This carton reminds me of one of the classes I taught on Dealing With Difficult People. One fellow didn’t come to find out how to deal with other people who were being difficult. He came to get some ideas for how he could be more annoying to his boss. His attitude tickled me, and, truth to tell, I admired him. If anything I tend to be too accommodating. Still, there have been moments….
My favorite was when a summer student at work started berating me for something that annoyed him. I was surprised at his cheekiness, but he was 19, had just graduated from college and was about to enter graduate school. His success had clearly gone to his head. So I just laughed and told him, “If I had known it would bother you so much I would have done it a long time ago.” I don’t know if I ever annoyed him again. If it did he never mentioned it.
What about you? Have you ever had fun annoying someone? Has anyone ever enjoyed themselves at your expense?
In general I don’t like annoying people, unless I feel they are really puffed up and needing to be knocked down a few notches. It has been a slow learning process for me, but I did eventually learn that annoying such people has consequences!
I do get annoyed when people study how to do things right so that they can better do things wrong.
Looney,
Has anyone deliberately tried to annoy you, even in teasing?
Jean, there have been plenty of incidents in the past, from the gentle tease to the ruthless. I try to look at them as positives now as they are examples of the need for patience in life, and perhaps they are hard earned based on my own teasing! Did you get much of this?
Looney,
Oh, yes. My husband was a great tease. He doesn’t do it so much any more. I learned to be quite good at comebacks. His teasing wasn’t hostile and it was good mental exercise for me. 🙂
I have never deliberately set out to be annoying — quite the opposite! But, without question, I do annoy my kids. I am a bossy-boots, according to them, and I can get raw-there maniacal about cleaning & tidying. Sigh. I do find myself mildly hurt when they rebuke me. I almost never tell someone that they’re annoying me, including those dreadful children of mine! Perhaps I should?
Sometimes my ribbing can result in annoying people who do not know me well. When I sense that this has happened, I inevitably apologize and move on. It takes a lot to annoy me. I am just too comfortable in my own skin to get annoyed. There is one exception to prove that rule and that is people who do not keep their word. Once this happens, I rarely have anything to do with them again.
Jody,
Ah, should you tell people they’re annoying you? It depends. If you figure they don’t know and aren’t doing it on purpose, then sure. If, on the other hand, you’re dealing with people trying to get your goat (I’m especially thinking of teenagers here), then lots of luck! Sometimes making plans to run away from home is the wisest response. 🙂
I have purposely set out to annoy people at times. Not to be mean but to start communication with someone who withdraws instead of dealing with issues. Once I get a rise out of the person we can start figuring out solutions. I still remember doing this early in a relationship. After a few of the annoyance/fruitful discussion patterns I pointed out what was going on and suggested we just skip the me poking at him part. It worked just fine.
Rummuser,
What about when a young businessman becomes too familiar by calling you by your first name without your permission? I was curious why that incident bothered you so much when usually you’re so laid back. Or maybe you were just having some fun pushing for old-fashioned values. I can certainly understand that. 🙂
Looney,
I’ve been thinking more about teasing. I went along with it because my husband felt comfortable interacting that way. Now we share jokes and stories and laugh a lot together. That’s more my style…it seems a lot friendlier.
I don’t get annoyed easily. Neither do I ever set out to annoy anyone deliberately. The whole concept is totally and utterly foreign to me.
Without wishing to be pedantic there is a big difference between being a tease and being annoying. My mother is a tease – big time – in a friendly (and occasionally rather annoying) way; my father, despite being one of the most charming men imaginable, should really bottle and patent his finely tuned art of being very annoying indeed. How the two of them have managed to stay together for half a century shall remain their secret.
I absolutely agree with you (in part of your answer to Jody) that sometimes people need to be provoked in order for one to get a proper answer rather than just hot air in a paper bag. Is provocation annoying? That depends entirely on the one who is being provoked. As one of your self help gurus (and my father) says: “I decide who annoys me.”
Controversially yours,
U
Ursula,
I have a looser definition of “annoy” than you do. I clearly include provoking, poking at people to get a reaction, in the definition.
“Neither do I ever set out to annoy anyone deliberately. The whole concept is totally and utterly foreign to me.” I assume you would agree that at times you do set out to provoke people? 🙂
PS “As one of your self help gurus (and my father) says…” I don’t believe in gurus. I agree with the Buddhists that say, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Figuratively, of course.
Jean, I do realise that you are not as tight a….d as I am when it comes to defining what’s what. By way of example, and this might tell you more about me than you want to know: We were regularly set a task loosely translated into “Define and differentiate between these three words of a similar meaning”. Not a dictionary or google in sight. All you had was your very own brain and 45 minutes. I loved it, loved it, loved it. It’s just so me: A stickler for detail.
And yes, I do like to provoke. For exactly the same reasons as you do. Though I am more obvious than is your own rather subtle approach.
As to the ‘Buddha’ book title. Believe it or not, and should you ever lose your copy: It is somewhere on my bookshelves.
U
Ursula,
Ah yes, Sheldon Kopp. I couldn’t resist the title If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! I read some of his other books, too. I think it was An End to Innocence: Facing Life Without Illusions where he talked about his brain tumor. It was benign, but it kept growing. Every once in a while he would have surgery to reduce its size, which meant he lost more of his brain function. He didn’t go in for platitudes and simple-mindedness.
Since the subject came up I just ordered his 1991 book, All God’s Children are Lost, But Only a Few Can Play the Piano. Another catchy title and apparently it also includes a bit more about his own experiences. He had a heart condition in addition to the brain tumor and died in 1999 on his 70th birthday.
Sometimes my kids annoy me to get attention, usually when I am talking on the phone or on the computer. But I do it too. Sometimes using a bit of mild provocation can get the attention of the person with whom you want to communicate. As a way of communication, I would recommend that the method be used sparingly and only as a last resort. But one tends to do it subsconsciously.
I love that answer that if I knew it annoyed you I’d have done it a long time ago..
gaelikaa,
“As a way of communication, I would recommend that the method be used sparingly and only as a last resort. But one tends to do it subsconsciously.”
I agree. The cartoon made me aware of when I do it. 🙂
Hello!
I’m a graduate student doing research on the “joy of annoyance”, the pleasure we get from creating or contemplating the misery of other human beings. It is not exactly sadisms, but not without links to it either. We, human beings, seem all to experience this “joy” to some degree and, for example, it would explain the success of stand-up comics.
I’m not looking for and undrestanding of the consequences of this pattern (or ways to protect ouselves from it), but for the causes of such a pattern from and evolutionnary or psycho-biological perspective.
If you can help me with some references, I will be very gratefull.
Thanks.
Hubert