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Am I strange?
I consider myself a fairly well mannered person. I love civilization. But am I the only person who was raised to eat with his mouth closed? It sounds silly, but I feel like a tiny minority here at college. It's not that I'm bothered by seeing peoples' food as it is mechanically digested, but I just can't stand the sound that is made when people are chewing. That smacking noise. Ugh. There's no escaping it.
I would normally confide such grievances with friends, but they are all guilty of this crime.
I would normally confide such grievances with friends, but they are all guilty of this crime.
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I can't sit in the same room with people crunching apples, munching crisps (chips) or slurping drinks.
And before anyone tells me to treat it as an invitation to tolerance, there is actually a name for this - super soft-sound sensitivity - and it is untreatable apart from wearing headphones. Normal noise doesn't bother the person but others chewing and popping gum, the slap slap of sandals, eating noises and clattering cutlery (especially knocking cutlery against the teeth) .. all these relatively low noises are hell to the sufferer.
The only solution I have found is an exercise in projection and imagine the culprit as a loveable animal - like a big old pig in its trough - just as you couldn't be cross with a pig for eating like that, you shouldn't be cross with people who have obviously never been taught to eat properly.
First signs of misanthropy by the looks of it. There's no cure and it gets worse the older you get.
Second that ... the more I know people, the better I like my dogs.
I think lest you were a Japanese, though. The Japanese have a custom which other culturally sensitive Asians have picked up. In Japanese restaurants, you MUST slurp your noodles loudly. The louder it is, the greater it shows your appreciation for the chef. But other than that, I think chewing is still done with mouth closed.
I'm a Chinese, though. Isn't there a Western stereotype about Chinese being hardworking and stuff? Heh, I'll let you in on a secret: Chewing with mouth closed saves you more time to be productive elsewhere.
But what's right with... Chewing with your mouth open and wrong with it closed? LOL. Must be something about Asian cultural subjectivity.
Living,as a child, partly in England and partly in France, my brother and I were wont to be told of for forgetting which country we were in - and this was particularly true when eating.
Laying the table was the first pitfall: in ngland,forks are laid with tines up, whereas in France the tines bite the cloth. Worse was to come: in France,children keep their hands on the table, off in England. That particular (and peculiar) stricture was often our undoin.
On the matter of 'disgusting' manners,my parents could hardly eat at the same table as a Transatlantic, who would cut the food and then lay down the knife and eat with fork in right hand.
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
In with the good air, out with the bad...
At least no one is holding you down and farting on your face.
-bf
This is exactly how it works for me! Is it a recognized medical condition? There are plenty of loud noises that just don't bother me. I can be around a construction site or be on a rifle range and feel indifferent. But the frequency of a television or that faint clicking of people texting, or aggressive chewing is absolutely maddening. It's as if it completely takes over my mind. The frustration is only multiplied because I know there's nothing I can do to stop it.
My dad's the same way. In fact, last week, I came home for the weekend and we watched a movie called "Noise" with Tim Robbins. It was hilarious because the character was just like us, except for the fact that he took drastic action to combat the noises in his life. Basically, he's a typical lawyer, but after years of putting up with car alarms interrupting his sleep and sex life in Manhattan, he dons himself as a vigilante called "The Rectifier." Every time a car alarm goes off somewhere nearby, he throws on a black costume, cuts the battery of the car, and proceeds to vandalize the exterior of the car mercilessly.
I recommend it highly because it was one of the best movies I've seen in years!
The car radio when I am on my own is fine - when I am with someone else and trying to have a conversation makes it really irritating. On the train home the other day I sat opposite a woman who was nibbling loose skin off her fingers (I am surprised she had any skin left by the time she got off) which nearly drove me mad and anyone flicking their fingernails sends me off the ceiling.
Isn't it funny that someone using an electric drill, really loud noises and other things that drive "normal" people nuts, don't bother us? Maybe we have strangely-tuned ears.
Oh Knitwitch, I share your dislike for the electric drill. All of memories of it as a baby were that of me crying automatically whenever my father switched that dammed thing on. I think I'll settle with the traditional hammering if I need to DIY anything with nails about my house. I must however confess that I do that fingernail flicking thing alot (when my nails are long).
I know of some people who detest the squeaking of two styrofoam boards brought together etc.
Is this another name for the term? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis I think I have that motion sensation thing they mention about hearing sounds - a sensation of falling when the sound is heard. I would have thought it something genetic though, but the text seems to suggest otherwise. (But it's Wikipedia)
Broadband wall of sound noise was suggested on the support group board, so it does sound very similar - it does appear to be a sound frequency problem rather than a neurosis! Hurrah
Very interesting stuff. I thought it might be genetic as my dad is insanely annoyed by specific sounds. But I've talked to him before and he attributes it to growing up in a household where there was a lot of parental arguing and screaming.
For me, it might be a result of the severe ear infections I had as a child. Serious stuff that was near fatal from what my mother has told me. That could be a contributing factor, though this phenomenon really hasn't reared its head except in the past two years or so.
Curiously enough, I am indifferent to people scratching chalkboards or when a microphone goes beserk and makes that screeching noise. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.
In retrospect, perhaps my dislike for drills might be for their crazily unjust loud sounds. Babies shouldn't like loud sounds I think.
You know recently there's this kind of ringtone youngsters use in school? It's just a buzz at high frequencies adverts claim that the young can hear but the adults cannot. I have no problem with it though, and hear it just as expected of any youngster.
This, is weird. LOL.
I recall that, in my first year at college, in the third term, one of the other freshmen was finally persuaded that he should come into Hall for breakfast (we lived in college). One morning he appeared, looked around, exclaimed: "My God! They're all talking!" That afternoon, he left college and didn't come back.