Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

hotel rooms are the best/worst for this because the couples are away from home and don't give a shit who can hear them.

I remember the lonely mournings of the woman who lived below WISHING she could be nailing her precious lost love LEROY. "I need you NOW Leroy! Oh Leroy!" on the phone. SHut the window dammit! God bless living in a house to escpae such things- but there still the barking

Marvel and DC team ups. Just wrong.

the moans were more panicky/fearful than usual

More than USUAL??? :(

not innocuous, but venting anyway...

when people have problems w/ you about something and instead of communicating them to you, they give you obvious 'silent treatment' or distance until you realize something's wrong and have to ask them directly OK WTF.

it's like everyone sucks at conflict now.

YES. Especially when you have no idea what their specific problem is.

Ongoing example: My not-really-friend M. stopped talking to me out of the blue in 2009, which was no big deal b/c he was high maintenance. Then we reconnected in 2010 and hung out a lot. Then on Jan. 3 of this year we had a long chat on the phone, during which he asked what I did on NYE. I told him about a big falling I had with a friend (not a mutual friend), and gave him a few details. Immediately after I told him, he said "Hmmm" in a disapproving tone a few times, then said, in the sassy-brassy-black/latina-lady voice that gay men sometimes affect, "Mmm, OK, well I'm finna go brush out my wigs. You have a blessed day now, y'hear?" and that was the end.

I mean, what the fuck?? I assume he's judging me for having drama in my life, but I still don't get it. He's clearly got a problem with me, but he's too fucking weird to tell me off. Ugh.

I ran into him at a party and he barely acknowledged me, so I hugged him, which made him satisfyingly uncomfortable.

Pettiness: M. has a crush on a mutual friend who, after that party, told me he was kind of into me. He also told me that he can't stand M. This is also pretty satisfying.

one of my exes, right before each time we broke up, would not say "i love you" back, and would be less responsive to text messages and stuff. it was heartbreaking because I knew what it meant but she neverh ad the balls to speak up and I had to initiate the awkward conversation that lead to the breakup.

it's like everyone sucks at conflict now.

ilx would be an amazingly different place without this sort of conflict-avoidance

Hahaha.

I think people suck at confrontation and they mix it up with conflict. Being good at confrontation is a wonderful art.

Neanderthal, that's really shitty. I used to ignore phone calls or emails in order to convey a message that I'm not into someone after a date or too, and I feel shitty about it. After someone did it to me, I totally changed my ways. The times when someone has told me flat out after a date that he wasn't interested in me have been overwhelmingly positive events! I feel really respected and like I'm living in a world of grown-ups.

yea I mean I've never been the best at it either, but I've turned over a new leaf after I've seen how it is on the receiving end.

An ex of mine wanted to get back together, and wasn't getting the message. I had told her I just wanted to stay friends, and she kept sending me awkward "miss you" texts. Instead of ignoring it for once, I sent her a stern message about how I did still want to be friends, but that she needed to understand that us getting back together would not happen and she needed to respect my decision.

She didn't talk to me for weeks, but we've become friendly again, so I think she appreciated the honesty over the cold shoulder.

also Jesse this same ex, the week before we broke up (meaning we're still together when this happened), tells me I should go hit on the (cute) female bartender. thinking this was another one of her jokes, I laughed it off, until she kept repeating "What if I want you to?"....which then told me she was serious.

Nothing like an indirect hint that your relationship's ending!

I also don't like it when people have a problem with you, give you silent treatment, then talk about you behind your back.....

I do that all the time

A friend of mine is currently really pissy at me. I figured this was the case, because in our last conversation I rather inadvertently offended him quite a bit. It couldnt be helped - he'd interruppted me at work on MSN, my mind was scattred, he was going on and on about being angry and seeing a shrink (his usual state) and I wasnt feeling in the mood for playing supportive friend. So I fear I was a little blunt in my (what I thought were kind) exhortations to put recent shitty stuff behind him, not wallow in that bad stuff and focus on some good things that had just happened to him.

All he heard was "lol you wallow in your misery you suck" and blew his stack. I apoligised at length and in detail in my next message, got no response. this was almost a month ago, and last night my ex (hes friends with us both) said "yeah D is really mad at you, but shit I dont know or care why its not my business".

Frankly, I dont think I can be fucked resolving it. He's so tiring to deal with sometimes.

he sounds like he's in love with his problems

He does have some genuine issues with his mental health and has had some crappy things happen to him, but theyre not DISASTROUSLY crappy - he just cannot handle Lyfe well, I think. I dont know. I worry about him but I have been around so many dysfunctional people in my life Im starting to lose my patience for it.

you mean there's other kinds???

you can only take on so much of it before it wears you down, I think your feelings on the matter are perfectly warranted, Trayce...

When they digitally blur things like a Nike logo or a real estate agent's phone number or a damn license plate from a reality show.

yeah Trayce...I have a friend like that and I reached a point where I had to decide if I would keep taking on the burden of life-counsellor or bow out.
I kept the friendship but I forced myself to make it constructive from that point on- hammered at her to get help, and became way more blunt with her about spinning her wheels, and she improved dramatically, and it became a two-way friendship again instead of one-way wailing wall. Induldging constant drama is a) draining and b) unproductive, and c) the quickest way to sour a friendship.

- submitting writing to someone who then fucks w/the formatting. i wrote something where two emphasized bits were in italics, and the person in charge of printing it out (not an editor, mind, just the person in charge of printing out pieces and pasting them to the wall) took the italics out. now it reads kinda garbled and i'm all UGH.

price stickers on books/cds/etc that don't peel off properly, and leave horrible scungy sticky bits that get little hairs and bits of dust adhering to them

That big sticker they put all along the top of a CD is the worst thing...

