing.
One of them would not stop pushing his sexuality onto me until I blocked him. The other two treat me like a little fragile girl in need of rescuing. Dudes, I'm fine! Stop! It's such a waste of time and I'm practising being less polite and passive about it.
I hate this too. I play a poker game on my VR and omg, dudes will come out of nowhere and try to talk to you. If you wanna talk like a normal human, cool. But please don't flirt and be stupid, I'm not there for a cyber date. I'm there to take your money lol (fake money not played for real money)
People who go 10 under the speed limit in the fast lane. Seriously move over
When I’m stretched out to my max capacity to reach an item and it’s still JUST out of reach
When an old lady comes on the bus, nobody offers their seat. I will give up my seat when she comes near me but I'm not going to yell across the bus to get her attention.
Young people (16 year olds) who stand near the entrance of the bus to the point where I have to force my way through to get off the bus. Somehow their idiot faces tell me they still don't think they are in the way.
I gave up my seat for someone with crutches once when I had a broken arm. Scores of healthy-looking people, surely one of them must have been in a better condition than me. I nabbed it back when the person with crutches got off at another stop and someone new getting on glared at me. FFS - I'm INJURED and was on the flipping bus first.
Sound of lips smacking while eating. I hate it. Even if they're quiet, I still just want to explode.
When someone mumbles. I'll ask them three or four times what they said and they still mumble. I get so mad
This is one of the things that can make people more irritable as they grow old. They lose hearing gradually, so more and more people "mumble" (while they just talk normally) but because the change is slow and gradual, they don't think it's a hearing loss.
When people try to win arguments by being louder and dumber. It really makes me want to punch the person. Like if you don't have a valid claim, shut up
Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Mark Twain.
Hearing someone’s music through their earbuds.
Like first of all, I don’t want to hear your music. But because it’s through your earbuds, all I can hear is the beat of the s****y rap song that sounds exactly the same as the previous one.
Traffic lights that are green on streets with no cars or pedestrians crossing while the other two streets are filling up with cars waiting on a pointless red light.
Professors/teachers who keeps the cursor on videos they show.
On my media player the cursor becomes a pointing finger. Some times when my wife leaves it on the screen, I'll start to subtly 'Picking noses' of the actors with it.
Note: this post originally had 92 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
People pushing my wheelchair without asking. Sometimes they're being helpful, sometimes they just want you out of their way, but even if I'm struggling with a slope or a curb, a "here, let me give you a hand" or "may i help you?" would be nice.
Blind people often have a similar problem. I was guiding two men through London and in the tube station someone grabbed one of them and dragged him through the ticket barrier while I got my ticket out of my bag (we'd been staying the night in London after a meeting so had a lot of stuff with us). This person didn't ask. All people have to do is ask if someone needs assistance, it really isn't that difficult. Sorry you have that experience all too often.
As someone in a chair this hits home. It really is a difficult and touchy situation. Sometimes we need help and it’s nowhere and other times it’s forced on us and we either don’t need it, don’t want it, or it actually makes things harder. Here’s my advice on how to handle this from my perspective. Ask “Have you got this or may I be of assistance?” This phrasing makes it easy to either politely accept or refuse without anyone feeling hurt and makes it easy to accept help if needed. I could say, “thank you, I’ve got it this time” without feeling rude. I could say, “I’d love some help please” without having to seek it out.
That, I do. But I don't just approach a stranger in a wheelchair and interfere with them ... I help everyone who asks, and if some simple task comes up, like holding a door open or the like, I just do it without any talking ... everything exceeding this kind of thing, I don't do without having asked if help is needed or having been asked if I can help. Blind people ... I think not standing in their way is best, and as I know our trajectories do cross a bit earlier, I am the one to react in advance. But, in general, as many people don't seem to like unasked help - I help people who ask me. Or offer it verbally first, and whatever they then say, that I do. Usually, a little bit talking clear situations better than any assumptions do.
I always ask because some times, people don't want help. I never assume. Independence is very important. As a short person (5' 2"), I get it. Yes, the item I want is on the top shelf, but I need to find a way to get it on my own. What if literally, no one else was around?
One thing that bugs me and hurts, when you're trying to pull your covers up and you end up punching yourself in the face.
People who get off a train and immediately stop right in front of the door to orient themselves on the platform (so that those behind them can‘t get off the train).
I hate it when people stand blocking the doors when they're trying to get on. I've lost track of the amount of times I've loudly said 'you can get on quicker if you actually let us get off'
Yeah, I hate that too!
Or escalators. They stop right at the top to decide where to go.
People pushing my wheelchair without asking. Sometimes they're being helpful, sometimes they just want you out of their way, but even if I'm struggling with a slope or a curb, a "here, let me give you a hand" or "may i help you?" would be nice.
Blind people often have a similar problem. I was guiding two men through London and in the tube station someone grabbed one of them and dragged him through the ticket barrier while I got my ticket out of my bag (we'd been staying the night in London after a meeting so had a lot of stuff with us). This person didn't ask. All people have to do is ask if someone needs assistance, it really isn't that difficult. Sorry you have that experience all too often.
As someone in a chair this hits home. It really is a difficult and touchy situation. Sometimes we need help and it’s nowhere and other times it’s forced on us and we either don’t need it, don’t want it, or it actually makes things harder. Here’s my advice on how to handle this from my perspective. Ask “Have you got this or may I be of assistance?” This phrasing makes it easy to either politely accept or refuse without anyone feeling hurt and makes it easy to accept help if needed. I could say, “thank you, I’ve got it this time” without feeling rude. I could say, “I’d love some help please” without having to seek it out.
That, I do. But I don't just approach a stranger in a wheelchair and interfere with them ... I help everyone who asks, and if some simple task comes up, like holding a door open or the like, I just do it without any talking ... everything exceeding this kind of thing, I don't do without having asked if help is needed or having been asked if I can help. Blind people ... I think not standing in their way is best, and as I know our trajectories do cross a bit earlier, I am the one to react in advance. But, in general, as many people don't seem to like unasked help - I help people who ask me. Or offer it verbally first, and whatever they then say, that I do. Usually, a little bit talking clear situations better than any assumptions do.
I always ask because some times, people don't want help. I never assume. Independence is very important. As a short person (5' 2"), I get it. Yes, the item I want is on the top shelf, but I need to find a way to get it on my own. What if literally, no one else was around?
One thing that bugs me and hurts, when you're trying to pull your covers up and you end up punching yourself in the face.
People who get off a train and immediately stop right in front of the door to orient themselves on the platform (so that those behind them can‘t get off the train).
I hate it when people stand blocking the doors when they're trying to get on. I've lost track of the amount of times I've loudly said 'you can get on quicker if you actually let us get off'
Yeah, I hate that too!
Or escalators. They stop right at the top to decide where to go.