Have you got annoying habits?

I don’t have any, oh no, sir– well, maybe I have, but nobody has had the bravery to tell me how annoying I am.

I remember as a child, there was a lady who used to babysit me, who had an annoying habit of eating noisily – it would drive me barmy, and to this day, I can’t remember why. She might have been eating with her mouth open, or making chewing sounds or crunching, slurping, or lip-smacking – perhaps I just got obsessed about her even being there, and was looking for an excuse to dislike her.

Other annoying habits some people have are retractable pen clicking - don’t they just make you want to snatch it off them to stop them doing it? I have stared at a culprit, willing them to stop, in the hope they might glance up and see me eyeballing the offence, but it rarely happened.

Tapping fingers or drumming with pens and pencils are habits people do without being aware of it when concentrating. Shaking a leg, maybe with a shoe hanging precariously off the toes, is another habit some people have (many is the time I have watched in anticipation of the moment they lose control of the shoe) or cracking knuckles - mainly a habit of the young, something I can’t do anymore without thinking I might dislocate the fingers. Constant sniffing – don’t you just notice on TV, where someone repeatedly says ‘umm’ or ‘like’ over and over again in the same sentence, and I start counting down on my fingers to see how many times I hear them saying the offensive word.

One habit I particularly dislike is becoming more frequent – people constantly checking their phones in company. Does this mean we are boring them to death and they are checking for something outstanding to distract them?

And on the subject of phones, people using their speakerphones in public areas - not everyone wants to hear both sides of your conversation, thank you. Nor do we enjoy sound leakage from earphones that produces a constant buzzing or thumping that everyone can hear.

So, who has the bad habit here?

Is it me being intolerant, or are they things that bother other people? Interrupting, finishing other people’s sentences (sometimes incorrectly anticipating the end result), spraying saliva in speaking, ugh, horrible - get the umbrella out. Annoying laugh – someone who cackles, or heaves noisily when laughing over and over again like a braying donkey.

I think it is me - I am becoming more intolerant the older I get. I looked it up to see if it is a recognised ‘thing ’, and I am pleased to report that it is. Oldies have a lower tolerance for what we perceive as ‘nonsense’. After decades of managing work, relationships, and responsibilities, we develop a sharper radar for triviality, inefficiency, or drama and stop tolerating things we used to put up with out of obligation.

Brain changes

Disturbingly, I find that natural ageing can involve mild changes in brain structure, such as frontal lobe shifts or subtle variations in emotional regulation and energy levels, making it harder to filter out minor annoyances or suppress immediate reactions.

We become more sensitive to the sounds in our lives, as our brains and ears struggle to adapt to loud or busy environments, making some older adults more sensitive to background noise. (Oh yes, turn off that ‘shouty loud music’ please). We have a growing desire to protect our personal peace, or fill it with noises or music that perhaps only we like.

There is no one word to describe someone who constantly notices the bad habits of others, but maybe we should invent one. I would like to say I am observant, but others might call it nit-picking or censorious, so here’s a good word – perspicacious - a literary word for someone with deep insight who notices things that are not obvious.

So I am quite content being a grumpy old woman sometimes. It’s not my fault. It’s my age.