- submitting writing to someone who then fucks w/the formatting. i wrote something where two emphasized bits were in italics, and the person in charge of printing it out (not an editor, mind, just the person in charge of printing out pieces and pasting them to the wall) took the italics out. now it reads kinda garbled and i'm all UGH.

when i write something in word (or even notepad tbh) and paste it into gmail and gmail messes up the paragraph breaks. this happened with a cover letter i wrote for a freakin' copy editor job.

- little blue bar in twitter telling every day for 6 months that I am using new twitter

*telling me

people who use terms like 'bad boys' to mean things that arent bad or boys and use words like twerp but arent in their 60s.

people who use terms like 'bad boys' to mean things that arent bad or boys

oh god. this is just.... insta-hate

That big sticker they put all along the top of a CD is the worst thing...

there is a pretty foolproof technique for dealing with this. you unhinge the front of the case from the back. then it becomes easy to take the sticker off. rehinge, done.

Ah Trayce, yr friend sounds like someone I used to talk to online until I reached the end of my tether and sometimes feel v guilty about dropping but also know that it wouldn't work out any better if I got back in touch.

(at the time he was out of work and I was in a crappy job which I hated and which paid less than he got on disability benefit for depression. I got tired of being a whinging post when if I ever moaned about my job or anything else he'd go "oh but you're so lucky to have a job, now let's talk about how my life sucks", "oh you think you're lonely but you're a woman and women are never lonely", or some other variety of "no no, I've got it worse, shut up now" - not that KIP attempts were any better received)

djs who mix things out after 90 seconds...repeatedly. this isn't innocuous actually it's fucking heinous.

@ Trayce all you have to do is say things like "you're right that is terrible" then change the focus "I hear you got a new car" or something to change the subject

"yea, but how can I enjoy this new car when my life sucks and there's soooooooooooo much suffering in the worrrrrrrrrld"

"you're rigt that is terrible, you really are having a tough time. Are you going to see the new THOR? Ned Ragget says it blows!"

xpost I mean, tbh, I can't even fuck with these types of people anymore. Valid complaints or not, they're compliment fishers, and it comes from some kind of hyperactive selfishness. Many of them will be dismissive of any kind of advice ("Oh I've tried that, it doesn't work").

I got really worn down when I was 20 by this girl who was convinced her life was the worst in the history, fabricated or exaggerated events (ie, made the death of a grandma into 'most traumatic event evar'), and would demand your attention whenever it happened. She sent me a postcard my first week of college (I'd moved 6 hours away and was struggling) not to wish me well, but to complain she didn't get cast in some community theatre play. She called me to whine about her life daily.

and on the rare day I called her on her antics, she attempted to get other friends of hers or mine to gang up on me to make me feel bad. I tried, and I tried, but in the end the only solution was to cut all ties with this person, because it brought me down real far. It sucks but sometimes that's the solution.

in general cutting ties with people seems to work out in all cases except your mailman

^^^ Yep. Just giving up completely on my ridiculously high-maintenance "friend" who never made time for me was one of the best things I've done. Yes, I miss the good days when we were close and getting along well, but its so much easier now to not have to wonder what kind of metaphorical backflips I'll have to do to keep him pleased.

i've had people do that to me actually, but i think it was pretty jerky of them. i went through this phase of always being sarcastic, always with the pop culture put downs etc., but i was always kind TO HER. she went through some family trauma, which i was very supportive about actually, but then seemingly decided to cut ALL negativity out of her life and that meant axing me (passively). this was about a decade ago now, and i took the hint and we just stopped talking, but part of me still wants her to call her up and say wtf, it was ages ago and i'm not like that now - screw you for ditching me! in the nineties, being a sarcastabitch just seemed COOL. i never harmed anyone and am not the one who was being a bad friend! i just got pwned by Daria culture. :/

call her and say you found Jesus and now you are a fountain of optimism

how about that i found him under my couch cushions? but i suppose that would be less effective.

she also started reading all those "chicken soup for the soul" type books around the same time. probably shouldn't feel bad that i just didn't mesh with that kind of coping strategy.

look o the bright side - what if she had turned out to be some serial killer or something

I had a big breakup with an ultra-negative friend about six years ago and I still have residual anger at her when I run across her on FB or Flickr or what have you.

I think there's a diff between being a Daria and looking at everything as a "my life is worse than your life" contest particularly when that person won't actually take easy, well-supported steps to solve problems. I mean, some ppl can't deal w/ 90s sarcastabitch culture but I think you're right, Kim, when you say that was more a matter of different world views and not you being a bad person.

The ultra-neg friend problem usually blows up when the person who is not relentlessly negative needs support and the ultra-neg is clueless and selfish after years of hanging on her friends like a remora. This is what happened with me and why I'm still bitter (also when I tried to save the friendship by distancing myself so I could deal with my own shit, I got a raft of complaints about what a jerk I was for not making time to hear about why the friend's life is both unbearable and unfixable). Okay. Going to happy thread now. Grrr.

i have a friend, well an ex-gf whos the opposite to the 24-hr-negative friend, the ultra positive friend, the person whose read too much self help and is trying to project ms little sunshine all the time in case even a glimmer of doubt/shyness/unhappiness slips through. im a bit more sympathetic to this than the opposite (kinda) but its equally hard to deal with/

all rain makes a dessert!

Hey, it's 2011.

Could we maybe create vending machines that fucking work right?

When people use toilet paper to blow their nose, because they're in the bathroom and it's handy, but then throw it in the garbage can. It's flushable for fucksakes - use logic and do not leave your pestilence rag there!

maybe they are on a saving water kick